REPORT 48 NOVEMBER 2006
The advance is tiny and print run will be infinitesimal . . .
WE FINALLY MADE IT to Mungall’s Grave which is marked with a big
grey slab of stone in a new plot a mile or so out of the town of
Kenmare in the south-west of Ireland. David Durell and I who were with
Pete at school between 1957 and 1962 stood with our wives, both called
Penny, in the damp of an October Sunday, said a few inconsequential
words, and did some contemplating. Readers of these reports may
remember that a couple of years ago Pete took off on a bicycle tour of
Ireland intending to stay a night with the Durells who live at the
extreme tip of the Bearra Peninsula overlooking Ireland’s only cable
car which plies erratically between the island and the mainland
accommodating six humans (the entire population of Dursey) or a cow.
If the cow travels there is no room for a chaperone. The animal
travels unescorted. Anyway, Pete never made it. Apparently he did get
quite close and spent the night in a B&B only a mile or so from
Penny and David. However he, accompanied by a friend called
Bernadette, turned back and stopped at a hostel in Kenmare. He went to
bed that night and never woke. Because - remember this is Ireland -
the man who ran the hostel was also the local undertaker - poor old
Pete was not only dead by breakfast but buried by lunch.
Tim Heald
"In loving memory of Peter Norman Mungall", says the inscription, with
"Rest in Peace" underneath and in what appears to be the Irish custom
his surname in enormous lettering at the bottom of the monument. His
dates were 1943 to 1964. He didn’t quite live to see his sixty first
birthday so three score years but no ten. As David pointed out, sadly,
it’s a big space for quite a small man, even if he’d put on a lot of
weight, which he had. You feel there should be others waiting to be
lowered in alongside but, sadly, I don’t think there ever will be.
One ought to have something tremendously profound to write about a
moment such as this but the first thing which occurred to me was that
the legend - "g 1957 - 1963" should have appeared after Pete’s name
because that’s how he is listed in the Sherborne School records and in
a way that’s how David and I thought of him and in a way how Pete, who
seemed to have become something of an Old School Anorak, would have
thought of himself. I’ve written a travel piece which has, I think,
been taken by the Western Morning News, my local paper, who should run
it if only to point up the attractions of the cheap speedy flight
between Newquay and Cork. But musings on Mungall and mortality aren’t
really the stuff of travel pieces in regional newspapers. Maybe not
for a writer’s blog either though I feel they are more appropriate
here than there.
I suppose the big thoughts are pretty trite. "There but for the Grace
of God...", "Is that it then?", "Never go back", "Move on, draw a line
under that...". I find myself reminded of Arnold Bennet’s "Old Wive’s
Tale" which I introduced for the Folio Society. There’s a bit at the
end when one of the sisters looks down on the sad, raddled corpse of a
man who started out as a dashing virile hero and she thinks something
along the lines of "So it’s all come to this...but it always does".
And I suppose that’s what I thought looking at Pete’s grave - all that
youthful promise and enthusiasm ending up in a box under pebbles and a
grey sky in the West of Ireland with four now more or less elderly
contemporaries standing around not knowing quite what to say.
Oh well, on a brighter note I’ve just heard that Robert Hale are to
publish "A Death on the Ocean Wave". Even though the advance is tiny
and print run will be infinitesimal this is good news. It means "The
Tudor Cornwall Trilogy" which has a certain ring to it and it means,
as the phrase goes - see above, that we can "move on". I’ve had a nice
letter from John Hale and at the moment the publication is scheduled
for next June. What next? A new character? More of the old? A revival
for Simon Bognor. Incidentally Simon IS revived. He’s in a short story
anthology which has already been reviewed by Kirkus in the States and
will be published here in the UK by Allison and Busby and in the US by
Crippen and Landru.. It’s called "The Verdict of Us All" and it has
some terrific names including Dick Francis, Len Deighton, P. D.James,
Colin Dexter and, er..., um...me! A case of the "Hello, Mum, Look it’s
me!" Well, it can’t do any harm.
I did a couple of London visits. The first began with the sixth
Sherborne media lunch at the Groucho. No headmaster this time - his
mother had died, and no Richard Morgan, the President. Quite fun I
thought but it felt just slightly stale and perhaps too
nostalgia-based and not enough networking. Very difficult to get
absolutely right. Ithe following day I had an interesting lunch with
Peter Townsend’s son Giles - Townsend being the ill-starred Group
Captain whom Princess Margaret was not "allowed" to marry in the
1950s. I also saw the movie "The Queen" and thought it was very good
with a fantastic performance from Helen Mirren. Then by train to
Honiton, where I met Penny and we drove to Beaulieu for the second
instalment of Lord Montagu’s 80th birthday. Ralph his elder son had
sweated blood to put together almost two hours of "This is your life
so far" based on film clips and video interviews. Then we all -
roughly two hundred of us - trooped off to the Motor Museum for supper
at tables of ten . I sat next to Diana Montague the mezzo-soprano who
sang afterwards with David Rendall her tenor husband. We were joined
by the Phippses and Ralph and Ailsa Montagu. It was all good fun.
Edward M has some photographs and recollections of Princess Margaret
and we, subsequently, arranged for an Ion-hosted lunch at Sheekeys to
talk about her and also about Alan Clark whose biography Ion is
writing and who was a contemporary of Edward’s at Oxford. Also saw Tim
(Sir Timothy!) Clifford now the very smart Director of the Scottish
National Galleries and the holder, he told me proudly, of no less than
FOUR Italian knighthoods. I remembered him as a scruffy teenager in my
section of the Combined Cadet Force many years ago trying to open a
tin of Spam or Corned Beef in a blizzard on the Mendips together with
a future Balliol scholar called Jonathan Long who seems now to be a
banker in Lagos.
Am now finishing this between a second London trip and yet another
which is a prelude to a week in Spain where I’m trying a few days at
El Pueblo Ingles which is an intriguing-sounding English immersion
course for Spanish people trying to learn English as she is spoke..
This last London included the opening of a Folio Society gallery at
the British Library followed by a jolly supper with friends including
Sue Bradbury and Simon Brett; a meeting with the nice accountant and
financial adviser (!); publisher; publicist; a curious wake at the
Hurlingham Club for poor Charlotte Kell; walks on Wimbledon Common;
the Queen Mother’s water-colours at Buckingham Palace; an unexpected
dinner at delicious Bentley’s and much else besides. Now feeling
exhausted and desperately trying to do some useful Princess Margaret
revisions and editing before the next departure. Will take the laptop
to Spain and hope it doesn’t get confiscated by immigration.
I had a thank-you for lunch from a friend who said he was surprised to
find I had a web-site as he had me down as more of a "signet- ring and
sealing-wax" sort of person. I don’t know whether to feel insulted or
complimented. On the one hand I would like to be thought of as at the
very cutting-edge of technology, one of nature’s bloggers and a truly
twenty-first century sort of person. On the other hand perhaps I like
being thought of as an old fogey. I suppose the really depressing (or
heartening) thing is that I can’t make my mind up!PS
It's a measure of my frazzlement that I completely forgot to mention that
the main reason for the last London trip was an evening with the Cricket
Society at the Royal Overseas League. I didn't have to do a solo oration but
was interviewed on stage in a friendly and professional manner by the
boss, Bill Allen. Then I signed books and drew the raffle. There was what
seemed like a good turn-out and people bought books. Graham Coster, Editor
of Denis Compton Mark Two, sold all the books he brought with him. Steve
Dobell, Editor of Denis Mark One, turned up unexpectedly which was a jolly
bonus. I hope a good time was had by all even though I was disconcerted by
being asked detailed questions about the selection of the MCC team which
toured Australia in 1950/51. It made me feel very ignorant and very old,
though in fairness I should point out that I was only six or seven at the
time of the series!
