Christopher Serpell

Christopher Serpell (1 July 1910– 3 June 1991) was a journalist and BBC diplomatic correspondent.

Christopher Harold Serpell
Born(1910-07-01)1 July 1910
Leeds, Yorkshire (West Riding), United Kingdom
Died3 June 1991(1991-06-03) (aged 80)
Barnes, London, UK
OccupationJournalist
Known forBBC's Rome and Washington Foreign Correspondent
Notable work
From Our Own Correspondent

Serpell was born in Leeds, England, in 1910.[1] He was educated at Leeds Grammar School[1] - where his father was senior master - and at Merton College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1929.[2]

Serpell began his career as a reporter for the Yorkshire Post.[1] In the 1930s he began working for The Times in London.[1] With a fellow journalist, Douglas Brown,[3] he wrote the novel If Hitler Comes (first published in 1940 as Loss of Eden), which imagines a Britain that has ostensibly made peace with Germany but has in effect surrendered.[4]

During World War II, he served in naval intelligence under Ian Fleming.[1] He subsequently joined the BBC as its Rome correspondent, then Washington correspondent from 1953, and finally diplomatic correspondent, until retirement in 1975.

He appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs on 31 March 1973.[5]

He died in 1991 at his home in Barnes, South London.[1]

References
  1. "Christopher Serpell". Faber and Faber. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  2. Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900–1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 211.
  3. "Brown, Douglas". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
  4. "If Hitler Comes". Faber & Faber. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
  5. "Desert Island Discs - Castaway: Christopher Serpell". iPlayer Radio. BBC Online. Retrieved 14 August 2014.


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