He was born June 18, 1917 in Hampstead and his formative years were in Edgbaston, Birmingham, where the excellent West House School, later to take his three Gretton nephews, prepared him for an exhibition to Bradfield College, whither he was deported in 1931. He early showed an interest in music and the arts, winning a drawing prize in his pre-prep days, and singing - through his father's diplomacy - as a treble in the renowned choir of the Catholic Oratory. The shelter, and friendliness, of Bradfield's Sixth Form cultivated him into winning a Demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he spent four happy, if not distinguished, years 1936-40 reading Greats.

He joined the Army at the outbreak of war in 1939. War took him from Gunner R.A. to Acting Captain, R.S.F. and from Gosport, Hants to Egypt, North Africa, the Levant, Italy, Belgium and Germany without his causing any measurable damage to the Axis Powers or their putting his safety in peril. Failure in English in the Civil Service Examination, 1946, found him teaching that language for the British Council in Baghdad, whence he was posted to Athens, 1948, Salonica 1952, Lagos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria 1956-63, Birmingham 1964 - 1968, Uganda 1968 - 71. He ended his Council career in the Literature Department, London. He brought out a translation of the Memoirs of General Makriyannis (OUP 1966) and a catalogue of the historical paintings of the Zographos family (Birmingham 1976). He has written, and had printed, some verse, of which part is translations of Greek folksong. In retirement he continues some writing on Greek themes and makes pottery.

He married a former student, Mary Hero Koumlidou, 1960, by whom he has a daughter, Norah Tatiana, 1961, and a son, Demetrius Andrew, 1964.

Reprinted from: Lidderdale, Halliday Adair, The Descendants of John Lidderdale 1783-1845, 1988 unpublished manuscript.

Halliday Adair Lidderdale is included in Contemporary Authors, an bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general fiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television and other filed published by Gale Research, Detroit, MI, USA, in Volumes 21-14, 1st revision, 1977.

Other Sources:
• Daniel Morgan's Genealogy Pages, Descendants of Thomas Morgan (http://www.mit.edu/~dfm/genealogy/morgan.html) and Descendants of William Lidderdale (http://www.mit.edu/~dfm/genealogy/lidderdale.html)

The Lidderdales, circa 1971.