Scenes From a Life by David Ponsonby - 2013

privately published, Brighton, Sussex, 2013. First Edition. Hardcover (Printed Boards). As New. No. 17 of a limited subscription edition of 100 copies; sold together with some letters (& copies of letters) relating to the publishing of this title; blue boards with red cloth spine; front cover pen portrait of the author (ink & brush circa 1935); blue end-papers with red illustrations of Lisbon Street scenes sketched by the author; black ribbon bookmark. Assembled here are chapters of autobiography written by David Ponsonby at various times in his life, which, together with his war memoir, 'Fugitive Papers', published in 2012, amount almost to a Life. Most pieces were drafted in the years immediately following the war, when he was encouraged to write his memoirs by his friend, Bill Simpson - Squadron Leader William Simpson DFC of 12 Squadron - who had been diverted by many of these stories when in hospital in Roanne, recovering from injuries sustained in the Battle of France, 1940. As Simpson acknowledged in his own wartime best-seller, 'One of Our Pilots is Safe', David's storytelling - his "sickbed entertainment" - had helped keep him alive. David's wartime experiences are recounted in 'Fugitive Papers'. The present book is devoted to the years of his childhood and youth in Oporto, of his studies in Paris as a musician at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Musique, under Alfred Cortot, Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger, and his experiences after the war in England, France, and finally in Portugal, to which he returned in the mid-1950s to take up a new-found career as a painter. Limited & Numbered Edition (Copy 71 of 100 ). Size: Octavo (standard book size). Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. no Dust Jacket as published.. Black titles spine. illustrated by b/w. drawings & photo's.. Includes index. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Biography & Autobiography; Artists; Painters; Musicians; Art & Design. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 3099. .