He left school in 1925 at the age of sixteen, and spent several years working as an estate agent and studying to become a surveyor.
However, he also began contributing articles to the News Chronicle while writing short stories and channelling his love of the countryside into verse.
[2] His first published collection of verse, Spring Encounter, came out in 1933 from Methuen and gained the attention of Lady Ottoline Morrell who became a patron.
It was while he was serving as squadron intelligence officer at RAF St Eval in Cornwall that he wrote one of the best-known poems of the war.
[8] Written during an air raid, it was published first in the News Chronicle and (with Missing, another poem by Pudney) later featured significantly in the film The Way to the Stars.
For Johnny is depicted in The Way to the Stars as having been found by a close friend on a piece of paper after David Archdale's death on a raid.
Pudney published several collections of poetry during the war, including Dispersal Point (1942) and South of Forty (1943), the latter describing his experiences in North Africa.
[10] One contemporary reviewer noted that the poems were "immediately topical and intended to reach a less poetically sophisticated audience", and that they showed "how completely he has succeeded in combining the journalist and the poet.
[11] In the general election of July 1945, Pudney stood as the Labour Party candidate for Sevenoaks, polling 14,947 votes, or 36%.
[14] They featured classic front cover and internal illustrations by artists such as Ley Kenyon (1913–1990) and Douglas Relf.
After the success of The Great Escape, it was also published by Evans as The Dam Busters (1951), which sold over one million copies in its first 50 years.
[18] The same year Pudney wrote the script for the documentary Elizabeth is Queen for Associated British Pathé, which received a BAFTA award.
She helped him recover from his alcoholism, to which he publicly confessed in 1965 and emerged cured in 1967 – despite a hit-and-run accident in the middle that broke both his legs and dislocated his shoulder.
John Pudney's daughter Tessa (1942–2004) was an academic best known for her work in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University.