27 Facts About Nevil Shute

Nevil Shute Norway was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia.

Nevil Shute used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name, in order to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers or from fellow engineers that he was '"not a serious person" or from potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels, which included On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.

Nevil Shute was educated at the Dragon School, Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford; he graduated from Oxford in 1922 with a third-class degree in engineering science.

Nevil Shute himself was later commended for his role as a stretcher-bearer during the rising.

Nevil Shute attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and trained as a gunner.

Nevil Shute was unable to take up a commission in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, which he believed was because of his stammer.

Nevil Shute served as a soldier in the Suffolk Regiment, enlisting in the ranks in August 1918.

Nevil Shute guarded the Isle of Grain in the Thames Estuary, and served in military funeral parties in Kent during the 1918 flu pandemic.

An aeronautical engineer as well as a pilot, Nevil Shute began his engineering career with the de Havilland Aircraft Company.

Nevil Shute used his pen-name as an author to protect his engineering career from any potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels.

When Wallis left the project, Nevil Shute became the chief engineer.

Nevil Shute gives a detailed account of the development of the two airships in his 1954 autobiographical work, Slide Rule.

Nevil Shute's account is very critical of the R101 design and management team, and strongly hints that senior team members were complicit in concealing flaws in the airship's design and construction.

In 1931, with the cancellation of the R100 project, Shute teamed up with the talented de Havilland-trained designer A Hessell Tiltman to found the aircraft construction company Airspeed Ltd.

On 7 March 1931, Nevil Shute married Frances Mary Heaton, a 28-year-old medical practitioner.

Nevil Shute was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a sub-lieutenant, having joined as an 'elderly yachtsman' and expected to be in charge of a drifter or minesweeper, but after two days he was asked about his career and technical experience.

Nevil Shute developed the Rocket Spear, an anti-submarine missile with a fluted cast iron head.

Nevil Shute finished the war with the rank of lieutenant commander in the RNVR.

Nevil Shute's first published novel was Marazan, which came out in 1926.

Nevil Shute's novels are written in a simple, highly readable style, with clearly delineated plot lines.

The most common theme in Nevil Shute's novels is the dignity of work, spanning all classes, whether a Spanish bar hostess in the Balkans or a brilliant but unworldly boffin.

Nevil Shute's novels are in three main clusters: early pre-war flying adventures; Second World War tales; and stories set in Australia.

However, Nevil Shute valued the honest artisans and their social integrity and contributions to society more than the contributions of the upper classes.

Several of Nevil Shute's novels explored the boundary between accepted science and rational belief, on the one hand, and mystical or paranormal possibilities, including reincarnation, on the other hand.

Nevil Shute did this by including elements of fantasy and science fiction in novels that were considered mainstream.

In 1948, Nevil Shute again rewrote it, changing the title to Blind Understanding, but he left the manuscript incomplete.

In 1948, Nevil Shute flew his own Percival Proctor aeroplane to Australia and back, accompanied by the writer James Riddell, who published a book, Flight of Fancy, based on the trip, in 1950.