Olive Dehn; Independent obit (poet & anarchist)
Hyfler/Rosner
Poet and children's writer
The Independent
27 April 2007
Nicholas Tucker
Poet, children's writer, organic farmer and lifelong
anarchist, Olive Dehn was an unforgettable presence. Living
for years in the fastness of Ashdown Forest in Sussex, she
was like a benevolent pixie to the many she constantly
befriended. Arrested in her earlier life first by the Nazis
and then by the KGB, she also remained a persistent thorn in
the flesh for the many governments she took issue with.
Born in Disley just outside Manchester to a first-generation
English businessman, Frederick Dehn, and a German Jewish
mother, Helen Suszmann, Olive was the middle child of three.
Her older brother was Paul Dehn, later a respected poet and
the Oscar-winning screenwriter for Goldfinger and The Spy
Who Came in from the Cold. Frightened of the dark, Olive
told stories every night to her younger brother Eric as a
way of keeping him awake and providing her with company. She
was convinced that this habit led her to becoming an author.
Sometimes contrary, once at the age of four exclaiming
triumphantly that she actually liked corners when she was
ordered to stand in one, she finally went to a girls'
boarding school in Seaford on the South Coast. This was not
a happy experience; when Dehn sent her own daughters to
weekly-boarding school years later, it was to the relaxed
atmosphere of Burgess Hill School in Hampstead, a
progressive establishment many of whose staff also
subscribed to Freedom, the anarchist weekly Dehn read up to
her death.
Aged 18, Olive Dehn went to stay with her German relatives,
ostensibly to learn how to cook. Already a published
occasional writer, she was arrested a year later after
writing "Goebelchen", a satirical "half-Aryan ballad" for
Punch, describing Nazism as witnessed by a dachshund.
Escorted out of Germany by an armed guard, she threw herself
into literary life. There were stories and poems for the
radio programme Children's Hour, where Dehn was also able to
put her characteristically high-pitched voice to use by
playing boy characters. Her children's story The Basement
Bogle (1935) was another success, and some poetry was
illustrated by E.H. Shepard. Children's plays and lyrics for
an opera also featured.
In 1937 she married David Markham, a strikingly handsome and
successful actor to whom she remained devoted for the rest
of their lives. Also a libertarian, Markham refused to be
called up when war was declared and was sentenced in 1942 to
months of hard labour as a result. Already with a daughter,
Dehn was unable to correspond with him in prison since the
privilege of writing the one letter he was allowed every
three weeks had already been claimed by his mother.
But a quiet word from Queen Mary led to Markham's early
release. Interested in the subject of prostitution, she had
previously sent one of her ladies-in-waiting to see Markham
act in Pick-Up Girl, an American play on this subject.
Remembering glowing reports of his performance, she oversaw
a letter to the appeal court suggesting he be let out in
order to get on with his work. Going to meet him, Olive
found her husband completely grey. "He had flu and jaundice,
and he just spoke in a whisper, which was horrible."
After the Second World War, the couple bought Lear Cottage,
near Coleman's Hatch in the Ashdown Forest, Sussex. Named
after the limerick master, not the king, this five-acre
smallholding possessed neither electricity nor water, and
could only be reached from one side by fording a large
stream. Always happiest in the company of animals, most of
whom had names - Lilley and Skinner for two cats, Ebb and
Flo for a couple of ducks - Dehn also raised hens, geese and
pigs as well as growing her own vegetables. Inside the
cottage, space was found for one of Wilhelm Reich's
notorious "orgone boxes". This device for supposedly
accumulating vital energy finally landed Reich, a maverick
psychoanalyst, in prison for trading under false pretences.
Olive Dehn herself continued to display her own brand of
energy. After winning a radio drama competition with There
Must I Be, an account of her early childhood, she used the
prize money to buy Gloria, a pedigree Red Dexter cow.
Milking her every day, de-worming pigs and occasionally
children too, entering produce for local shows, dealing with
local gypsies, writing a column for a pig-producer magazine,
there was always plenty to do. There were by now four
daughters. Sonia Markham, the oldest, eventually illustrated
another of Dehn's children's books, The Pike Dream (1958).
Kika and Petra Markham became well-known actresses, while
the youngest Jehane carried on the family tradition of
poetry.
Dehn and her husband were members of the Committee of 100
involved in direct action against nuclear weapons, with
Bertrand Russell an occasional guest at the cottage. Markham
also founded the Campaign Against the Abuse of Psychiatry,
and in 1974 both were arrested in Moscow for protesting
against the Soviet government's collusion with this vile
practice. The campaign they helped spear-head for the
release of Vladimir Bukovsky was ultimately successful, with
this particular dissident spending time at Lear Cottage
during his recovery.
There was more writing too, with Goodbye Day (1980) her last
novel. If dated now, her stories were quietly humorous. The
best of them, Spectacles for the Mole (1968), still reads
well enough today.
After the death of her beloved husband in 1983, Dehn only
wrote poetry. Staying on at her cottage, she saw her supply
of animals gradually dwindle. But there were still enough
hens to provide her with eggs, which she took with her on
trips to London, to be presented to taxi drivers, theatre
usherettes or whoever else she decided to reward that day.
In 1988 she returned to her former fighting spirit by
unsuccessfully taking the Central Electricity Generating
Board to court for "conspiring with the Government to make
plutonium for the making of nuclear weapons".
Keeping a diary every day since 1940, always up to date with
the latest world news, she had a late flowering with Out of
My Mind: poems 1929-1995 (2006), published by the Scottish
poetry press HappenStance. Lyrical, observant, mostly on
country themes, they are as delightful to read as she was to
know.
Nicholas Tucker
Olive Dehn, poet, writer and organic farmer: born Manchester
29 September 1914; married 1937 David Markham (died 1983;
four daughters); died Wych Cross, East Sussex 21 March 2007.