P. C. Wren'sBeau Geste

Ronald Stuart Thomas was born in Caerdydd (Cardiff) in 1913 but was brought up in Caergybi (Holyhead), where he attended the local secondary school. He graduated from the University of Wales at Bangor and then proceeded to St. Michael's Theological College, Llandâf, to train as an ordinand. He was ordained priest in the Anglican Church in Wales in 1937 and retired in 1978 to a cottage on the Lln peninsula, where he still lives. His first books of verse were published privately, but in 1955 a collection called Song at the Year's Turningwas published by Rupert Hart-Davis, London. Since then he has published some eighteen books of poetry in English and also a couple of prose works in Welsh, with another of the latter due out in 1990. The editors of Children's Literature in Educationinvited Mr. Thomas to contribute to our series in which eminent writers recall a favorite book of childhood. We were delighted when he chose to write about P.C. Wren's Beau Geste. P.C. Wren was born in Devon in 1885. After graduating from Oxford, he served in the French and Indian armies and subsequently in the French Foreign Legion. He drew on this experience in several best-sellers, of which the most popular was the subject of this article, Beau Geste.Wren died in 1941.