Jack Wilson (writer)

John Aiken Wilson (2 October 1937 – 15 December 1997) was a Northern Irish born novelist, a successful amateur boxer and notable literary figure in Ireland in the late 1960s.

Early life

Wilson was born in Ballyrobert, Craigavad, County Down to James and Eileen (née Aiken) Wilson. He had four brothers and one sister. At the age of eleven he developed abdominal tuberculosis, a disease which almost ended his life. Prevented from joining in lessons with other children, Wilson was given books to read by his teacher, a Mr Cameron, and he quickly developed a love for the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, C. S. Forester and James Fenimore Cooper.

After being bedridden for almost a year, Wilson was eventually cured of his illness and he returned to school. However, stunted growth, a curvature of the spine and a chronic lack of self-confidence were the lifelong legacies of the tuberculosis.

In 1948, Wilson's father died due to pulmonary tuberculosis, and the family moved first to Newry, then to Comber, where they settled until the late 1950s.

Boxing career

Living in a rural environment, Wilson sought to strengthen his damaged body through physical exercise, and he was put to work, alongside his younger brother, Maurice, on farms and in the fields around Scrabo Tower, an area of natural beauty at the northern end of Strangford Lough. This experience would later provide much of the material for his first novel, The Wild Summer.