Ruthven Todd

Edinburgh and the early years Born in Edinburgh, Todd was the eldest of the ten children of Walker Todd (an architect) and Christian Todd (née Craik). He was educated at Dalhousie Preparatory School, Fettes College and Edinburgh College of Art. His short spell at art college convinced him that he had no creative talent as an artist and he thereafter pursued his ambition to become a poet and writer. At Fettes and at art college he had proved to be a rebellious teenager and he left college prematurely to be sent by his parents to work for two years as an agricultural labourer on the Isle of Mull. He then returned to Edinburgh to begin a career in copy-writing and journalism, while writing poetry and novels. He left Edinburgh for London in 1935. London and Essex He lived in a variety of types of accommodation in central London until the flat he was renting in Bloomsbury was hit by a flying bomb in 1944. He then moved to Tilty Mill House near Dunmow in Essex (later rented to poet and novelist Elizabeth Smart). During the 1930s, he had become friendly with Dylan Thomas, Louis MacNeice, Geoffrey Grigson, Norman Cameron, David Gascoyne and Len Lye. He became a life-long friend of Julian Symons, and a character based on Todd was included in Symons' first detective story, The Immaterial Murder Case. He also knew Wyndham Lewis, contributing to the Lewis issue of Julian Symons's Twentieth Century Verse. During World War II he was a conscientious objector. In 1954 he moved to live on the island of Martha's Vineyard where he began to write children's fiction, with the launch of the Space Cat series. ==Personal life==

In 1937, Todd married Cicely Crew, daughter of the geneticist Professor Francis Crew. They had one son, Christopher, born in 1939. The couple separated in 1943 and were divorced three years later. While living in New York in 1949, Todd was briefly and unsuccessfully married to Paula Norworth, before a third marriage to the artist and sculptor Joellen Hall in 1952. They divorced in 1956. Todd had a lifelong interest in the natural world, particularly in plants and fungi, and was a knowledgeable amateur mycologist. He was also a highly skilled illustrator of wild flowers and fungi. He made some money from selling his drawings, but most were given away to friends. From his teenage years and throughout his life, Todd was a chronic alcoholic. He underwent treatment for addiction in 1965, but this was only partially successful. He was also a chain-smoker and suffered from frequent bouts of pulmonary illness. ==Bibliography==