Robert Putt

Born in Poplar, London, in 1929, Robert Putt was evacuated from there in September 1939 and in his absence his family home was destroyed by enemy bombing in August 1940. Returning to London in September 1940, he rejoined his family in South Woodford, where, in July 1944, a V1 flying bomb found them again. Thankfully, the family survived these ordeals.

From the ages of 11 to 14, he attended a Secondary School at Woodford Green until December 1943, when he became employed by a London Stockbroker as a junior clerk/messenger. At the age of 18, he was called into the British Army under the National Service Act in 1947 and served most of this time in Trieste, Italy, returning to the UK in 1950. In May of that year, he found the girl of his dreams and they were married December 1952. They celebrated their 70^th Wedding Anniversary in December 2022.

He spent most of his working life with a U.S. multinational telecommunications company, retiring from this in September 1991 at the age of 62. Since then, he carried out voluntary work for local charities and civil/government organisations over a period of ten years, but is now fully retired, finding comfort and satisfaction from the company of his wife and the added pleasures of gardening and DIY activities, eventually leading to an interest in writing children’s short stories and poetry, directed mainly at his grandchildren. This eventually leading to more ambitious undertakings, the latest of these being The Ox Is Slow.

With no professional or scholarly education to fall back on, his efforts are purely related to a love of the English language. This venture took four years to put together and it is his wish that the story delivers some satisfaction with anyone who decides to read it. In Robert’s words, writing it has provided him with an experience that has been quite like no other, touching almost every sensation his lifetime has given him.