OBITUARIES Russell Braddon

``There were twenty-two steps altogether from the courtyard of the gaol up to the cells. I had got into the habit of counting those steps. Made them seem shorter, or easier. Anyway I had got into the habit of counting. And at the fourteenth I stopped, done. Because I could go no further, I lowered myself on to the step above me and took stock of my surroundings.'' So begins The Naked Island, the book by Russell Braddon which chronicles his four years as a Japanese prisoner of war after the brief, but disastrous, Malayan campaign of 1942. Published in 1952, The Naked Island sold over a million copies by the mid-Seventies.

Born in Sydney, Australia, Braddon studied law at Sydney University after being demobilised in 1946. Despite having a successful barrister father, Braddon had little aptitude or interest in law and failed his degree in 1948. Soon after, as a result of his POW experiences, he suffered a breakdown and following a failed suicide attempt was advised by doctors to spend a year recuperating, which he chose to do in the ``home country'' of England.

Braddon arrived in 1949 and met up with an ex-POW friend, Sidney Piddington, who after demobilisation had invited Braddon to join him in a telepathic act based on mind games they had played in prison, to keep themselves sane. Braddon declined, but Piddington had found another partner in his wife-to-be, Lesley. Braddon became their manager; the act became hugely successful and Braddon was volunteered to write their biography. (Braddon's Who's Who entry reads: "Failed law finals; began writing by chance, 1949; been writing ever since".) The Piddingtons was published in 1950.

The Naked Island followed in 1952. The day of publication - 6 February - was an unfortunate choice, as it was the day that King George VI died. All coverage of it was bumped off the pages of the newspapers - except for a review by Guy Ramsey in the Daily Telegraph, which praised the book's enthusiasm and forthrightness. The book's initial print-run of 10,000 was reduced to 3,000.

But then, triggered no doubt by Ramsey's praise and by word of mouth, sales picked up. By the end of March total sales exceeded 70,000 copies. By the end of the summer demand was over 100,000. The book had touched a nerve. Nothing had really been written about the Japanese war before and The Naked Island is a fine document of the period. One critic wrote: ``It is a great book because of its stark realism, its Swift-like satire, its searing irony.'' Many regarded it as possibly the finest war book ever written. The play of the same name which Braddon wrote and which opened in 1959 had a similarly enthusiastic response from the critics, but never took off.

Many of Braddon's POW friends also achieved success, interestingly, among them the artist Ronald Searle (illustrator of The Naked Island) and Alexander Downer, later High Commissioner of Australia to the United Kingdom, as well as an Australian squash champion and a Lord Mayor of York.

Braddon went on to write many biographies, notably Nancy Wake (1956), Cheshire VC (1954), Joan Sutherland (1962), and Roy Thomson of Fleet Street (1965), and novels including Those in Peril (1954), Out of the Storm (1965), When the Enemy is Tired (1968) and The Proud American Boy (1960). His subjects ranged from drugs to political satire, romance to horror, thriller to gritty realism, wild humour to grim prophecy, from displaced youth to post-war Communism and the assassination of the Queen.

Braddon also wrote books on history, politics and exploration including The Siege (1969) and Suez: splitting of a nation (1973); a number of plays, short stories; and hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines. He was a well-known broadcaster, appearing as a panellist on the BBC's Any Questions? and from the mid-Eighties made television documentaries. His BBC documentary The Murray River won the Bafta award for 1985. A number of Braddon's books have been filmed, including End Play and The Year of the Angry Rabbit, and two more are in the process of being filmed, including The Naked Island (the film rights have been bought many many times before, and it has yet to reach the cinemas).

Russell Braddon was a brilliant and humorous conversationalist and was one of Britain's most successful lecturers and after-dinner speakers, until he retired from the platform three years ago. He had a wonderful sense of humour which endeared him to the numerous societies to whom he lectured. His hobbies were bridge, watching Wimbledon - he was a tennis player of Davis Cup standard - listening to good music and "not writing". He returned to live in Australia in 1993.

James Whitehand

Russell Reading Braddon, writer: born Sydney, Australia 25 January 1921; died New South Wales 20 March 1995.