Austria (then under four power military occupation) in the British Delegation of the Allied Commission for Austria, in Vienna, based at Schönbrunn Palace. His duties there involved restarting the local newspapers. It was during this period that he met the woman who became his third wife: Austrian journalist Dr Gretl Bajardi. A fire broke out in the couple's flat in Queens Gate, South Kensington, in 1951; and though all his own writings were saved from the flames, his life's collection of considerable works of reference in art and literature was completely destroyed. He told his younger brother Angus (then working in the British Army Staff in Vienna) that he was distraught, that the loss 'was like losing his own soul and one which he thought, perhaps, spelt the end of his writing'. Cameron, regarded by Dylan Thomas as his best friend, died in London of a brain haemorrhage only six months before Thomas's own demise. Work His poetic output amounted to about 70 poems, he translated works by François Villon, Balzac (Cousin Pons), Voltaire (Candide), Benjamin Constant (Adolphe) and Rimbaud and he also translated and contributed to Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944, with others including Hugh Trevor-Roper. Mostly self-taught as a writer, he was nevertheless subtly influenced by his friend Robert Graves; and for a while he became a poetic disciple of Laura Riding, but ceased close dealings with her when he was convinced that she was exercising undue influence on his own style. This breach caused considerable consternation to Laura and some loss to his own wealth – but not to his own dignity. Bibliography The Winter House (1935) Work in Hand (1942) with Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, Hogarth Press Forgive Me, Sire (1950) Collected Poems 1905–1953 (1957) Hogarth Press Norman Cameron: Collected Poems and Selected Translations (1990) edited by Warren Hope and Jonathan Barker (published by Anvil Press Poetry) References http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/handlists/153BCCameron.pdf Norman Cameron: His Life, Work and Letters (2000) Warren Hope 1905 births 1953 deaths Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford People educated at Fettes College 20th-century Scottish poets Scottish male poets 20th-century British male writers British people in colonial India