On St George’s Day 1951, the second day of the battle of the Imjin river, Second Lieutenant Patrick Kavanagh of the Royal Ulster Rifles was shot. While comrades in the Gloucestershire Regiment made a defiant stand against the Chinese army, and many of Kavanagh’s friends were killed or captured, he was taken to hospital with what turned out be merely a flesh wound. A doctor called it a million-to-one shot, without which the Korean war could have denied Kavanagh, who has died aged 84, his future life of broadcasting, acting, writing poetry – and writing much else besides, including a remarkable memoir, The Perfect Stranger.
Even before national service loomed into view, Kavanagh’s life had been eventful. He was born in Worthing, Sussex, son of Agnes (nee O’Keefe) and Ted. His father was the prolific creator of It’s That Man Again, the hugely popular radio comedy starring Tommy Handley. During the second world war, the family was “bombed from flat to flat”, as Kavanagh later recalled in verse; life was “a show on the road, a series of one-night stands”, his father’s world “a vast / Gillray cartoon (only kinder)”. It was a peripatetic and somewhat ragged upbringing, including a period when Kavanagh attended a convent school in Barnes, west London. He had a holiday job as a redcoat at Butlins, took acting classes, and met the jazz musician Charlie Parker in Paris while working there as a newsreader.
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