Collie Knox Explained

Columb 'Collie' Thomas Knox (1899–1977) was a British writer and journalist active during World War II and the 1950s.^[1] After a varied military career, he joined the Daily Express before switching to the Daily Mail, which promoted him as a star journalist.

In 1944 he married Gwendoline Frances Mary Mitchell,^[2] but they divorced in 1948.

For a time he shared a flat in Brighton with landscape designer Peter Coats,^[3] and together with Sir David Webster, Robin Maugham, Douglas Byng, and others, became slightly notorious as one of that town's homosexual celebrities.^[4]

Books

• Collie Knox Calling! A Selection of the famous Friday "Week-end" broadcasts now appearing in the Daily Mail, Chapman and Hall, (1937)
• Collie Knox Again, Chapman and Hall, (1938).
• It Might Have Been You, Chapman & Hall, (1939).
• Heroes All, Hodder & Stoughton, (1941).
• Atlantic Battle (1941).
• It had to be me , Methuen & Co., (1947).
• The Un-Beaten Track, Cassell and Company, (1944).

Notes and References

1. UK Hansard Vol. 393, 26 October 1943
2. Capt. Collie Knox, Sevenoaks Chronicle, 5 May 1944, p1
3. Peter Coats, Of Generals and Gardens, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976.
4. Peter Dennis, Beccie Mannall, Linda Pointing, Daring Hearts: Lesbian and Gay Lives of 50s and 60s Brighton, QueenSpark, Brighton 1992