Painter, draughtsman, writer, lecturer and film maker. (His real name was Henry Hasslacher, the family of Austrian origin, connected with the Deinhard and Company wine importing business. The name Oswell was derived from that of the writer Osbert Sitwell. The mother’s surname was Blakiston, which he modified.) Blakeston ran away from a Roman Catholic school and a bourgeois home in 1923. He became conjuror’s assistant, a cinema organist and then a clapper boy with David Lean at Gaumont film studios. Began writing film criticism and became associate editor of the influential magazine Close Up. With Francis Bruguiere he pioneered abstract films in Britain. Blakeston was also a novelist, poet and writer of film scripts, plays and travel books.