Vera Brittain

Vera Mary Brittain (1893 – March 29, 1970) was an English writer, feminist and pacifist, best remembered as the author of the best-selling memoir Testament of Youth, recounting her experiences during the First World War and the growth of her ideology of Christian pacifism.

Related Topics:
1893 - March 29 - 1970 - English - Testament of Youth - First World War - Christian - Pacifism

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Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Brittain was the daughter of a well-to-do family. After studying classics at Somerville College, Oxford, she delayed her degree after one year in 1915 in order to work as a V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse for much of the war. Her fiance, Roland Leighton, her brother Edward Brittain, and most of their friends were killed during the war. Returning to Oxford after the war to complete her degree, she found it difficult to adjust to peacetime. It was at this time she met Winifred Holtby, and a close friendship and bond developed between them until Holtby's untimely death in the mid 1930s.

Related Topics:
Newcastle-under-Lyme - Somerville College, Oxford - Nurse - Roland Leighton - Winifred Holtby

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Vera Brittain's first published novel was The Dark Tide. In 1925 she married George Catlin, a political scientist and philosopher. It was not until 1933 that she published Testament of Youth, which would be followed by several sequels, including "Testament of Friendship," her tribute to Winifred Holtby.

Related Topics:
The Dark Tide - 1925 - George Catlin - Political scientist - Philosopher - 1933 - Testament of Youth - Sequel

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Vera Brittain wrote from the heart and based much of her novels on actual experiences and actual people. In this regard her novel "Honourable Estate" was in places almost autobiographical.

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Her pacificism came to the fore during the Second World War, and she began the series of Letters to Peacelovers. She was a practical pacifist in the sense that she helped the war effort by working as a fire warden and by travelling around the country raising funds for the Peace Pledge Union's food relief campaign. She was vilified by speaking out against saturation bombing of German cities, although solace was obtained in 1945 when the Nazi blacklist of people living in Britain to be immediately arrested after a German invasion included her name. Her pacifist writings are included in "One Voice," reissued in 2005.

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Her daughter is the well-known politician Shirley Williams, now Baroness Williams of Crosby.

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Vera Brittain never fully got over the deaths of her fiance Roland Leighton and her brother Edward. After she died in 1970, her will requested that her ashes be scattered on Edward's grave on the Asiago Plateau in Italy — "...for nearly 50 years much of my heart has been in that Italian village cemetery." This her daughter Shirley did in September of 1970.

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