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The Heald Report . . .
Number 8
NOVEMBER 2003
The Cheltenham Festival was fun. To
my amazement the Town Hall was absolutely packed at 4 in the afternoon to hear
Richard Ingrams and Miles Kington discuss "After-dinner speaking"
based on my Folio Society anthology. Sue Bradbury the Folio's Editorial
Director did some readings and I was ostensibly in the chair. I started off by
saying that to chair these two was a bit like being asked to referee England and
Turkey at football. This elicited a growl from Richard with a threat that he
wasn't going to say a word for the next forty five minutes or so but of course
they were both terrific even though it was abundantly clear that neither
had read the book and both loathed after-dinner speaking. Our six hundred plus
audience laughed dutifully and I think a good time was had by all. Afterwards I
asked if they'd be prepared to come to Fowey next year and do something similar
for the du Maurier Festival. I understood them to say yes
though I can't be entirely sure. If so there'll be a repeat performance some
time in May 2004.
It was a good day in more ways than one because
the post brought the proposed jacket for my village cricket book and the page
proofs of my introduction to Arnold Bennet's Old Wive's Tale. I wrote the latter
ages ago but it will finally see the light of day next spring or early summer.
That's also when the cricket book is scheduled to appear. The cover picture is
an idyllic rural cricket match with an audience of black and white cows.
The field-placings are a touch eccentric but in village cricket they often are.
The book is advertised in the current Time Warner catalogue and I have written a
glowing blurb which the editor says is "just the job" so fingers
crossed. I have even persuaded them to employ Steve Dobell, one of my favourite
copy editors, who edited "The Character of Cricket" and my Denis
Compton biography. And the icing on the cake is that I think they're going to
ask Paul Cox to do some illustrations. Paul is also doing a jacket for
"Death and the Visiting Fellow" which Robert Hale have now scheduled
for April 30th 2004. That time of year really is going to be busy.
Back in Cornwall I had a very enjoyable couple of
days in Falmouth and on the Fal researching a Country Life article on the
oystermen who work the river in the traditional way in sailing boats or punts.
No engines allowed. They really seem to have got their act together combining an
ultra-conservative way of harvesting the bi-valves with a new
"factory" and a regular twice-a-week delivery van to the West End of
London. Twinkle Carter (nee Treffry) is taking the pictures and made the initial
introductions and it's all shaping up remarkably well.
Then there was a London week which was the usual
frantic obstacle course - up on the sleeper, Real Tennis at Lord's, a Memorial
Service for the editor and agent James Hale followed by a wake at the "In
and Out" which was like the best sort of publishing party. A huge amount of
networking which seemed marginally disrespectful to the dead but I think James
would have been amused. The next few days were a similar mixture of business,
duty and pleasure - a cuppa with Gill Hudson editor of the Radio Times to whom I
pitched the idea of a piece on next year's village cricket TV series, another
cuppa with two account execs from the BGB PR agency, a glass with Gerri Pitt the
PR head at the Ritz followed by the annual dinner of the Detection Club in the
Marie Antoinette Room (I sponsored and introduced Clare Francis as a new and
distinguished member), a glass with Helen Armitage who is to edit my history of
the Duke of Edinburgh's Award
which has been dragging on for ages but which will now I hope advance to a
speedy conclusion, rugby at Rosslyn Park with my two sons, Sunday lunch with the
Andrew Duncans, the Tate Modern, Pinter's Betrayal, Goodbye to Lenin and much
else besides. Even writing it all down makes me feel exhausted.
Now I'm getting my head down to write the next
whodunnit (Death and the Durbervilles), nursing the various books to
publication, preparing for a guest-speaking voyage on the Caronia, wondering if
I can possibly get someone to commission an article about an I Zingari Cricket
tour of South America and generally battling on. The desk-top computer has
crashed, so has the fax machine and there's something wrong with the downstairs
electrics but the weather is fantastic, my morning conference/ walk through the
woods and along the cliffs was productive, on Sunday we have an Old School lunch
at the Lugger in Portloe and I've just been asked to do an after-dinner talk at
the famous Gravetye Manor in West Sussex. All go and in a month or so I have my
sixtieth birthday. I wonder what I should do to
celebrate?
Pause for breath perhaps?
Tim Heald
November 2003
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