A. Desmond Hawkins

A. Desmond Hawkins (1908–99), novelist, critic and broadcaster, worked in the 1930s as literary editor of the New English Weekly, then of the quarterly Purpose (where TSE persuaded the owner–editor to allow Hawkins a free hand), and as regular fiction reviewer of the Criterion. In 1946 he became Features Producer, BBC West Region, and Head of Programmes in 1955. He founded the BBC Natural History Unit in 1959. His writings include Poetry and Prose of John Donne (1938), The BBC Naturalist (1957), Hardy the Novelist (1965), and When I Was (memoirs, 1989).