British author born as Nevil Shute Norway in Ealing, Middlesex, and raised in Shrewsbury. He stuttered badly, which interfered with his childhood and early education. Shute’s father, Arthur Hamilton Norway, worked for the English Post Office until he became head of the Irish postal services in 1912, and the family moved to Dublin. Shute was a stretcher-bearer during the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1914. He then attended Balliol College, Oxford, until the outbreak of the First World War. He enrolled at military college with his eye on the Air Force, but he was rejected because of his stammer. He returned to Balliol after having served in the war, graduating in 1922 after which he went on to study aeronautical engineering. He became involved in the development of airships, and in 1930 he crossed the Atlantic in one. He founded an aviation firm in 1931, and he married Francis Mary Heaton the same year. The couple had two daughters together. The company did very well in the 1930s and Shute employed over a thousand staff by the time he decided to dedicate his time to writing.