REPORT 26  APRIL 2005

Everybody stayed a decently long time . . .

Well, we launched “Death and the D’Urbervilles” on March 31st with the sort of party that would have made “Q” and Daphne du Maurier pleased. James and the Marina Hotel laid on delicious food and drink in the Waterside Restaurant overlooking the Fowey Harbour; Hale came up with books and display cards; and the trusty Anne and David from Bookends not only handled all the logistics with aplomb but also managed to sell a baker’s dozen. The cover price is a rather hefty £18.99 but we agreed that if people allowed theirs to be defaced with an author-signature they could have a discount of almost £2.50 and buy a book for a bargain £16.50 apiece.

First Great Western came up with some complimentary train tickets from London so we had a small but distinguished group from the big smoke and put up at the Marina by the hospitable James. There was a good turn-out of locals including at least three present and former Mayors of Fowey; there were former publishers such as Anthony Mott and Brian Perman; and a quartet of other authors – Robert Goddard, Philip Kerr, who’s just bought a place on the other side of the river, Jeremy Lewis who’s just published a biography of Allen Lane, the Penguin founder who for years kept a boat on the Fowey River – Jeremy seems an obvious speaker for the Festival – and Charles Sprawson author of a classic cult book on swimming but who sadly baulked at swimming across to Polruan.

Diana Colbert, who handles publicity for the publishers, said that London-based journalists were mostly too busy (or grand) to accept invitations but also that nowadays diary columns phone before parties to find out which “celebrities” have accepted and whether or not they have “confirmed”. Then, if they do accept, the hacks turn up, make a bee-line for a suitable celebrity or two ask a few obvious questions and beat a hasty retreat.

I’m glad to say that we seem to do things differently down here. Everybody stayed a decently long time, ate, drank and made merry and even laughed at the jokes made by those of us who spoke formally and as briefly as, I think, we could. It was a jolly occasion. Whether it will yield anything in column inches I just don’t know. However, increasingly,I don’t much care. It was much more important that a good time was had by all and Death and the D’Urbervilles was given a happy send off.

It was also a chance to talk about this year’s Daphne du Maurier festival which takes place in May. I’m doing a single talk in the Town Hall on May 6th before setting off for Australia where I’m the President’s Guest at the Kernewek Lowender. This is the biggest Cornish festival in the world. How could one resist the opportunity to be the guest speaker at a grand Cornish lunch in Wallaroo? In the Town Hall here I’m doing “Writing about Royalty” which will I suppose be a sort of work in progress talk about my Princess Margaret researches. 

These continue to be a source of tremendous fun and interest, the highlight of which during the last month was another stint at the Royal Archive in Windsor. This time I concentrated on a few foreign trips particularly Jamaican Independence in 1962,Independence Celebrations in Tuvalu in 1978 and a trip to Canada to see the Royal Ballet in 1981. The two Independence Celebrations are marvellous and marvellously documented – there’s another one, Dominica, tagged on to the 1978 trip – but that’s a shade more perfunctory.

The picture of HRH that is beginning to emerge is enjoyably complex and, with a very few exceptions, people are being extremely helpful. A lot of people seem to have adored her though none of them are under any illusions that she could sometimes behave badly and be extraordinarily difficult. I am reminded of Randolph Churchill for whom I worked briefly in the sixties. Randolph was absolutely impossible in almost every conceivable respect and yet, perversely, all of us – or almost all as far as I could see – of those who worked for him were extremely fond of him. I certainly was but I still find it impossible to explain quite why. On this latest Windsor expedition I stayed at a pub in Eton High Street called the Crown and Cushion. It’s the oldest in town and what a fantastic name! I’m determined to put it in a novel but know no-one will believe it.

Two other highlights were, first, an evening devoted to the “Q” fund in County Hall, Truro which I had to chair. About eighty people turned up and there were three speakers, all in their different way incredibly erudite and led off by the redoubtable Professor Charles Thomas,who knows everything about Cornwall plus some. I found it quite difficult to look sage and erudite myself and had to confess that I’d never even read castle D’Or, the novel which Q started and Daphne du Maurier finished off for him after his death. The evening raised almost a thousand pounds.

The second high-light was my trip to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in the Reichswald. On my way through London I stopped in at Lord’s to discuss the MCC signature drink “Hatfield” which we are reviving to coincide with the refurbishment of the great pavilion. Roger Knight, the secretary, seems very keen on this which was an idea I had when I remembered Jim Swanton mentioning the drink in a piece he wrote for an anthology of mine called “My Lord’s”. They have found the recipe and intend serving it I think at the re-opening of the pavilion on April 8th, the first day of the MCC v Champion County match and also the day of Prince Charles’ wedding. There is a plot being hatched by Andy Oliver, an old friend of my son Alexander, to have me doing sage and erudite commentary for Scandinavian TV and for vast amounts of money. This seems deeply implausible but if I do it I shall try to get to Lord’s for a glass of Hatfield. I feel the Lord’s event is much more significant than the one in Windsor Town Hall!

The morning after Lord’s I took the train to Lille where I was met by Andre, the War Graves Commission driver. Slightly disconcerting. I was riding up the escalator at Lille station when a bearded bloke in a suit hailed me by name and produced a photograph of me from his jacket pocket. He had looked me up on the web, found this site and down-loaded a photo. The web moves in mysterious (but useful) ways!

Andre drove me off to Ypres (Yieper) where the Commission has its headquarters and I met up with Jerry the Northern Europe boss who is just being transferred to Rome and John Wilsey the retiring Vice Chairman. John is an old friend but also amazingly grand and distinguished being, in public life, General Sir John. Rather intimidating. We had a farewell lunch with the head of Hort (Horticulture) and Works (just what it implies – building and construction and maintenance). Then we drove off for an over-night in Bergen-op-Zoom and a visit to the huge Reichswald Cemetery just over the German border.

The cemetery – and the two we visited in Bergen-op-zoom – were as moving as they always are and I have written about it at some length and fired the piece off to Boris Johnston at the Spectator. No response yet. I understand Boris is off ski-ing. We shall see. If the piece doesn’t find a home in an old-fashioned print organ I’ll at least post it up here so some people can have a look.

On a lighter note the General and I borrowed the car in the evening to go into down town Bergen for a beer. We found ourselves in a very peculiar place – the Ahoy Bar – where there were three men with Zapata moustaches and leather jackets and a sexy oriental barmaid who spoke no known language. There was a huge screen in the far corner of the room showing a series of mildly erotic videos of scantily clad female dancers. Anyway we had a couple of beers and then, getting back into the car, realised that we didn’t know the way home. We had reached the centre of town by using a prominent church tower as a reference point – in the best soldierly fashion – but of course there were no such reference points for the return to the suburban park which surrounded our hotel – the Golden Tulip. The general only half managed to get the sat-nav working and eventually just before we got swept on to the Motorway to Antwerp we pulled over to a Shell Station and I managed to get some very complicated directions and eventually after a magical mystery tour through the docks and outskirts of town we made it home feeling rather ludicrously smug about our map-reading and general field craft. Sad old men I suppose.

The Londoners who came down for the book launch asked me in a mildly perplexed way whether I actually enjoyed living in Cornwall rather as if being in such a far-away place was a dreadful act of denial, a sort of voluntary step into the wilderness. I find myself increasingly puzzled that anyone should feel like this. I was mulling over the past month and thinking about other events apart from the ones mentioned above. There was a Literary lunch, for instance: at Boconnoc, the Fortescues’ lovely house near Lostwithiel where William Hague spoke, mesmerisingly well, about his biography of Pitt the Younger; last Saturday I went with Bob Bullock, my Brigadier friend who is an official RFU referees’ assessor, to see Plymouth just beat Penzance-Newlyn in a terrific game of first-class rugby; on Tuesday I have to make an incredibly early start from Par in order to do a London meeting and lunch with David Taylor, the TV producer/director to pitch a new idea for something which will undoubtedly turn us both into instant squillionaires.

Meanwhile the daffodils are out, the lambs are skipping, Easter is past (long five-star Penny-cooked lunch with friends) and there are hordes of Emets eating pasties in the streets downtown. It’s impossible to find a parking space. Tom Graveney phoned yesterday to talk about Denis Compton. And Kenneth Rose to discuss Princess Margaret.

I know our metropolitan friends think it must be terribly quiet and dull down here but it doesn’t feel like it. 

Tim Heald

Report Number 26  APRIL 2005                                                                               Return to Homepage