REPORT 44 AUGUST 2006
I’m either very lucky or very stoic. . .
I’ve spent most of the last month inside my own head. I find this
quite a comfortable and entertaining place to be but I do see that
it’s not easy to convince others. I am constantly intrigued by what
exactly lies behind a particular unopened door, what forgotten
memories are stored in this neglected cellar or which unfulfilled
aspirations are hidden away in that locked attic. My wife always
insists that there is a lot of unseemly clutter in my brain and that I
should have a good spring clean. I, on the other hand, rather enjoy
the accumulation of stuff. I find the inside of my head a perfectly
acceptable place to spend time which, as a writer is, I suppose, just
as well. On the other hand I accept that it (the inside of my head)
isn’t necessarily the most exciting thing to write about in a blog
such as this.
Tim Heald
Report Number
44 AUGUST 2006
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Yesterday morning I e-mailed more than sixty thousand words on
Princess Margaret to Weidenfeld and Nicolson. This isn’t nearly enough
and it’s terribly raw and unpolished but it moves the book on a stage.
It means that my editor now has something to read and, well, edit.
Luckily I’m working with Ion Trewin for whom I used to review books
many many years ago when he was Literary editor at the Times. Wee’ve
done a number of books together - non-fiction on Old Boy Networks and
Prince Philip; my novel Stop Press and a spoof anthology of spy
stories called The Rigby File. Among many other things Ion is probably
best known for editing the Alan Clark diaries and he’s writing Clark’s
biography. He is rigorous, knowledgeable and we have known each other
a long time and get on well. So the next few months will be hard work
but enjoyable and, ultimately, I hope, rewarding.
It’s intriguing how the writing of books and particularly biography is
an unending process. Going through material I keep coming across
incidents about which I’d like to know more and where I think I may be
able to track material down. For instance Miles Jebb (Lord Gladwyn)
pointed me towards his mother’s diaries which he edited for Constable.
These include a brilliant account of a ghastly weekend when Princess
Margaret came to stay in Paris when Cynthia’s husband, Gladwyn Jebb,
was the British Ambassador there.As I was chuckling away over this I
saw that Cynthia had identified the royal entourage and Princess
Margaret’s lady-in-waiting was Iris Peake with whom I’d had lunch a
few weeks ago - in the garden of our friend Liz Vyvyan, another of
Margaret’s ladies in waiting. Ergo I must write to Iris and ask if she
can remember anything about this extraordinary, and brilliantly
recorded, visit.
There have been other similar moments in the last few weeks as I’ve
gone through my notes and tried to turn them into deathless prose.
I’ve even had my first conversation with Princess Margaret’s son,
Viscount Linley, but I think more about that will have to wait for
publication! Ion also said that the sales department is already
champing at the bit and clamouring for material. Neither of us feel
ready or willing to give them anything approximating to finished words
so instead Ion suggested that I come up with some questions about
Margaret without providing answers. So I’ve come up with thirty along
the lines of what was her favourite drink, how much did the cigarette
case her father gave her in 1949 fetch at auction, what happened when
she and her party were smothered in green smoke at an RAF station...
They seem to like them. I sent in thirty and Ion is talking about
running a sort of internal competition to see who comes up with the
best answers. When it’s genuinely thoughtful and creative publishing
can be huge fun. When, as so often, it is routine and mechanical it’s
dull. Like most things in life I suppose.
Which makes me think of the revised Denis Compton which has had
disturbingly little attention. I had a nice letter from Joe Hardstaff
who used to be secretary at Middlesex and I wrote a column called
"What Book" for the Mail. Otherwise nothing except a rather grudging
review on the Cricinfo website. The reviewer thought the book lacked
the snap and crackle that Denis deserved. I felt my earlier book
published in Denis’s lifetime had more zest than the later posthumous
version and in that sense the reviewer had a point. I think perhaps I
allowed myself to be over-orthodox. Incidentally, Mike Busselle who
took the jacket photo of me and Denis in the Lord’s long room for the
earlier book, died recently. The Guardian gave him a decent obit and
he made 70. Sad though, and salutary.
One of the few excursions - an out-of-brain experience if you like -
was a brief trip up to Chagford in Devon where we stayed with my
indomitable godmother and went to a performance of Cosi fan Tutte put
on by Garden Opera in Moretonhampstead. It was a beautiful warm
summer’s evening, the company was friendly and interesting, food and
drink terrific, and the opera lovely. It was a perfect English evening
- even though the composer was Austrian and the wine Australian. Next
day we drove down the narrowest lanes to Gidleigh Church for early
Holy Communion and later had lunch in a local pub, named for a
disastrous Victorian general called Sir Redvers Buller. The Godma is
86 and basically the reason we won the war, created an empire on which
the sun never set and so on. She rode Royal Enfield motorbikes during
the war and was married to a colonial civil servant in Nyasaland. She
is completely wonderful. Among other things we went through her
detailed plans for her funeral service at which she has asked me to
speak - always supposing I survive her. I hope it’s still a long way
off.
Otherwise I’ve been pretty glued to the computer. We had a wiener
schnitzel dinner at the Royal Fowey Yacht Club; I went to Bodmin
Hospital to see the county’s leading opthalmologist - is that right?
eye specialist, anyway - who says I have what sounds like an ingrowing
eyelid and she will personally operate to cure it. Being National
Health, of course, it will be some time in November or December.
Apparently I’m either very lucky or very stoic because, although quite
common in senior citizens such as I have amazingly become, these
things can apparently cause acute discomfort. Not being stoic I assume
I’m lucky.
I’ve had long conversations with my elder daughter Emma who was in
Mexico for their amazingly tight election and gave me a fascinating
first-hand report; both sons have moved - Tristram and Beth, his
longstanding partner have bought a small house in Southfields, South
London; and Alexander has moved with his wife, Kirsten to a flat in
Ealing, West London. He has just landed a job teaching history at St.
Benedict’s Ealing - an unexpected career shift; there has been a
silence from Auckland but Lucy, the second daughter, is an erratic
correspondent!
The bank manager has re-emerged. Or rather I have yet another one but
he’s still trying to cope with his old Nat West job as well as the new
one and anyway he’s just gone on holiday. We’re experiencing another
of our cash-flow problems. I hope that Princess Margaret will
eventually help solve these but with books you don’t get paid until
you deliver and maybe not much then - viz Death on the Ocean Wave of
which I completed another chapter earlier this morning. I’ll finish,
it I really will, but the financial incentive is not exactly huge. I
had proofs for a short story with which I’m pleased and which will be
published in the autumn. Ditto a little piece on blogging for The
Author. I think I have sold one of my Spanish travel pieces to the
Western Morning News. My Crime Conference piece is at the London
Magazine with a stamped addressed envelope. So what, I ask myself, is
new? I have possibly, sort of been asked to Toronto by an old friend Mechtild Oberdorf but it depends on getting a firm commission which
seems to be increasingly problematic. Mechtild says that the Canadian
scene in this respect is as bad as the British. Hmmm. Meanwhile the
weather has been hot, hot and the town is full of trippers. It’s quite
strange to be at work while everyone around you seems to be on
holiday. It tends to make me intolerant.
Anyway this time next month I will ,dv, and, Cunard willing, be
literally on the Ocean Wave because I am scheduled to be a guest
speaker on the QE2 once more and should be droning my way round the
Mediterranean. It will be fun. Of course it will. I’m terribly lucky.
Of course I am.
But I do sometimes think that the best bit of luck is that I am still
quite intrigued by all the things that go on inside my head.
