J. L. Carr

Joseph Lloyd Carr (20 May 1912 – 26 February 1994), who called himself "Jim" or "James", was an English novelist, publisher, teacher and eccentric.

Carr was born in Carlton Miniott in the North Riding of Yorkshire, next to Thirsk railway station, into a Wesleyan Methodist family.

After passing his school certificate examination he stayed on for a year in the sixth form and applied for admission to a teachers' training college, because the local authority would pay his fees.

Over forty years later, after his novel The Harpole Report had become a critical and popular success, he was invited to give a talk at Goldsmiths'.

Much of the year was a struggle to survive in a strangely different culture; his British salary converted into dollars was pitifully inadequate to meet the American cost of living.

[2] He also carried on a campaign with his wife, Sally, to preserve and restore the redundant parish church of St Faith at Newton in the Willows, which had been vandalised and was threatened with demolition.

[2] When Carr gave up teaching in 1967 his aim was to try to make his living by publishing small books and a series of maps of English counties to be read and discussed, rather than to provide navigational information.

These he published himself under the imprint The Quince Tree Press,[7] The original printing plates from several of his maps were mounted on sheets of plywood and used by Carr as stepping stones in his garden.

The garden also contained statues he had carved himself, many of which had mirrors set into the stone at such angles that the sun shone through the windows on his birthday.

[2] Carr wrote eight short novels that contain elements of comedy and fantasy, as well as darker passages, based on his varied experiences of life as teacher, traveller, cricketer, footballer, publisher and restorer of English heritage.