Vera Bax, Filson Young, Stanley North, and their sons - and Clifford Bax whom she married but without issue



My grandmother, Vera Bax, lived in a world both upper class and bohemian. Her three husbands were all highly creative, though from very different backgrounds.

Vera lost two sons in the Second World War and her poems about them have recently been republished in anthologies. Read the story of her life, about her sons - and her poetry.

A poet and painter, Vera was married and divorced three times before she was fifty, and in the first 40 years of the last century. First, to Stanley Kennedy North, Keeper of the King's paintings, art restorer and illustrator, and my grandfather, by whom she had one son, my late father Paul.

Second, to the writer, broadcaster and journalist Filson Young, by whom she had Billy and Richard. Read here RDN's account of FY's importance and a timeline of his hugely productive career. There is now a website devoted to a full literary biography of F. [NB The FY site has been archived and its home page says wrongly that FY was at the Battle of Jutland and "discovered" James Joyce]

And third, to Clifford Bax, the writer brother of composer Arnold Bax.