Roland Leighton

Roland Aubrey Leighton (27 March 1895 – 23 December 1915) was a British poet and soldier, made posthumously famous by his fiancée Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth. Life and career His parents, Robert Leighton and Marie Connor, were both writers. Marie was the more commercially successful and wrote adventure books (the best known being Convict 99) and also stories that were serialised in the Daily Mail. Her husband was the first literary editor of the Daily Mail and wrote adventure books for boys. Roland was brought up initially at "Vallombrosa" 40 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, North London, and later at "Heather Cliff" a large Edwardian house above the beach at Lowestoft. Leighton was a prizewinning classical scholar at Uppingham School; one pupil remembered Leighton using a wheelbarrow to recover his haul from the 1914 school prize-giving. His hope was to one day become the editor of a national newspaper. At the school, Leighton did not have a wide circle of friends as he was regarded by his peers as being rather cold and conceited. He did however become a close friend of Edward, brother of future author and journalist Vera Brittain, and Victor Richardson, the son of a Hove dentist; Mrs Leighton called the friends "the three musketeers". At Uppingham he was acting cadet officer in the Junior Division, Officers Training Corps. On leaving Uppingham, Leighton applied to Oxford University and was awarded the classical postmastership at Merton College, Oxford. In the meantime, he had developed an interest in reading poetry and writing his own verse whilst at Uppingham. Leighton subsequently used the medium of poetry to express his burgeoning love for Vera Brittain, Edward's sister. He first met Vera when visiting Edward at Uppingham in 1913 at the age of 19. However, war was soon to intervene in their relationship.