Jampot Smith

Jeremy Brooks was born in Southampton in 1926. He was educated at The County School in Llandudno, after being evacuated to north Wales in 1941. He enlisted in the Navy and spent time at Magdalen College, Oxford before seeing active service in the Mediterranean. After the war he studied Stage Design at the Camberwell School of Art. He moved back to north Wales in 1952 with his wife, the painter Eleanor Brooks, where they rented a cottage on the estate of Clough Williams Ellis at Llanfrothen. They would have four children. He was an occasional wine waiter at the restaurant at the Portmeirion hotel and was later to write a novel, The Water Carnival (1957), satirising the mock-Italiante village. Jampot Smith was published in 1960 and Smith as Hero in 1962.He later embarked on a theatrical career which included periods as the Literary manager of the Royal Skakespeare Company with Peter Hall from 1962 to 1969 where he was responsible with Kitty Hunter-Blair for a number of ground breaking adaptions plays from Russian dramatists including Gorky and Gogol. An adaption of The Inspector Calls in which Paul Scofield starred was particularly well-received. He worked extensively for theatre, televison and radio including many original works and adaptions including with Adrian Mitchell a version of Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales. He also wrote poetry, children's books and worked with Theatr Clywd at Mold producing a notable adaption of Medea. He was reknowned for helping the careers and devlopment of younger writers and was a founder member of the Theatre Writers Union.His last published work was a collection of short stories set in north Wales, entitled Doing the Voices (1985).He died in 1994.Brooks, Jeremy is the author of 'Jampot Smith' with ISBN 9781905762507 and ISBN 190576250X.