THE deeply eccentric Bradford-born writer C K Jaeger was one of the last survivors from the bohemian scene that flourished in 1930s London. Although he socialised with many of the most prominent literary figures of that period, among them Graham Gre
ene and Anthony Powell, he never achieved their commercial success.
His background was as unconventional as his writing. Adopted by Lady Margaret Sackville, a wealthy amateur poet who frequented Edinburgh's literary salons, Cyril Karel Jaeger spent his early life amid the city's high society. By the age of 12, he had developed the habit of seeking refuge from austere reality by writing short stories. Within these, his penchant for whimsical fantasy was already evident.
When Jaeger was 15, his adoptive mother entrusted his upbringing to her friend the town planner Sir Patrick Geddes and his wife. Under the benign tutelage of Sir Patrick, who valued the "the three Hs" (the head, the hand and the heart) just as highly as the three Rs, he was educated alongside six other boys, the Camera Obscura on Edinburgh's Royal Mile providing their picturesque classroom.
He went on to study French at Montpelier University, but he spent less time in the classroom than in the cafés, where he developed a close friendship with the Bengali poet and future Nobel Prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore.
A combination of asthma and tuberculosis prompted a two-year spell in a Swiss sanatorium. On the recommendation of his doctors, he moved to the south coast of England, funded by a generous inheritance that he immediately set about spending. His extravagances included a white sports car, in which he hurtled around the Sussex lanes with Lydia Nicholls, the glamorous young actress he married in 1936. Through her, he joined an artistic circle that encompassed not only performers such as Alastair Sim and Herbert Marshall but also her father, an established sculptor and Royal Academician.
While the Jaegers were living in Bognor Regis, they met the flamboyant aspiring writer Julian Maclaren-Ross, who became their lodger. The two men soon got into the habit of making regular trips to London, where they sampled the bohemian literary scene that thrived in the pubs, clubs and cafés of Fitzrovia.
Despite the differences in their writing style, Maclaren-Ross favouring sparse, idiomatic realism in contrast to Jaeger's distinctive brand of fantasy inspired by the novels of John Cowper Powys, their friendship nourished their shared ambitions.
Increasingly impoverished, they soon had to resort to working as door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesmen, an experience both men would use as the basis for fiction. In 1940, only a few months before the publication of his debut novel, Angels On Horseback, Jaeger was conscripted into the army. Following a stint as a bombardier with the Royal Artillery, he became a dispatch rider during the north African campaign. He was ultimately invalided out of the military after he rode over a German mine.
Once he'd recovered from his injuries, he resumed his life in Bognor Regis, supporting his wife and daughter with all sorts of casual employment. In his spare time he continued to write, producing a second novel entitled The Man in the Top Hat (1949). Like its predecessor, it featured a caricature of Maclaren-Ross. This time, however, the portrait came close to causing an irreparable rift.
Their friendship patched up, they found employment as part of a team of screenwriters, including Roger Vadim. The team worked on a film destined to star Keiron Moore and Michèle Morgan. Eventually released as The Naked Heart (1950), the film didn't bring Jaeger any further screenwriting commissions. Instead, he ended up working as a labourer, meanwhile playing cricket for Sussex second-11 and writing a succession of charming children's books under the pen-name of Karel Jaeger. These books, many of them illustrated by Margaret Rey, better known as "Cam", comprised Men of Fine Parts (1950), Sweet Fanny Adams (1953), The Bull that was Terrifico (1955), The Little Bandita (1957), Niccolo (1959) and Pinook (1960), books that Robert Chapman, writing in the Daily Express, likened to the work of Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame.
Jaeger's life took an unexpected turn in 1958. That year he landed a job teaching French, cricket and fencing at a preparatory school near Chichester, where he and his wife moved into a cottage on the grounds. His natural affinity for children ensured that he remained in the job until his retirement during the early 1980s. Even then, he and Lydia carried on living in their cottage, its garden dotted with large wooden cut-out portraits of characters from Alice in Wonderland
After Lydia died in 1979, Jaeger married Jane McKenna. She died in 1994. He survived these tragedies and the onset of old age with characteristic wit and irreverence. He lived long enough to enjoy both the upsurge of interest in his shared past with Maclaren-Ross and the republication of Niccolo in a parallel French/English edition.
Jaeger is survived by his two children from his first marriage.
The full article contains 859 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
