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Pseudonym of Donald Gordon Payne.
Donald Gordon Payne was an English author of adventure novels and travel books.
Donald Gordon Payne was born in Denmark Hill in South East London in January 1924. His father, Francis, was a New Zealander, who served in the First World War with the ANZACS. His mother was Evelyn Rodgers, a nurse during the Great War.
He was educated at Dulwich College Preparatory School and then at Charterhouse School. As a child he travelled with his parents to New Zealand and parts of the East coast of Australia – an experience which left him with a lifelong affection for these countries.
Deferring his place at Corpus Christi College Oxford, he enlisted in the Fleet Air Arm in 1943. After training at Sealand, near Liverpool, and at Kingston, Ontario, Canada he was awarded his wings and joined Swordfish Squadron 811 and later 835. He took part in Atlantic and Russian convoys in 1944 and 1945 as a Swordfish pilot, mainly on anti-submarine duties.
After the war he studied at Oxford and became an editor and ghost writer for the London based publishing firm of Christopher Johnson. From there he moved into a full-time career as a writer.
Using James Vance Marshall as a pseudonym, Payne wrote such books as
A River Ran Out of Eden
(1962) and
White-Out
(1999). His most famous book is probably
Walkabout
(1959), first published as
The Children
and later made into a movie starring Jenny Agutter.
Payne has also used Ian Cameron and Donald Gordon as pseudonyms. As Donald Gordon, he published, among others,
Riders of the Storm
(2002), an official history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. As Ian Cameron, he wrote
The Lost Ones
(1961), later dramatized by Disney as
The Island at the Top of the World
, as well as
The Mountain at the Bottom of the World
(1975) and
The White Ship
(1975).
He disliked publicity of any kind, preferring to stay out of the limelight. During his long and distinguished publishing career he made few author appearances, notably for the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Lifeboat Institution and the Reader's Digest.
He lived in Surrey, England, and had four sons and one daughter. He passed away on 22 August, 2018 at the age of 94.
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