David Rayvern Allen Explained
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| Birth Date: | 1938 2, df=y |
| Nationality: | British |
| Occupation: | Cricket writer and historian, radio producer, presenter and speaker |
David Leonard Rayvern Allen (5 February 1938 – 9 October 2014)[1] was a cricket writer and historian, as well as a radio producer and presenter, a speaker and a musician.[2] [3] [4] His radio productions won awards including the 1991 Prix Italia for Who Pays the Piper, a collaboration with Richard Stilgoe.[5] He died aged 76 in 2014.[6]
Life and career
Allen was born in Streatham, London, and went to school at Sir Walter St John's School, Battersea.[1] He gained external music diplomas from the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.[1]
Allen spent his working life as a radio producer with the BBC, working on a wide range of programmes before retiring in 1993.[7] Later, as a member of the MCC's Arts and Library committee, he was largely responsible for the club's Audio Archive Project, a collection of several hundred interviews with cricket people; he conducted more than a hundred of the interviews himself.[7]
He won several awards for his cricket biographies.[1] His Wisden obituary said of them that he was "conscientious, readable, judicious" and that he "did not flinch from the less agreeable aspects of his subjects' characters".[7]
He married Rosemary Clark in 1966. They had two daughters.[1]
Works
Radio
With Richard Stilgoe
- Used Notes
- Music on the Brain
- The Singing Wheelchair
- Hamburger Weekend (1984)[9]
- Who Pays the Piper (1991)[9] [10]
Cricket-related (partial list)
- A Song for Cricket (1981)
- The "Punch" Book of Cricket (1985)
- Cricket on the Air: A Selection from Fifty Years of Radio Broadcasts (1985) BBC Books Arlott on Wine (1987) (with John Arlott)
- Peter Pan and Cricket (1988) Constable & Co
- Sir Aubrey: A Biography of C. Aubrey Smith - England Cricketer, West End Actor, Hollywood Film Star (1st 1982), J. W. McKenzie, (2nd 1987), ;[11] augmented edition: limited to 150 (2005),[12] 2010: [13]
- The Guinness Book of Cricket Extras (1988) (with Honor Head), Guinness Publishing Arlott: The Authorised Biography (2004)
- Jim: The Life of E. W. Swanton (2004)
- The Second Lord's Cricket Ground: Home of MCC, 1811-1813 (2006) MCC[14]
- Songs of Cricket (2011) mentor for this Signum CD by cantabile - the London Quartet with guests Rory Bremner, Tim Rice, Richard Stilgoe, Alex L'Estrange, Eliza Lumley and Chris Hatt
Other
- Punches on the Page: A Boxing Anthology (1998)
- Living with London (2012) Methuen (with Nick Botting)
Notes and References
- Michael Down "David Rayvern Allen obituary", The Guardian, 26 October 2014
- http://www.enctoday.com/articles/colonial-4127-allen-branch.html "English-Speaking Union Hosts Lecture"
- http://www.cricketsociety.com/BOTY2011/winner.html "Book of the Year 2011 Winner Announced"
- http://www.thecnj.com/review/061506/books061506_01.htm "Eleven Lords a-batting"
- http://www.prixitalia.rai.it/2010/pdf/WINNERS_1949-2010.pdf Prix Italia winners 1949-2010
- Web site: Cricket historian Rayvern Allen dies. 13 October 2014.
- "Obituaries", Wisden 2015, p. 175.
- News: Staff writer . Who Could Ask for Anything More? BBC Radio 2, 7 December 1996 19.30 . . 3802 . 122 . 5 December 1996 . 5 March 2018.
- http://richardstilgoe.com/radio.html Richard Stilgoe website
- http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/w/wh/who_pays_the_piper.html Who Pays the Piper
- Book: Allen, David Rayvern . Sir Aubrey: A Biography of C. Aubrey Smith - England Cricketer, West End Actor, Hollywood Film Star [Illustrated] [Paperback]. 1987. J.W. McKenzie . 978-0947821197.
- Book: Sir Aubrey. 2005.
- Book: Sir Aubrey. 2010. 978-0947821197 . Allen . David Rayvern . J.W. McKenzie .
- http://www.lords.org/history/mcc-publications/ MCC Publications
