Charles Patrick Graves
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Charles Ranke Patrick Graves (December 1, 1899 – February 21, 1971) was a journalist and writer.
Born in Wimbledon, England, he worked on the Sunday Express, Daily Mail and many other newspapers. He published 46 books in all including the Thin Blue Line or Adventures in the RAF. His hobbies were golf and gin rummy. He was the brother of Robert Graves.
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[edit] Books
Two of his books are of special interest, his Ireland Revisited (1949) and his autobiography The Bad Old Days (1951). In Ireland Revisited he takes the reader on an informative and humorous tour of Ireland.
He begins his autobiography:
"Those were the days, the Bad Old Days - primarily of large families, but also of could look the dollar in the eye without flinching or wincing, when cigarettes were lid, for 20 and beef was unrationed and champagne was 5s. a bottle"
and he concludes it as follows:
"What is happiness? I did not yet know. But I had already learnt that to have any chance of success in life one must be able to ‘take it’; that tact can be worth all the genius in the world; that unless you specialise you will never make more than £800 a year; that it is madness to disbelieve in luck and the cycles of luck; that you have to spend money to make money; that you must at all costs keep your youthful enthusiasms; that the two greatest influences in a man’s life are his mother and his wife; that marriage will either make you or break you, because it can never leave you the same."
[edit] Personal Life
The motto of the Graves family is Aquila non captat muscas, (The eagle does not stoop to capture flies). The Graves family conquered the theology and law, medicine and mathematics, poetry and literature fields. They were a great Anglo-Irish family who have contributed much to Ireland.
His father was Alfred Perceval Graves (b. 22 July 1846) who received an M.A. and was H.M. Inspector of Schools. Alfred Percival lived in Taunton, England, and was a poet of high standing, writing many charming poems and ballads. Alfred Pervival's marriage to Jane Cooper, (29 December 1874 - 24 March 1886), resulted in five children:
- Philip Perceval, b. 25 February 1876 (or 1870), m. Millicent Gilchrist.
- Mary, b. 6 June 1877, d. circa 1949. m. Arthur Sansome Preston.
- Richard Massie, b. 14 September 1880, d. 14 August 1960, m. Eva Wilkinson, 1912.
- Alfred Perceval ("Bones"), b. 14 December 1881, m. Eirene Gwen Knight (a singer).
- Susan Winthrop Savatier Graves, b. 23 March 1885, m. Kenneth Macaulay.
After the death of his first wife, Alfred Percival married Amalie (Amy) Elizabeth Sophie (or Sophia) von Ranke, on 30 December 1891, resulting in five more children:
- Clarissa, b. 29 November 1892. Poet, artist, Christian Science practitioner.
- Rosaleen-Louise, b. 7 March 1894, d. 3 August 1989. m. James Francis Cooper.
- Robert Von Ranke, b. 24 July 1895, d. 7 December 1985, poet, novelist, critic, author of I, Claudius and Good-Bye to All That.
- Charles Patrick Ranke, b. 1899, d. 1971. Journalist and writer.
- John Tiarks Ranke, b. 1903, d. 1980. m. Mary Wickens.
