It is a book which can be approached on many levels.Īs the 'Compulsory Preface' to this great historical work puts it, history is '.what you can remember'. He loved 1066 And All That, not just for its satire, but for the affection behind the satire. He, a journalist turned policeman by the economic fortunes of the 1930s, had not had such an opportunity, but in the everyday sense he too read history.

My father, a man of genial but sceptical disposition, refrained from introducing me to this remarkable book until I had decided to read history.

wikipedia-en:R._J.Speaking Volumes on W.C.

When asked to convert his BA from Oxford into an MA, Yeatman could not find the fee owing to debt, and hence he is recorded in 1066 and All That as 'Failed M.A., etc. He is best known for the book 1066 and All That, a tongue-in-cheek guide to 'all the history you can remember', which he wrote with W.

Robert Julian Yeatman (15 July 1897 – 13 July 1968) was a British humourist who wrote for Punch.

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Afterwards he was employed as a copywriter, retiring in 1962. Yeatman rejoined the army in 1940, serving as a captain in the Royal Artillery, then working for the Ministry of Information from 1943 until 1949. Three further joint ventures with Sellar followed: And Now All This (1932), Horse Nonsense (1933), and Garden Rubbish (1936), all selling well but without the popular success of 1066. With ambitions to be a writer, Yeatman contributed humorous pieces to Punch from 1926, with 1066 and All That published in 1930, which was an immediate success. Yeatman then worked as a journalist before becoming advertising manager for Kodak Ltd. After the war he attended Oriel College, Oxford, where he met Sellar. Serving in France, he won the Military Cross and was severely wounded.

In World War I he was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery. From 1911 he was educated at Marlborough College.

He spent some of his early years in Oporto, the principal city and port of northern Portugal, where his father worked as a port wine merchant, a family business connected with Taylor's Port.

Sellar and yeatman