Tom Hanlin was born in
Armadale in 1907. He showed promise at school and was interested in becoming a
writer from an early age. However, he had to leave school at fourteen
years of age to begin work. He worked on a farm for a year, and then he
worked down the mines for the next twenty years, from the age of fifteen until 1945.
In 1942, he attended a school of journalism in Glasgow, making the
fifty-mile weekly journey while still working down the pit.
As a result
of a pit accident, he spent three months in the Royal Infirmary. During that
time of convalescence, he wrote five stories, which he was able to sell. One of them, Sunday
in the Village, won the Arthur Markham Memorial Prize, awarded
annually by Sheffield University and available to those who were 'manual workers in or about a coal mine, or
have been injured when so employed'.
Later, he won the Big Ben prize of £500 for his long story, which became
his first novel, Once in Every Lifetime. 250,000
copies of the Big Ben paperback edition were sold in England in the first
month of publication. A popular book in Europe and
Scandinavia, it was translated into more than a dozen
languages, and, eventually,
was broadcast
in a BBC radio version. About the novel, John Steinbeck, 'A
wonderful, young, strong, true book.'
In 1945, he became a full-time writer and his story Bright and Cheerful
is the Day (which includes what is believed to be an overview of
Armadale) appeared in the Virginia Quarterly magazine that autumn. In
1946, his second novel, Yesterday will Return, was published.
He was a dedicated, conscientious writer who was interested in the process
and in the business of writing. One notable essay, written in the 1940s,
considered the impact of television and the cinema. Once in Every
Lifetime was serialised in Woman's Home Companion. It was a
popular story of a man in hospital falling in love with a nurse, and how,
despite an unfulfilled relationship, her influence guided him (a familiar
story to those aware of Ivor Gurney's relationship with his Armadale
nurse, Annie Drummond).
In 1949, his novel The Miracle at Cardenrigg was published. His
move to London was followed by the publication of his short stories in
magazines such as Atlantic Monthly, Lilliput, The Strand Magazine,
as well as Virginia Quarterly. He was offered lucrative work in
Hollywood, but he rejected it as he did not want to lose his independence.
In his late 40s, he developed heart and breathing problems, which led to
his death in 1953, leaving behind over thirty short stories, as well as
novels and essays, and eight radio plays, two of which were broadcast.
One commentator summed up his work as 'motive and pressure and destiny
made plain' because his fascination with detail and the overall design of
things is often demonstrated in his portrayal of wider issues through the
minutiae of daily life.
Essay (won the Arthur Markham Memorial prize awarded by Sheffield
University): Sunday in the Village
Articles: The Novel is Doomed; Tension-Snap-Relief
Novels: Once in Every Lifetime (Nicholson &
Watson, 1945) (serialised in Woman's Home Companion, Nov 1945); The Miracle of Cardenrigg (London: Gollancz,
1949);
Nor is the Night Starless; Yesterday will Return
(Nicholson & Watson, 1946) also published later as Mima
(Bantam Books, New York, 1952) ;
One
Summer is All
Short stories: Temper the Wind; Bright and Cheerful is
the Day (Virginia Quarterly, Autumn 1945 pp 572-86.); My Shadow on the Side of the Tunnel; And
Always
will be; Strange the Way; The Fair (Lilliput, May
1945, Vol. 16 (5) (no. 95), pp 373-376.); The Road isn't Always
Broad (Story Magazine, 1946, Jul-Aug., Vol. 29, No. 120, pp 80-91);
Over a Lifetime you may (Good Housekeeping, 1947); One
More Chance, a story (Modern Reading 16, edited by Reginald Moore,
Phoenix House Limited).
Plays including: One More Chance; Beneath the Surface
Criticism and Biography
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National Library of Scotland: MSS.27417 - 27425
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Scottish Writers: Tom Hanlin by Hugh Macpherson in the
Scottish Book Collector, First Series, No.10, (Edinburgh Feb. 1989), pp19-20
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Pithead Metaphysics: Tom Hanlin’s
Once in Every Lifetime by Manfred Malzahn in ScotLit No 8 (Aberdeen:
Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Autumn 1992), pp. 3-4.
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Once in Every Lifetime reviewed
by Carlos Baker (Virginia Quarterly Review, 1946, published by
University of Virginia)
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Review of Tom Hanlin's writing in
Annals of Scotland, 1895-1955, (An Essay on the Twentieth-century
Scottish Novel, Related to a Series of Programmes with the Same Title to
be Broadcast by the BBC for Winter Listening, 1956-57) by George Blake,
pub 1956 by BBC
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West Lothian Heritage, Newsletter of West Lothian Heritage Services
Article about Hanlin on page 5
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