REPORT 25  MARCH 2005

Meeting wonderful people doing wonderful things . . .

After the euphoria induced by winning the International Peace Prize last month I was brought down to earth when my bid to become a member of the new Rail Users Consultative body was rejected. I’m only half-joking. I saw an advertisement in the Guardian for people to join this new railway quango and as I use the train a lot and have very definite views, some of which have appeared in print, I thought it worth applying. The Western Morning News, however, carried an article saying that they were afraid this new body would be useless and definitely not represent the views of people in the far south-west who value their local branch lines as well as the trunk services to London and across Britain to Edinburgh.

I suspect they are right. Hacks like me, being virtually by definition members of the awkward squad don’t get on to bodies like this. My scepticism about the whole operation was strengthened when my first rejection from the head-hunters ( I wonder how much they charged!) told me that I had failed to make the cut for some completely unrelated Scottish quango. A day later I got an apology saying they’d got the wrong quango.

And while we’re on the subject of railways here’s a funny story. On March 31st we’re having a launch party for my new novel “Death and the d’Urbervilles” and this year’s du Maurier Festival. Diana Colbert, the excellent Public Relations person retained by the publishers, told me that she didn’t think national journalists would come to Cornwall unless they got free rail tickets. I accordingly found the name of the chief executive of First Great Western and sent off a reasoned plea for help in the form of some complimentary tickets. Apparently the letter went to the wrong office but on Feb 10th I had an acknowledgement from the PA to the Chief Executive saying that she’d got my letter, dated February 3rd, and that the boss would be in personal touch “with the minimum of delay”.

I was quite excited by this but when there was a bit of a minimum delay I phoned in and the nice-sounding PA said she’d try and shunt my letter to the head of the pile. Then she came back and said she’d now had a chance to look at it and her boss wasn’t really the person to deal with it so she was passing it over to the head of Corporate Communications or something.

Because I had to spend a week away researching Princess Margaret and others I asked Diana if she could take over in my absence. When I got home earlier today (March 4th) there was a message from Diana saying that she had finally made contact with the Communications wallah who denied all knowledge of my letter. No wonder the trains don’t run on time – our Sunday trip to Surrey bore no relation to any known timetable and took about two hours longer than it should have done.No wonder I didn’t make it on to the new Quango.

Anyway at least we should have some finished copies in time for the launch party. My half dozen author’s copies have just arrived and apart from the fact that the wonderful encomium I had from Sara Paretsky has not been used, nor the enthusiastic Sunday Telegraph review and that, unlike last time, there is no plug for this web-site, it looks terrific. Hurry, hurry though! Conscientious readers will recall that when the first in this new series was published last year the initial print run sold out in a matter of weeks and there was no second edition due to “insufficient demand”. Funny old world. Hats off, though, to the brilliant Paul Cox who has come up with a second characteristically clever illustration for the front cover. I do hope that this time the publishers might print a few more copies but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m gloomy about the chances of the new Travel Magazine taking off. After being rebuffed by the moneybags Chris Meakin, whose idea it was, seems to have gone disturbingly quiet. From a personal point of view it’s a shame because I invested a lot of time and effort in it and had some brilliant people in place all over the world. Maybe it will still happen but yet again I wouldn’t bank on it.

The trouble is that if you don’t sometimes take risks nothing happens. Over the last few weeks I’ve been pounding out some specimen words for a new novel based on a fantastic idea from David Taylor who made the Village Cricket TV series that was shown (to a man and a dog) last year. David thinks the whole thing will knock the bows off everyone’s sneakers and make us both pots of money. Maybe so. It should, but I feel, in a rather jaundiced way, that I have been here before.

I must not complain, I really mustn’t. At Jeffrey Rayner’s stylish and hugely enjoyable birthday party in Ockley, Surrey, my friend, the best-selling author Leslie Thomas asked rather nervously whether or not I was happy and I had no hesitation in saying ‘yes’. I know I’m incredibly lucky – married to wonderful woman, living in wonderful house in wonderful town with wonderful view, meeting wonderful people doing wonderful things and generally having wonderful time. Nevertheless there are moments when I feel I’m a lone freedom fighter battling it out against the massed armies of the entire world.

Jeffrey’s party was terrific. He is one of the great travel PR people and I’ve been going on his trips ever since Calabria in 1972 when they were talking about a magnificent new international airport which (rather like my travel magazine) never quite got beyond the drawing board. On Monday I had a Princess Margaret inspired lunch in Holland Park with Lady Antonia Fraser who I first interviewed (God help us both!) when I was on the Sunday Times in the sixties. Antonia and her first husband Hugh knew PM and Antonia was in charge of the Royal Premiere of an African Musical called King Kong. HRH attended and she and “Mr. Armstrong-Jones” came for supper afterwards. The following day I had another thoroughly enjoyable lunch, this time with Christine Compton, widow of Denis, to talk about a revised version of mybiography of the great man. On Thursday night there was one of the irregular dinners at Balliol College, Oxford, in memory of Richard Cobb, a much-loved history tutor. Afterwards I read from one or two of his incomparable letters and explained that although I had been trying to get them published for years nothing had happened. It’s entirely characteristic of Balliol that one of our number that night made an offer which I don’t think I can refuse. Watch this space. 

So one more step along the way we go. Not enough steps as far as “A Death on the Ocean wave” is concerned but finding the time is a problem. It wasn’t helped by the need to make a lightning trip up to North Wales to visit my poor cousin whose mobility has worsened considerably and who – sod’s law – had to be rushed in to hospital on the day we were scheduled to have lunch together. Nothing life-threatening but gloomy for all of us – he most of all. These visits seem to have turned into regular quarterly affairs and I’m beginning to feel I know Llandudno quite well. It was freezing cold, especially at the end of the pier where I walked one sleety morning.

I was reminded of Richard Cobb because he once spent a year or so teaching at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth which, like Llandudno has, to me anyway, a sort of day-before-yesterday and very very far away feel to it. I spent my evenings in bleak pubs and a now-favourite Indian restaurant reading Max Hastings’ Armageddon and a compelling memoir of World War Two by the German writer Uwe Timm. Richard used to spend a lot of time in the corner of slightly gloomy pubs reading history and I thought of him often.

Both books were a good preparation for one of several adventures this month. After an evening chairing a symposium about Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch at County Hall in Truro and another stint in the Round Tower at Windsor Castle I am off by Eurostar to join my old friend General Sir John Wilsey on a pilgrimage to the Reichswald Cemetery. John is retiring as the big cheese at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and I want to write something about memories and battles and the fact that we are coming up to the last of these sixtieth anniversary commemorations.

I know I’m going to find the experience fascinating. I just hope I can write it up in a way that is also fascinating. Oddly, and perhaps conceitedly, I think I should be able to manage that. The real problem, alas, will be selling it. I believe there is a public appetite for this sort of piece but editors today don’t seem keen. They appear to prefer something written off the top of the head from the security of the office desk. Not what I signed up for!

Tim Heald

Report Number 25   MARCH 2005                                                                               Return to Homepage