The English-Speaking Union

Evelyn Wrench Speaker Program

Simon Claxton

Evelyn Wrench Speaker Program,
Region II 2015-2016

SIMON CLAXTON
Retired English schoolteacher and former ESU Exchange Student

Meeting William Faulkner: How an English Schoolboy found a Literary Lion

From the fall of 1961 to spring of 1962, Simon Claxton was a 17-year-old English schoolboy on an English Speaking Union Secondary School Exchange (SSE) Scholarship to The Cate School, a private school in Santa Barbara, California. Having chosen William Faulkner as the subject of his 12th Grade Author Report, Simon tried to arrange a meeting with the great writer. By lucky chance he had one of the last interviews with the reclusive Faulkner before he died in July 1962. This lecture features a dramatized reading of this interview, linked with Simon's impressions of Faulkner's writing before and since, all within the context of his wonderfully memorable year as an ESU exchange student.

Simon Claxton studied English at Queens' College, Cambridge. He taught for ten years at Radley College, an English school that was on early participant in the British-American Summer School exchange program. Following a year's teaching in New Zealand, Mr. Claxton was Head of the English Department at Hazelwood Preparatory School in Surrey and Knight House School in Dorset. He ended his teaching career at a school near Windsor.