Event celebrates life, work of Ben Robertson

Editor

jevans@pickenssentinel.com

EASLEY - Ben Robertson's life ended prematurely 65 years ago, but his work lives on and continues to inspire writers from Pickens County and all around the world.

Some of those writers will gather to celebrate Robertson's 105th birthday 3 p.m. Sunday June 22 at the Hampton Memorial Library in Easley.

Local authors and members of the Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife will read from Robertson's work.

"We'll read from his work and then have a panel discussing what makes Southern Literature Southern," said local author Dot Jackson, community relations director for the Birchwood Center. "Any questions that anyone has about Ben Robertson and his work, or writing as a Southerner, the panel will be glad to address."

Jackson herself grew up hearing stories about Robertson as he was her cousin.

"He was cousins of practically everybody in Pickens County," Jackson said.

Readers include Jackson, Mark Steadman, Anne Blythe, Tom Johnson, Harriet Richie and others.

Born in 1903 Robertson spent his early years between Clemson - where his father was a chemist at Clemson University - and the old Bowen House in Pickens, she said.

After graduating from Clemson with a degree in horticulture or botany, Robertson decided to become a journalist.

His works include "Red Hills and Cotton" - still in print today - the novel "Traveler's Rest" and "I Saw England."

"'I Saw England' was a best-seller when it came out," Jackson said. "It was a war book written while the war was going on, about the Battle of Britain, which Robertson covered with Edward R. Murrow."

Jackson calls "Red Hills and Cotton" a "work of art, pure and simple."

It was the book he was writing all his life, Jackson said.

"In the book, he uses some information from notes written when he was 14," Robertson said.

On February 22, 1943, as Robertson was flying to England to take over the London Bureau of a New York newspaper, the plane he was on crashed into the sea and broke apart, killing the Pickens County writer.

Readers will have no trouble recognizing themselves in Robertson's work, Jackson said.

"I think what's kept him so popular is that we all identify with these people in his books," Jackson said. "We've met them and they're us.

"We very much see ourselves in them," she continued. "In Red Hills and Cotton, he didn't make up anybody. Who in the world could we make up that's as fascinating as the people we see everyday?"

Light refreshments will be served at the birthday celebration.

For more information, contact the Birchwood Center at 898-1418.