Alfred John Brown (21 August 1894 – 1 March 1969) was an English literary and topographical writer, born in Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England.
Education
Brown was educated at St Joseph's Primary School in Little Horton, Bradford, and St. Bede's Grammar School in Bradford, before becoming a wool trade trainee.
Career
As a youth he developed what became a lifelong passion for moorland walking (which he referred to as 'tramping'). He spent most of his career in the wool trade with interruptions for military service in both World Wars. In World War One he served as a Gunner with the 2/2 West Riding Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery before being medically discharged in 1916 with post-diphtheria paralysis and he subsequently spent six years in recovery. In World War Two, although too old for active service, he served as an Intelligence Officer with RAF Bomber Command reaching the rank of Acting Wing Commander. In the interwar years he married and with his wife raised a family of five children at Burley-in-Wharfedale in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After discharge from the RAF he and his wife ran a small hotel, Whitfield House, at Darnholme near Goathland on the north eastern moorlands of the North Riding of Yorkshire and he then made an unsuccessful attempt at becoming a full time writer. He subsequently returned to the Bradford wool trade and established an overseas textiles sales agency which he ran together with one of his sons.
Literary works
Brown is best known for his Yorkshire tramping books but also published four personal stories, two novels (under the pseudonym Julian Laverack) and a book of poetry. In addition, he was a regular contributor to a number of publications including the Dalesman magazine.
His first two published books were 'A Joyous Entry into Brighter Belgium' a travelogue and a semi-autobiographical novel entitled 'The Lean Years' (under the pseudonym Julian Laverack). The travelogue was based upon a journey around Belgium taken by Brown in 1922. The novel describes the recuperation of an invalided soldier working in the West Riding wool trade after World War 1 mirroring Brown's recovery from diphtheria from 1916 onwards.
Brown's third book, Four Boon Fellows - A Yorkshire Tramping Odyssey, was again semi-autobiographical & was based upon a journey taken together with his cousin, Laurence Geoghegan, from the northern border of Yorkshire in Teesdale southwards to Ilkley, a distance of just short of 100 miles on foot. The book has a structure that is a cross between a novel and a travelogue, and describes the journey as undertaken by four individuals from differing areas of Yorkshire each given a nick-name of a Yorkshire river: Wharfe, Ouse, Aire & Swale indicating the area of Yorkshire which they came from. The interactions of the four individuals over a four day period at Easter are described as they walked southwards through the Yorkshire Pennines and is used as a back-drop to explore and evaluate differing aspects of Yorkshire character, scenery and folklore. A secondary theme of the book is the author's comments on, and personal dismay at, the increasing use of country roads and lanes by cars and motor cycles to the detriment of the enjoyment of those who go on their own two feet. The book was well received and got good reviews in a wide variety of publications with reviewers praising Brown's ambition in using an unusual structure to record and evaluate a vast range of differing aspects of the historic county of Yorkshire.
Following his marriage in 1927 and the setting up of a family home at Burley-in-Wharfedale, Brown set about planning the research and writing of his Yorkshire 'Tramping' trilogy: Moorland Tramping in West Yorkshire (1931), Tramping in Yorkshire - North and East (1932) and the combined volume, Striding Through Yorkshire (1938). In these books Brown documents journeys on foot across Yorkshire and describes in detail the scenery, history and character of the locations visited. These three books are entirely factual but can be seen as following on in succession from the preceding novel/travelogue, Four Boon Fellows, both in terms of written style and the themes explored.