REPORT 57 JUNE 2007
Tim's more or less monthly blog since May 2003
A rather frantic need to make every moment count. . . .
My nearest and dearest hate these reports. I won’t say which nearest
and dearest because that would probably make matters even worse but
hate them they most certainly do and to such an extent that they now
won’t even look at them. This is chastening but also slightly
perplexing because on the whole they seem to have a high approval
rating and an ever-increasing audience. However it certainly gives me
pause for thought.
It reminds me disconcertingly of the late Brian Johnston, whose
biography I wrote. I think it’s true that Johnston was better at
seeming matey with complete strangers than, sometimes, he was with his
immediate family. I would hate the same to be said of me but there is
a worrying suggestion of something similar in what some people think
about these reports.
One major objection is that I do myself no professional favours by
giving space to worries, anxieties and failures. How can I possibly be
a commercial or professional attraction if I’m always drawing
attention to things that go wrong? I suppose this could be true but my
sense is that no-one would be fooled by a story of unalleviated
success and also that it would be fundamentally dishonest and also
smug-seeming. It seems to me to be fundamental that one should try to
tell the truth in an on-line diary like this and it’s important to
emphasise that although much of life is privileged, lucky and deeply
wonderful , it isn’t always like this. It can’t be and it isn’t for
any of us.
Another complaint is that the entries read like private diaries or
letters written for the benefit of friends and family but quite
inappropriate for public consumption. I have some sympathy with this
particularly because my critics seem to be suggesting that I am
betraying confidences and invading privacy by writing in public about
conversations or dealings I have had with people which the other party
would properly have regarded as not going any further. By the same
token I am being told that I can sometimes seem catty or critical of
people who are supposed to be my friends. One critic even says that
they are constantly reading stuff I’ve written and thinking to
themselves “I wish he hadn’t written – or said – that.”.
The first defence I would offer is that I do actually give some
thought to the privacy and confidentiality issue and even though it
may not always seem like this I do operate a sort of system of
self-censorship so that I do suppress some stuff that might cause
embarrassment or hurt. I have to admit, though, that I am guilty of
the same crime (if it is one) as that committed by anyone who keeps a
diary and publishes it. My answer is, I suppose, that it is
interesting and useful to share some thoughts and experiences and
even, in my case, that doing so in an honest way may lead to people
going to my books and articles which is, at the end of the day, the
main point of the exercise. And, incidentally, the reports are
intended to read like private diaries or confidential memos rather
than old-fashioned published pieces. It’s one of the things which
distinguishes the blog from the old-fashioned-newspaper.
I know that other writers have upset members of their family by
writing columns, articles or even books which rely on private family
life as the basis. Christopher Robin, the son of A.A. Milne, who was
immortalised in all those poems – “Christopher Robin is saying his
prayers” and so on - is probably the classic case in point. I must be
careful about this but on balance I think I am innocent of
exploitation and although I refer to members of my family I honestly
don’t think I have ever ‘used’ them.
Anyway that’s enough glum self-examination. I am disturbed by
criticism so close to home and I will, naturally, bear it in mind but
I am honestly not sure I am going to change what I’m doing, at least
not dramatically. I will continue to think very hard about the blogs
and how I write them but I do think they are significantly unlike
other sorts of published material and I do think some sort of
approximation to truth and honesty is rather important.
The good news is that after what I think is described as a “bidding
war” the Daily Mail has secured the serial rights for the
biography of Princess Margaret from Weidenfeld and Nicolson..They are
supposed to begin this Saturday. I am apprehensive because one’s
control over what they use and how they deploy it is very limited. My
experiences so far have been mixed. The Mail did an excellent
job on my Barbara Cartland and I couldn’t fault the Telegraph
treatment of Brian Johnston but I was never happy with the way the
Sunday Times dealt with Prince Philip. All they seemed to want was
detailed muck-raking about his alleged affaires with women not his
wife. I slightly copped out of this partly because I wasn’t that
interested and partly because I felt that at best the verdict was “not
proven”. I much preferred the account of my forty-eight hours with the
Duke on the Royal Train. Andrew Neil and his minions obviously thought
this tame. By the same token I fear that the Mail won’t be
interested in my accounts of the independence celebrations in Tuvalu
and the 60th anniversary of the accession of the King of Swaziland but
will major on sex, drink and fags. We shall see and by the time you
read this we shall know.
I was up-country last week and it was the usual obstacle race. For
ages I’ve said that London has become for me what New York used to be.
Trips from Cornwall become more and more full of disparate
appointments and challenges and a rather frantic need to make every
moment count. This time I drove through worrying storms – particularly
bad just the other side of Exeter –to spend a night at my mother’s in
Wiltshire. Took her off to supper at the local pub which is under new
ownership and struck us as being pretty ordinary. Next day drove to
Tisbury station, parked car and got a train to Waterloo and from there
checked in at the Groucho Club and to an enjoyable lunch at another
more old-fashioned London club. Back to the Groucho for a
mid-afternoon meeting with the publicist from Weidenfeld and Nicolson
and then to the Garrick Club for dinner of the Detection Club and so,
late, to bed. Next day met publisher, John Nicoll, by the statue of
Isambard Kingdom Brunel at Paddington and up to Oxford for a day in
the Merton, Balliol and Bodleian libraries looking at caches of
Ruichard Cobb letters in preparation for our collection of his letters
which John is to publish though his Frances Lincoln imprint. Then off
the train at Reading where I was met by Hugo Vickers and his eight
year old son, Arthur, whom I haven’t seen since he was about a year
old when he and his parents visited us in Cornwall. Enjoyable evening
chez Vickers including a nostalgic game of L’Attaque with Hugo, Arthur
and his six year old twin – Alice and George.. Riffled through Hugo’s
copy of Tina Brown’s book on Diana and discussed William Shawcross’s
long-awaited biography of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Hugo’s
(unauthorised) book on QE was published last year and mine of Princess
Margaret is due any moment. The others are rivals of a sort whereas I
think Hugo and I regard ourselves as allies. I suppose it’s a matter
of luck and friendship.
Next morning Hugo drives us to Winchester where we have lunch at the
Hotel du Vin with the new head of “enrichment” at Cunard. Hugo and I
are both old Cunard hands and are keen to get back on board, possibly
together, before the old lady is finally pensioned off as a floating
hotel in Dubai. After an enjoyable lunch Hugo drops me off at
Basingstoke station and I take the train back to Tisbury, overnight at
my mother’s before setting off at sixish the following morning, to
beat the weekend traffic and get home to Cornwall in time to greet
Australian friends who are coming to stay with us for a week.
Phew! I feel exhausted just reading about it. None of it actually
involved earning money. Maybe none of it could actually be categorised
as ‘work’ though, nearly every moment was fun, very little could be
described as entirely recreational. Oh God, as I type this I am
watching Paris Hilton, twenty-six, being interviewed by Larry King on
CNN. Is there some moral here? Why am I watching?
We took time out with our friends, Jack and Jill, to do a trip west
down this long thin county. We stopped off at the gardens of Bonython
House – our friends are from South Australia as is Penny, my wife – so
names such as Bonython are very familiar to them. We then stopped at
Porthleven which seemed to be almost entirely shut. One restaurant
which said it was open had money on a counter, scallops apparently
defrosting alarmingly unprotected in the kitchen and a chef-proprietor
emerging, eventually and slightly shame-faced from the loo. He said
they were closed but we eventually found an acceptable pub. That
evening in Penzance we booked over the phone (recorded message) at a
long-established local restaurant but, when we turned up, fund it was
locked, unlit and unwelcoming despite signs saying it was open for
dinner. We dined, instead, expensively but very well at the nearby
Michelin-starred Abbey. Next day we walked in to a well-reviewed
restaurant in Padstow and asked for lunch at one of the several empty
tables. The chef told us that he had no waiter and no we couldn’t have
lunch. Sometimes I despair. I seem to spend a lot of time championing
the local tourist industry and then it truculently refuses to behave
in an even remotely welcoming fashion. I don’t expect them to grovel
and I accept that many tourists can be ghastly (Padstow was a teeming
nightmare) but even so…
Anyway got home and lo, there was a finished copy of the Princess
Margaret biog. Looks great. Four years work or so, bound in hard
covers and for sale at £20 a throw. Funny thing, seeing a finished
copy. I remember way back in 1961 when the first copies of the
magazine “Sixth Form Opinion” came in and the three founding editors,
- myself, Andrew Goodman and Matthew Melliar-Smith - just threw them
all over the floor and gazed at them with a strange mixture of
self-satisfaction and alarm. We’d done it but now our heads were over
the parapet and we were going to take flak. It’s the same with the
Margaret. On the one hand I feel pleased to have finished it and
pleased by the way it looks though I have already discovered one
“howler” . The (rather good and revealing) background note about the
cover picture has gone missing. I hope we can re-instate it for the
reprint but we’ll see.
The next stage was the Daily Mail serialisation. I had been
warned about this as I’ve already said. Other authors were sore about
their serialisations and I myself had rueful recollections of the
Sunday Times many years ago. I realise, I suppose, that a
newspaper “serialisation” of a few thousand words makes completely
different demands from the hundred thousand or so words in a
full-length book. I also realise that once you have sold the serial
rights –for quite a lot of money one hopes – one relinquishes the
right to control content. Even so. Anyway although we were able to
look at the text before publication in the Mail I was depressed
by the reaction of those who read it. Although we got four whole pages
the “extract” seemed relatively hidden and unblurbed and it seemed to
perpetuate the old two-dimensional myths about the princess rather
than the much more interesting and complicated truths which I felt I
had at least touched on in the book. Alastair Campbell refused to let
his new memoirs be sold for serialisation. I never thought I would
live to see the day when I had a sneaking wish to almost agree with
him.
Now I have the Chichester Festival looming (a gig in the Bishop’s
kitchen) followed by a Monday departure by Qantas for Australia. All
go, though impeded by the new round of terrorist bombs which seem
likely to herald a new campaign. Disruption is going to follow no
matter what and let’s hope it is no worse than just disruption. It
seems unbearably churlish to grumble about inconvenience when innocent
people are being killed or maimed.
My trusty web-master says I shouldn’t pay too much attention to
criticism from those close to me as they are bad judges of things such
as blogs or web-sites. Maybe so, but it contributes to a slight
feeling of gloom and despondency. Perhaps it’s the weather. England
are 135 for two and making hard work of it. Bit like me. Can’t
complain about the score but it seems mildly dispiritingly like hard
work! Oh well, next stop Adelaide and a long-awaited lunch in the
Barossa. Then overnight by train to Sydney and six weeks of visiting
fellowship punctuated by dinner with Australian I Zingari and the New
South Wales Branch of the Oxford Society. How dare I complain?
Tim Heald
