NOBBUT A LAD - book review

 

Alan Titchmarsh’s memoir Nobbut a Lad – A Yorkshire childhood was published in 2006.

Titchmarsh is familiar to UK television viewers through his gardening and other programmes. He was born in May 1949 – so to me he is a contemporary and many of his reminiscences echo experiences I enjoyed in childhood. His novels show that he can write as well as attend to horticulture, and this endearing and at times touching book is enlivened not only with his good writing style but also with a wry sense of humour. 

So this is his story – ‘Not that it was without incident or occasional tragedy. But that’s growing up. And growing up, even in the best of all possible worlds, is a confusing thing to have to do’ (p9). This definitely is not a 'misery memoir'.

He was brought up proper. ‘At all times men walked on the outside of the pavement, ladies on the inside. I still do, even though it does sometimes cause confusion when after crossing the road, the woman I am walking with discovers that I’m not where I was’ (p15). [I used to do the same. I suspect the courtesy stems from those days when roadways were plagued by puddles and the wheels of passing carriages were liable to splash pedestrians. I don’t do it with my wife Jen; I always walk on her right-hand side, it’s her good ear. So part of the time I’m the gentleman of old, at others, not!]

It was the time of steam trains. On one jaunt to London with his parents he found himself on the famous Mallard. He chatted with the driver and said ‘I want to be an engine driver’ to which the driver replied, ‘Aye, but you’re nobbut a lad.’ Alan said firmly, ‘When I grow up I mean’ (p141). His career path took a different turn, of course, like so many others who wanted to be train drivers or astronauts or even cowboys!

He lovingly describes many amusing anecdotes, sometimes against himself, and is never malicious. At one time the family had an upright piano in the parlour and Alan determined to learn to drive a car with the instrument’s help. He needed a walking stick and a flowerpot. He turned the flowerpot upside down and stuck the stick in the drainage hole in the pot; this served as the gear-lever. Then he’d use the three foot-pedals of the piano as the accelerator, clutch and brake. Until his father had enough of Alan’s revving sounds and suggested ‘Put the car in the garage and go to bed’ (p249).

‘Impressing my parents was more important to me than almost anything else. It seemed a way of repaying their confidence and the energy and effort they’d put into bringing us up during those tough years after the war’ (p325).

‘Since being a lad, I’ve had a love affair with horses – in paint and in the flesh. The works of George Stubbs and Sir Alfred Munnings thrill me like no other. Dogs command affection, cats command attention, but horses command respect’ (p271) [In his 2008 novel Folly he actually has Munnings as a character].

‘Collecting things was something we all felt driven to do; there was some kind of security in ownership of a collection, some kind of status. In leaner weeks we’d search through the dustbins at the back of the bus garage... We’d pull out cigarette packets and tear off the front and back covers so that each became a crude playing card. With these we’d play snap, and feel as rich as a king when we scooped a whole pile of them’ (p292).

‘My pocket money amounted to one shilling. It never changed for years, it seemed. It didn’t buy much, but most of it went in Woolworths on seeds, or construction kits...’ (p295).

‘The fact that I failed my eleven-plus came as no surprise to anybody, least of all me... I can recall that feeling now – the feeling of trying to knit fog. I caught up in the years that followed; but at the age of eleven it is no consolation to know that you are a late developer’ (p300).

‘I should have been better at science, bearing in mind my future, but Miss Sutcliffe – known as “the Improper Fraction” (top-heavy) – was a loud woman who frightened the life out of me. When she bawled at you, “Acids must be respected!” you felt obliged to scatter the vinegar on to your fish and chips with particular care’ (p304).

These snippets don’t do the book justice. Alan Titchmarsh has a sharp eye for detail – also evinced in his novels – and here provides the reader with vivid recall of people and times long gone, but not forgotten. Here he shows us the various local characters and teachers who became powerful influences in his early life.

Also included are photographs of his family, which many of us can relate to in the style and composition. Plus the author has inserted several line drawings to illustrate certain events and things.

Nostalgia may not be what it used to be, but it’s here in this book in spades!

Book review - The Garner Files

This is a memoir by James Garner (and Jon Winokur) with an introduction by Julie Andrews (published in 2011).

Garner died three years after its publication, in 2014, aged 86.

He began by observing that he’d avoided writing this book because he reckoned he was pretty average and didn’t think anyone would care about his life. He was browbeaten into writing it and he also felt it would allow him to acknowledge those who’d helped him along the way. ‘Here’s this dumb kid from Oklahoma, raised during the Depression, comes to Hollywood, gets a career, becomes famous, makes some money, has a wonderful family… what would I change? Nothing. I wouldn’t change a thing.’ (page xi)

As far as work went, in his early years he was a drifter. Then he went to Korea, got wounded [‘in the butt, how could they miss? (p27)], ‘I wasn’t a hero; I just got in the way a lot.’ (p30).

After stage acting he was hired as a Warner Bros actor, and he was being paid $500 a week. Eventually, he was called in to test for a new Western series. ‘They’d looked at just about every actor in Hollywood to lay a gambler wandering the frontier in the 1870s, but they picked me, probably because they… figured, Hey – we’ve already got this guy under contract, we might as well save money.’ (p51) He wasn’t happy about taking the role of Bret Maverick, he wanted to play in movies.

Jack Warner preferred recycling stories they’d already paid for, so the Maverick pilot was adapted from a book the studio had already purchased. Garner found himself wearing cast-off clothes from earlier movies to fit in with stock footage ‘re-adapted’ – standard operating procedure at Warners then. I can recall noting several recycled storylines in such series as Maverick, Cheyenne and others.

Garner was a little peeved (‘a little?’ I can hear him say) that he was still being paid $500pw when Maverick had displaced the big shows, Ed Sullivan and Jack Benny, which were making $25,000pw.

His view of the Bret Maverick character: ‘… quick-witted and quick on the draw, though he tries to avoid gunplay. But he’s no coward… exactly. He just believes in self-preservation… he only cheats cheaters… He’ll come to  your aid if there’s an injustice involved, and he’ll always stand up to bullies.’ (p58).

It took eight days to make a Maverick episode, starting on Tuesday and finish late Monday, usually. Since the episodes were being aired every seven days, they were inevitably going to run out of shows. ‘So they got the idea of adding a brother who could alternate with Bret.’ (p55)  Stuart Whitman and Rod Taylor were auditioned for the Bart Maverick part, and it went to Jack Kelly for $650pw…!

Warner Bros made 124 Maverick episodes and Garner was in 52. When he left the series, they tried to get Sean Connery, even flying him over, but he said ‘no’. Finally, they brought in Roger Moore (already under contract to Warners); he agreed to do it provided they’d release him from his contract at the end of the year; reluctantly, they agreed – and Moore went on to become The Saint.

He writes about many of his acting friends, and writers and directors, and offers plenty of insights into the profession in those days. He talks about his car racing with actors Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, and golf tournaments. And a lot of anecdotes, too; such as the on subject of autographs. ‘Paul Newman told Garner he stopped signing them forever the night he was standing at a urinal in Sardi’s and a guy shoved a pen and paper at him. Paul didn’t know whether to wash first before shaking hands… Gary Cooper wrote cheques for everything – gasoline, cigarettes, groceries, meals in restaurants – because he knew most of them wouldn’t be cashed. Coop figured he might as well get paid for signing his name.’ (p182)

He’s rightly proud of some of his film work, notably the TV movie Promise (1985) with James Woods, which dealt with the subject of schizophrenia. He comments, ‘I’m sorry to say that 25 years later, schizophrenia is the worst mental health problem facing the nation. Asylums have been closed, and government spending on mental health has been cut to the bone. There are new medications for schizophrenia, but though more expensive, they’re not much more effective than the old ones. And there is still no cure.’ (p195)

What caught my eye was his attitude to writers. ‘You can put the best actors and the best directors in the world out there, but they’re nothing without the written word. The script is sacred. I don’t improvise, because the writers write better than I do.’ (p171) ‘I didn’t get into the business to be better than anyone else. They give too much credit to actors, and I don’t think they should be singled out. It’s the writing. When it’s done right, acting isn’t a competition, it’s a collaboration. The better my fellow actors are, the better I am. If I get an acting award, I think I’m stealing it from somebody who deserves it more than I do…’ (p184)

Stephen J Cannell tells of a time filming Rockford. In five and a half years of the show, they’d never rewritten a line for Garner, but on this occasion he’s upset, he can’t get the line right. Cannell and Chase, the writer, suggest they can break the lines up, give some of it to Noah Beery. Garner said, ‘Change this line? Steve, this is a great line. I just can’t remember the goddam thing!’ So they never changed it (p231).

‘Every Christmas he gave each of the writers their scripts bound in beautiful red leather with gold lettering on the cover’ – David Chase (p233).

At the back of the book are comments from family and friends, reminiscences, a listing with comments of his films and TV work.

A fitting memoir – and memorial.

Book review - Quiller: A profile and Bury Him Among Kings

Chaille Trevor’s part memoire and part appraisal of her late husband Elleston Trevor’s books is subtitled ‘intimate glimpses into his life and work’ (e-book, 2012).  The profile on Quiller, his shadowy secret agent, is written by Elleston Trevor (Adam Hall) and is only three pages, though enlightening.

Elleston Trevor was a prolific author, first published in 1943 under his own name of Trevor Dudley Smith; he used at least eight other pen-names. A good number of his books were re-issued either as by Elleston Trevor or by Adam Hall. He wrote in several genres – mainstream, children’s, thrillers, espionage, mysteries and plays – until his death in 1995.

The recent sad death of author Philip Kerr brings Elleston Trevor to mind. Kerr bravely fought cancer, determined to deliver his last manuscript, Metropolis (his fourteenth Bernie Gunther novel) to his publisher.

Elleston Trevor had shown similar determination when working on his nineteenth Quiller novel, Balalaika. He dictated the final paragraphs to his son, Jean Pierre. As Chaille says, ‘Inside Quiller’s head we live the close of a novel, and of a master’s life, with a breath of poetry.’ When the inevitability of death sank in, he had chosen not to fight it but to go forward to meet it. ‘Elleston moved on with Quiller-like mettle toward his last challenges: finishing Balalaika, dying gracefully, and beginning a new life. As he saw it, consciousness continues; an ending is a beginning.’

Chaille and Jean Pierre took Elleston’s ashes to the top a mountain that overlooks the family ranch in Show Low, Arizona…

Throughout, Chaille uses quotes and references from many of his twenty-one children’s books, where he could employ his poetic muse. His Hugo Bishop mysteries, each with a chess title (published in the 1950s) were re-issued under his Adam Hall name when the Quiller books became best-sellers.  There’s a lengthy appraisal of his 1970 novel Bury Him Among Kings, which is about a family in the First World War and a lot besides.

Elleston Trevor had a great thirst for knowledge and believed that life was to be lived, yet surprisingly managed to write so many books! 

Chaille Trevor has produced a moving memoire.

Book review - More to Life

The fictionalised travel memoir More to Life (2017),  'based on real events', is by Maureen Moss, an inveterate globetrotter. It is at turns illuminating, poignant and amusing.

Approaching her fiftieth year, suffering the trauma of divorce, loss of job and sale of house, Rachael Green decides to ‘find herself’ by travelling to the Far East. Small snag: she has three children, two of them teenagers. It’s agreed she’ll take Conrad and Sara, leaving the youngest Sophie with her ex. Sophie can join them at the tail-end of their jaunt in Australia. Simple, really. Brave. Or possibly foolhardy. These events take place in 1997; it might be riskier attempting this kind of journey these days.

First stop, the Indian subcontinent. We’re treated to the sights, smells, the poverty, and the wonderful tigers. Travelling on a shoe-string budget meant that their accommodation wasn’t quite what they were used to. ‘In our dark, damp, dingy, smelly rooms cockroaches scurried up the walls, across the ceiling and down the opposite side. Sitting on the toilet in the one-metre-square shower room required keeping your feet above the floor level to avoid the creatures scrambling over your toes.’ (p117)

From time to time, Rachael sends a letter to Sophie, possibly to sooth her angst over leaving her daughter. And her thoughts dwelled on her decision: ‘I was hauling them around places where dead bodies lay unnoticed, where extreme poverty and physical deformities were commonplace, and where parents had to sell their children.’ (p118)

There are plenty of amusing interludes to lighten the mood, such as travelling in a railway compartment designed for six people yet accommodating fifteen, some of whom used the luggage racks as extra seating.

Then it’s on to south-east Asia, starting in Singapore, then to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. They’re joined by Rachael’s sister-in-law Louise who has left home, and Gecko, a friend of Conrad’s, and Michael, the boyfriend of Sara. These additional mouths to feed strain the budget further, but provide more conflict, amusement and distractions: penalty for removing pebbles from the beach, five to ten years’ imprisonment. Rachael says she reads a lot on the journey – though doesn’t explain what; was this before the e-reader? Then there’s Sara’s scream, when a huge cricket jumped in between her boobs! (p165) and Michael’s worry about safety when they’re floating in the river in a boat made from a B52 bomber fuel tank – during a lightning storm! (p166)

I don’t know why Rachael should feel she needs to atone for being part of the human race, for being one of a species capable of the appalling slaughter and inhumanity of the Pol Pot regime. You can be appalled without feeling misplaced guilt, surely? (p182)

From the tragic to the frivolous. There’s a joke that Rachael makes about the Mekong Delta, referring to the emperor from the Flash Gordon adventures. Unfortunately, the Mekon was a Dan Dare villain; Emperor Ming was the Flash Gordon villain! As Sara observed, ‘You’re funny, Ma – not.’

The book is teeming with vivid description, such as: ‘Images flashed past, of baskets suspended from shoulder poles, water buffalo gently swishing their tails in muddy rivers, field workers in conical hats bent low as they toiled. In the villages barefoot skinny children played in rubbish-strewn streets… monkeys approached lopsidedly to steal bananas…’ (p192)

Of all the places she visited Rachael seemed most affected by Vietnam and its stoic gentle people. (p237)

Did Rachael ‘find herself’? You’ll need to read this always entertaining, colourful and thought-provoking book to find out. At the very least she proved that there’s more to life than feeling sorry for yourself. Highly recommended.

A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon.