Hellings, Pete

Person

Hellings, Pete

• Hellings, Peter
• Hellings, Peter Bernard

1921-1994

Peter Bernard Hellings, or Pete Hellings as he was popularly known, an Anglo-Welsh poet, was born in Swansea on 1 August 1921 to Frank and Dorothy Hellings and educated at the local Grammar School where he was taught by Dylan Thomas's father. He joined the RAF in 1941 and went to Africa and the Middle East between 1942 and 1946, having previously worked for the Harbour Office of the Great Western Railway. In 1941, he was awarded the BEM for gallantry and services as a firefighter during the German raids on Swansea in the blitz of February 1941. He married Madeline (Manon) Benoist in 1947.
Peter Hellings graduated with First Class Honours in 1950 from the University of Wales, Swansea, where he entered as a mature student and edited Dawn, the official publication of the Students' Union Council, University College, Swansea. He taught English in Birmingham from 1952 until his retirement in 1980 and moved to Coed-y-bryn, near Llandysul in 1985.
Four volumes of his poetry were published - Firework Music (London, 1950), A Swansea Sketchbook (Pontefract, 1983), A Form of Words (Pontefract, 1995) and Selected Poems Pete Hellings (Swansea, [2001]). Many of his poems appeared in literary magazines such as Wales, Dock Leaves, Life and Letters to-day, Welsh Review and The Anglo-Welsh Review. His first poem with the title 'Poem' was published in Life and Letters to-day, March 1940, when he was eighteen years old. In 1989, his sonnet 'Tree Fall' was awarded a prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. He was made a full member of the Welsh Academy for his contribution to the literature of Wales shortly before he died on 24 September 1994, and his ashes were scattered below the clifftop on Pennard, the Gower peninsula, where the memorial stone of Vernon Watkins stands.

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