John Pick

John Barclay Pick (26 December 1921 – 25 January 2015), often credited as J. B. Pick, was a British poet, novelist, and biographer. He was a Quaker and a conscientious objector during the Second World War, serving in the Friends' Ambulance Unit and then as a coalminer.[1]

Pick was born in Leicester. He was married to Gene Pick (died 2019) with two children, both sons (Peter Pick and David Pick).[2] Pick received his education at Sidcot School, a Quaker institution in Somerset. He attended Cambridge University for a year but left at the outbreak of Second World War to join the Friends' Ambulance Unit. In the 1980s he moved to live in Balmaclellan in Galloway.[3][4]

Pick was the author of the novels Out of the Pit, The Lonely Aren't Alone, Under the Crust and A Land Fit for Eros, the last co-authored with John Atkins. He also wrote a number of short stories, articles, poetry, and nonfiction works. The Last Valley (originally published in the UK in 1959 as The Fat Valley[5]) was his first book to be published in the United States. It was later made into a film starring Omar Sharif and Michael Caine.[6]