North Window

About the Book

Prelude My small band of devoted followers sometimes ask me to publish a comprehensive edition of the poems. I am unable to do that; instead, I offer another mixed bag. I have produced several collections of poems, mostly for private distribution. In 2007 both WAR and Ruckblick II were published for general sale by AuthorHouse. My very first set of published poems—Cobbett's Field (1997)—was re-issued for general sale in 2007. Ruckblick II (2006) contained a selection drawn from some one thousand poems written over the past fifty years or so. North Window (the title taken from a single poem hitherto published privately) contains a selection from poems written up to 2009 (but excluding anything from Cobbett's Field, Ruckblick II or War). The two photographs are from a period when, as a young man, I held out some hope for a kinder world. My occupation then was as pharmacy porter in the London Chest Hospital, Bethnal Green, a post I held for twenty-eight months, in part as an alternative to military National Service, and at the direction of a tribunal set up to investigate conscientious objectors. Since then greed and vanity have propelled us all into an even more precarious position. At the time of the first photograph, I was residing close by at 84 Guildford Street (the house since demolished); the second (from a few months later) at 37 Lloyd Baker Street, with Mr and Mrs Bunyan. The photographs were taken by my lifelong friend, the writer Alan Denson. I look back on those times with considerable affection.

About the Author

John Vetterlein was born in 1935. He spent the years of the Second World War at Redbridge, on the eastern approaches to London, and considers himself fortunate to have survived the V1 (flying bomb) and V2 (rocket) attacks. His father served throughout that war in the Royal Air Force. Having studied physics and mathematics, Vetterlein went on to work in civilian hospitals as a conscientious objector to military National Service. Before continuing his studies in chemistry and pharmacology, he worked as an astronomer and lecturer. In 1971, following a short spell as a secondary school teacher in London, Vetterlein moved to Wales in order to concentrate on writing and music. He worked in the Music Department, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth from 1983 until its closure in 1990. John Vetterlein is a true polymath. He is a prolific writer: his fiction output alone includes sixteen novels, six books of short stories, long stories, plays for radio and twenty poetry collections. An active musician, John Vetterlein is a member of the Haydn Society of Great Britain, the Rachmaninoff Society and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. His association with Orkney goes back to 1970. He has lived on Rousay full-time since 1990 from where he pursues his interests in astronomy, hill walking, music, photography and writing.