‘War hero’ poet revealed as wife-beating drunk and serial deserter’ screamed the headline in the Independent newspaper, referring to James Andrew Taylor's biography of the poet Vernon Scannell.

To those who loved the poetry and respected the man, this was bitter news.

Scannell (1922-2007), whose real name was John Bain, grew up in Aylesbury with a father who beat and abused him, and left school at fifteen. Literature was his refuge. He taught himself the classics, but he was soon caught up in the war and took part in some brutal fighting at Alamein. Afterwards, aged 20, he had a breakdown, walked off into the desert, was court-martialled and spent six months in a sadistic military jail. But he volunteered to fight again, saw more horrors in Normandy and walked out for the final time after VE Day. It is estimated that he was just one of 100,000 traumatised young British men who went absent without leave.

Scannell revealed these facts in his autobiography, and it was also well known in his lifetime that he had a drink problem.

What wasn’t known, until Taylor’s splendid ground-breaking biography, Walking Wounded, was that he often lashed out at his wife and other women (who were remarkably forgiving).

Nowadays we call it post-traumatic stress disorder.

“There are no excuses for his behaviour,” Taylor says, “but there are reasons for it, far back in his history.”

He was one of the greatest poets of the Second World War.

He produced literally hundreds of beautiful, memorable and understandable verses; anyone who finds modern poetry difficult should take a look at them.

He worked hard to introduce children to good literature, and even had a stint as writer in residence in Berinsfield. In his memoirs he describes how he quit after being targeted by gangs who made his life a misery.

He was left out of several anthologies, probably for being too easy to read, and was tormented for his entire post-war life by his demons: And when heroic corpses Turn slowly in their decorated sleep And every ambulance has disappeared The walking wounded still trudge down that lane, And when recalled they must bear arms again.

Taylor has been carefully through the records and interviewed Scannell’s family and several other people who knew him very well.

I cannot speak too highly of this book.