REPORT 43 JULY 2006
Mauve ! Honestly ! . . .
I’m writing this in Llandudno sitting at a hotel desk under a curious
Russell Flint picture of a half-naked woman aiming a bow and arrow
into the far corner of what looks like some sort of dungeon while
another half-dressed person, possibly male, looks on. The entire hotel
is hung with Russell Flints, all mildly erotic in a sort of 1950s
Greeting Card mode which is somehow characteristic of the town. I
always expect to find Bryan Poole here without the Tremeloes
or Gerry without the Pacemakers, both paunchy and toupeed
and left over which is the feel Llandudno has for me at least. I know
neither would feature in a Russell Flint picture but you know what I
mean. We’re not exactly in the here-and-now or at the cutting edge of
civilisation. Lovely place in many ways and I am becoming quite fond
of it but it has amazing time-warp qualities.
Tim Heald
Penny and I are here to celebrate my cousin David’s seventieth
birthday though I’m not quite sure whether ‘celebrate’ is exactly the
word... and, now, I’m back home at my desk in Cornwall reflecting on
the visit. It was almost 750 miles of often disagreeable driving on
crowded roads though it was fun to stay with friends in the Midlands
on the way up and down. Visiting David is a necessary duty but
melancholy. He has been both mentally and physically damaged since
birth; his parents, my aunt and uncle, are both dead; and really I now
seem to be the only relation who is able and/or willing to go and see
him. He is now in a home and almost completely immobile. The home is
immaculately run and he has a friendly carer who visits him regularly.
The reasons for him being so far from any family are long and
complicated and he is, I think, as happy as he can be but it’s a sad
business.
A month ago I wrote that we were off to Spain for a crime writers’
conference in Zaragoza. It was great fun. We travelled by ferry and
train and I wrote two articles which I had discussed in advance with
the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph. Both seemed keen though
neither offered a firm commission and in the end both have declined
the pieces, despite, in the Telegraph’s case at least saying how much
they had enjoyed reading what I had written.
I am now trying to place the pieces elsewhere but it’s an uphill
struggle. I read an interview the other day with Quentin Letts,
arguably the most prolific British freelance of the times. He is some
twenty years younger than me and was quoted as saying that he was
immensely prolific because he knew that there would come a moment when
his e-mails suddenly started to go unanswered for no other reason than
age. Sometimes I fear that this is what has happened to me. Various
mentors in the past, notably the late great Nick Tomalin, have always
told me that ‘journalism is a young man’s profession’ but I’m not sure
that’s entirely true. My favourite editor, Ion Trewin of Weidenfeld
and Nicolson who is editing my Princess Margaret, sent me an e-mail
the other day about a fabulous-sounding lunch with another of my
former mentors, Bill (Lord) Deedes who is now in his nineties, sharp
as a tack and still writes a very good weekly column for the Telegraph.
There are still several of my contemporaries who seem to be active and
successful in journalism, which, incidentally, has changed
dramatically in recent years. Changes which haven’t helped me include
the growing call for highly opinionated pieces as opposed to reports
especially from off the beaten track together with an increasing sense
that journalism is not a specialized trade or profession but something
that anybody at all can do. One paper has a diary column compiled by
readers; another has a large section of restaurant reviews devoted to
readers apparently unedited offerings; likewise obituaries. Blogs -
such as this? - also have a lot to answer for. I sat next to another
writer the other day and she said that the combination of being our
age and living in Cornwall was a disaster. I feel this is defeatist
and also that it can’t be true. But there are times when I begin to
think she may be right.
Anyhow that’s enough whingeing but I have a genuine quandary. I would
like to be able to write more about my two weeks in Spain chuntering
around on parliamentary trains, visiting the Forensic Institute in
Zaragoza, conferring with fellow crime writers from around the world,
eating cuttle-fish in sunny town squares and drinking aguardiente in
smokey bars in the old quarter of Bilbao. If I do, however, it will
pre-empt the articles I am still trying to sell to the old-fashioned
print media where I still struggle to make a living. I shall continue
to try to flog them in this way and will direct my blog-readers
towards them but for the time being I think I am, alas, compelled to
be slightly stum.
One welcome success in the old-fashioned media was the appearance of
my piece on Somerset Maugham and sailing from Singapore to Phuket.
Even here, however, I’ve experienced a problem. The friendly PR man
who took me on this fascinating adventure much enjoyed the article
which led the latest edition of the excellent Slightly Foxed
Magazine but pointed out that it did not mention his client by name
nor have a 'fact box' at the end. Well, it wouldn’t. Slightly Foxed
is a Literary Magazine and only gives nuts and bolts information about
books. Actually I think the sort of piece I wrote is more likely to
attract would-be travellers than something more obvious in the travel
pages of a best-selling newspaper but I can see that this may be a
minority or - perish the thought - elitist point of view. Anyway do
think of subscribing to Slightly Foxed. It’s very good quite apart
from me! Meanwhile I suppose I should try to place another article
somewhere where they do ‘fact boxes’.
I’ve been toiling away on fiction and non-fiction projects as well but
have also made two trips to London as well as another to my mother in
Wiltshire and a terrific wedding anniversary lunch in a beautiful
garden at Blandford Forum. London included a fascinating meeting with
two of Princess Margaret’s former ladies-in-waiting. I love some of
the detail which others may find trivial. For example after the death
of King George VI the entire court was in mourning or half-mourning
for six months. Full mourning, of course, meant funereal black but
half-mourning was extended to include grey and mauve. Mauve!
Honestly! I also took Denis Compton’s widow, Christine, to Lord’s
where we had a chat about the Compton-Miller Medal with David Collier
the chief executive of the ECB and then had a lunch at Oslo Court, one
of Denis’s favourite restaurants in St. John’s Wood. In its way the
restaurant was as much of a time-warp as Llandudno. Rather wonderful
with incredibly attentive dressed-up waiters, main courses such as
Beef Wellington and a sweet trolley administered by an astonishingly
camp chap with a fluorescent bow tie.
Both London excursions involved train travel and the once-threatened
but now over-subscribed sleeper. All went fairly well except on my
second trip up to town when at Exeter we were all summarily ordered
off the train because a replacement driver had evidently simply failed
to show up. Most people crowded on to a standing-room-only Virgin
train to Bristol where they would have to change. I waited for the
next direct London train and was able to get a seat though I arrived
over an hour behind schedule. I must write and complain yet again to
the Managing Director. In fairness she is very good about forking out
compensatory vouchers but it’s becoming a tiresome ritual and I’d much
rather the trains just worked in the first place.
Have just been on the phone to Ion the editor who was just emerging
from Leicester Square tube station and hadn’t yet seen the e-mailed
blurb and bio that I’d sent him over the weekend. Even though the
Princess Margaret biography isn’t scheduled until next spring we have
to start planning the cover already - which is both encouraging and
alarming. And now I have just put the phone down after a conversation
with another friend, Martin Hesp, Chief Feature Writer of the Western
Morning News,who is coming down to make a short TV film about the Hall
Walk around the far side of the river. This is for WestCountry TV and
they give him a nice free plug for his Martin Hesp website, devoted to
walks in the South West. I said I’d walk round with him which is free
publicity but no money... A bit like this blog, or whatever it is. I
hope it isn’t becoming the story of my life.
Finally on the subject of blogs my new e-friend the Professor of
Internettery at Oxford is pleased that I am, like him, blogging,
despite a certain smart tendency to sneer at the practice,. He thinks,
I think, that blogging is tremendously useful for those occasions when
he has something interesting to say but which doesn’t justify a
full-length carefully worked out article or paper. It’s a point of
view. I hope that what I blog here has a spontaneity which a more
considered piece of print journalism can sometimes lack. I don’t know,
of course, and never really will. That’s part of the attraction. One
really is working at something which is evolving very rapidly and
nearly all the time.
One final final thought. My daughter Emma has been on the phone from
Mexico where she and Leonel and their two little boys are supporting
the presidential candidacy of their friend Felipe Calderon. The latest
news on the Internet (BBC had nothing - surprise, surprise) is that
the result is too close to call and won’t be announced until
Wednesday. Fingers crossed. I rather fancy a Mexican cabinet minister
as a son-in-law. Or better still how about a daughter who is married
to the Mexican Ambassador in London? Imagine the parties!
PS I completely forgot to say that the great Spanish
adventure was made incomparably easier and more enjoyable by taking
the Brittany Ferry from Plymouth to Santander and back. One of my
incidental gripes about travel journalism is that journeys always have
to begin and end in London whereas for many of us it is far more convenient
to leave from places such as Plymouth which is only forty-five minutes
away from my home. Not only is it convenient at this end, Brittany Ferries
gets you in to parts of France and Spain that other links simply don't reach.
Besides you get a much better meal than on any other ferries I know.
Report Number
43 JULY 2006
Return to Homepage
