Time to Be in Earnest Read online

  My lecture was held in the demonstration lecture hall of the School of Medicine, a pleasantly proportioned semi-circular room with high, ranked seats and a space in front of the speaker’s desk obviously intended to hold a postmortem table. I was aware of its absence and could picture an autopsy—perhaps on the victims of Burke and Hare—being undertaken under the fascinated gaze of passers-by who had walked in from the street to watch this demonstration of scientific cleverness. After the lecture, which could perhaps be more accurately described as a talk, a small group of us had an excellent dinner at The Witchery. I enjoyed the company very much—forensic pathologists are never dull—and I was seated next to a Procurator Fiscal and was able to discuss some of the differences between Scottish and English law. He is close to the Chargé d’Instruction in France, and told me that during a police investigation he can ask for any information which he thinks would be helpful, including information on the background of suspects or the defendant. This means that much more is known about the background and details of the case by the time it comes to court than happens in England, probably resulting in a higher level of convictions. We talked about the “Not Proven” verdict* and agreed that Madeleine Smith, the twenty-one-year-old Glasgow architect’s daughter tried in 1857 for the murder by arsenic of her lover, Emile L’Angelier, would almost certainly have been found guilty and hanged had she been tried south of the border.

  This dinner conversation reminded me of the time during my service in the Home Office when I was concerned with juvenile law and had to come to a conference in Edinburgh to discuss the Scottish panel system as opposed to the English and Welsh juvenile courts. At first I thought there were obvious advantages in dealing with children, particularly younger children, in an informal setting where they face not a juvenile magistrate but a panel of men and women experienced in child care who discuss all the circumstances of the offence with the parents and who arrive at a decision about what should be done. But it later seemed to me, as it still does, that the treatment model has its defects; in particular there is a risk that the juvenile will be deprived of the protection under the law which his elder brother would get if brought before a court on, for example, a charge of grievous bodily harm. The panels at that time had the power to direct that the child could be sent to a special school, and probably still have that power. In other words, a child is deprived of his or her liberty without the order of a court of law. This dichotomy between treatment and control under the law seems to me at the heart of juvenile justice. In the youth courts, for example, the children have legal aid and the services of a defending counsel. This is absolutely right, yet there is the danger that the child may learn from an early age that it is possible to get off if you are represented by someone clever enough to establish reasonable doubt. G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Children, being honest, love justice; adults, being corrupt, naturally prefer mercy.” What children expect of any legal process is simple. If you have done wrong you will be punished; if you are not guilty, you will be let off. This is hardly commensurate with our present system of criminal justice.

  On the journey to Edinburgh, I read the whole of As If, Blake Morrison’s remarkable and personal response to the murder of James Bulger by two ten-year-old boys. It is a passionate and moving book, the more so because the question “Why?” was not answered by the court, and could not be answered. The court was convened to answer the two questions “Did the boys know right from wrong?” and “Were they the ones responsible for the taking away and the beating to death of the child?” To these two questions it gave a reply. But we have an insistent need to know why, or at least we need to try to understand an act which in its horror shook all our conceptions about the nature of childhood and of innocence and indeed stretched the definition of evil into a new and terrifying dimension.

  I wonder how far very young children do understand right and wrong. They know that certain actions will attract punishment, that they are disapproved of by parents and teachers, and the more sophisticated may know that they are against the law. But how far do they appreciate the nature of evil? I can remember that when I was eight and we were living in Ludlow I went with a school friend called Dora to spend a holiday with her family at Stalybridge in Lancashire. It was the first time I had visited the north, and I was seeing it at a time of depression. I can remember looking down from their council house over the factory chimneys, all without smoke. While I was there we were taken for a treat to a famous amusement park called, I think, Belle Vue, where there was a firework display which was supposed to re-enact the storming of the Bastille. I knew little if anything about the French Revolution, but I remember on my return telling my mother that, during the display, real people’s heads were thrown to the crowd. I obviously believed this at the time, yet surely, as an intelligent child (as I think I was) of eight, I must have known that it is wrong to cut off even dead people’s heads and throw them to the crowd. A young child’s conception of reality is very different from that of an adult. Perhaps that small boy I saw in the juvenile court so many years ago was right after all when he said, “I knew it was against the law, but I didn’t know it was wrong.”

  But what those two boys did to James Bulger goes beyond any failure of comprehension, any childish naughtiness, any lack of family care or control. We recoil from using the word evil about any child. But the unanswerable question remains unanswered. Why?

  TUESDAY, 14TH APRIL

  I spent the long Easter weekend at Southwold with Alixe. As I was expecting Elizabeth Jane Howard, Selina Hastings and a small group of friends from Beccles to arrive for lunch and tea on Easter Sunday, we stocked up on cold meats and smoked salmon.

  On Good Friday morning the weather could hardly have been worse. We decided to join a walk of the combined churches from St. Edmund’s Church to South Green for a service, but by the time we got to St. Edmund’s the rain had increased to a torrential downpour which became sleet, and then hail. It had been difficult enough to walk, and certainly no one’s voice could have been heard in this sheet of ice and water. The new vicar, a cheerful-looking woman, came in from the rain, laughing and shaking her sodden cassock. We waited for a few minutes, but obviously nothing was going to happen, so we departed to seek shelter in the bar of the Swan. We were too early; it didn’t open until 11, but we met Nettie de Montmorency at the door and she invited us back to her house on the cliff. We talked, gossiped, drank and looked out over her lawn, which sparkled with hailstones. By the time we left, a fitful sun had come out and melted them, and by the late afternoon it was too hot for us to sit comfortably in the conservatory.

  I had decided not to write much about politics in what is essentially a record of my personal year, but it would be remiss not to mention the Northern Ireland agreement. I heard the news on the radio at 7 o’clock with a mixture of relief, hope and scepticism. It may not be the end of senseless murder, but perhaps it is the beginning of the end. But the scepticism persists. Sinn Fein/IRA would not have signed unless they believed that this was a significant move towards a united Ireland; the Unionists would not have agreed had they not been convinced that the arrangements set out would strengthen the Union. Both sides cannot be right. The intervention of the Prime Minister at the last minute seems to have been crucial. If the agreement is approved by the people of Ireland and does indeed result in a fair, reasonable and accepted settlement he will deserve all the plaudits he will undoubtedly receive. But there is no great difficulty in achieving at least a temporary peace if one is prepared to propitiate the terrorists. And there is something deeply repugnant about the early release of murderers, some of whose crimes were atrocious even by the standard of murder, and equally repugnant that men of violence should be able to bomb themselves to a conference table. But this, after all, has been the history of the twentieth century and we have long since ceased believing that the meek shall inherit the earth.

  SUNDAY, 19TH APRIL

  I went very early by bus to Oxford to lunch with Jane and Peter
, and to walk with them in Woodstock Park. The park was a delight. We moved slowly since almost every tree offered some particular interest in shape or foliage. The buds of the ash were breaking into their peculiar deformed-looking flowers, the horse-chestnut boughs were heavy with budded clusters which will take another week of sunshine to break into their white candles. We paused at the bridge, its stones warm to the hands, to watch a mother coot nesting in the middle of the lake and feeding her chicks while her mate swam round with lazy insouciance. Once on the pasture we crested a ridge and the palace came suddenly and surprisingly into sight. This is how one should always come across a great house, even one which is familiar: stone, brick, parkland and sky in perfect coherence, which every time strikes the eye afresh.

  I felt very sorry for poor John Vanbrugh, bowling up in a coach with his friends to show off his achievement and having admission barred by an irate Duchess of Marlborough. Apparently she never liked the house and would have preferred something altogether more cosily domestic. As I have never yet seen inside Blenheim Palace, I don’t know whether or not to sympathize with the first Duchess.

  Waiting for Peter to turn the car in the lane outside the park gates, I stood for a moment in complete silence broken only by the note of a single bird and the susurration of the breeze in the wayside grasses. It was one of those moments of happiness and contentment which give reality to death, since however long we have to live, there are never enough springs.

  TUESDAY, 21ST APRIL

  Yesterday I went to the British Library for the opening by Chris Smith of the galleries which will be open to the public today. St. John Wilson’s building was controversial from the first and no doubt will remain so, but the final test will be the use made of it by those with a reader’s ticket and by the general public. Certainly there is immense enthusiasm for promoting the Library as a place where everyone interested in books and our heritage can come, see the national treasures, enjoy the facilities and the special exhibitions. The Pearson Gallery and the John Ritblat Gallery, showing some of the greatest treasures of the Library, are examples of the successful use of modern museum display techniques. The material is beautifully organized and displayed. The John Ritblat Gallery is particularly exciting. There, on show, are such treasures as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Magna Carta. The guest list for the opening was long, but there was no crush in the galleries and I was able to move slowly from case to case and in relative silence. In the Pearson Gallery the display on the development of writing was fascinating. I hope a large number of London schools will be able to visit it. Except for St. Pancras Station, this is a seedy and depressing part of London. Perhaps the presence of the Library will do something to rehabilitate the area.

  An irritating beginning to today with too many telephone calls and too much to be done before going to Southampton, where I was to conduct a master class on “Writing a Novel” for Meridian Television. The programme went well. We were actually filmed for an hour, which will be cut down to half that time. I was positioned at a desk with the three participants ranged on chairs before me, but this seemed too formal and I moved in front of the desk and perched on it for much of the time. None of the three was a complete amateur; the man was already earning a living as a writer and the two girls had had some success. I had planned for the programme to be more like a discussion between the four of us than a teaching session, and we managed to range through what I described as the five main elements of a novel: the plot, story or narrative; the characterization; the setting; the writing style; and the structure. The audience was drawn from writing groups, who came forward at the end to talk to me and to the other three participants. This is the kind of arts programme which is well worth doing but which should be given more time. Unfortunately ITV scheduling seems now to be fixed rigidly by the full hour or half hour, lacking that flexibility which can accommodate serious discussion.

  I have taught creative writing at the University of California at Irvine and at two of the three centres of the Arvon Foundation in the UK, with which the Poet Laureate Ted Hughes has been closely involved from its beginnings. Obviously you can’t make a writer of someone with absolutely no talent, but it is possible to help with technique and, as writing is a lonely business, most people enjoy getting together with other aspirants to share experiences and to give each other encouragement. The Arvon courses, which I strongly support, are remarkably successful in this respect and it always surprises me how a group of people, chosen on a first-come basis, bond together so effectively.

  Invariably, when I give a talk at a signing session, there is at least one aspiring novelist in the audience who asks for advice. In the brief time available I can’t say much, but there are four principles which I see as important.

  The first is to read widely, not in order to copy someone else’s style, but to learn to appreciate and recognize good writing and to see how the best writers have achieved their result. Poor writing is, unfortunately, infectious and should be avoided.

  Practise writing in whatever form; the craft is learned by practising it, not by talking about it. Some people find that writing courses or local writers’ circles are a help, but they are not for everyone.

  Increase your vocabulary; the raw material of the writer is words and the more we have available and can use effectively and with confidence the better.

  Welcome experience. This means going through life with all senses open: observing, feeling, relating to other people. Nothing that happens to a writer need ever be lost.

  Of course what questioners really want is not this somewhat pietistic encouragement, but advice on how to get published. Amateur painters can put their efforts on the wall; a writer never feels that he is a writer until he sees his work in print. Not infrequently I receive letters which seem to suggest that there is some magic way to success or that a publisher will accept a manuscript solely on my recommendation. I can only respond that publishers are business people, not philanthropists, but that they need the seed-corn of new talent, and in my view an aspiring novelist who can tell a story, can write well and can bring the reader into that happy collusion with the writer which is at the heart of fiction, will eventually find a publisher.

  *A verdict of “Not Proven” is peculiar to Scottish law, where juries have the choice of “Guilty,” “Not Guilty,” or “Not Proven.” The last usually means that there is strong suspicion that the accused is guilty but the prosecution has not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

  May

  WEDNESDAY, 6TH MAY

  The first two weeks of this month are going to be exceptionally busy, leaving little time either for this diary or for the accumulating general correspondence.

  On Friday, 1st May, I spoke at the Global Spring Conference of the International Women’s Forum at the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly, having been asked to do so by Katharine Whitehorn. There were 300 senior women present from this country, the United States, mainland Europe and further afield, to discuss the role of the arts. The session at which I spoke was somewhat pretentiously entitled “Cultural Vibrancy and Social Cohesion,” but the speakers were all very well worth hearing, not surprisingly since they included Janet Suzman, Genista McIntosh, Prue Leith, Rabbi Julia Neuberger and Baroness Symons.

  The next day I came to Dorset to attend the Dorset Arts Festival, speaking in the Old Court House in Dorchester. I have given talks at a large variety of venues, but none more interesting. I sat in the huge judge’s chair while the audience were disposed about the court in the jury box, the dock and the spectators’ galleries. It was a peculiar and sobering experience to be sitting in the very seat the magistrate had occupied when he sentenced the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Before my session began I went down into the cells below the court and then walked in the footsteps of the former accused, negotiating the narrow stairs and finding myself in the dock with the suddenness of a jack-in-the-box. It must have been intimidating for those Tolpuddle men to come from that claustrophobic darkness into the light of the crowded
courtroom and to gaze for the first time into the magistrate’s eyes on the level of their own. No doubt it was intended to be intimidating.

  I spent Saturday and Sunday with Rosemary in her cottage outside Wareham, and then went to Winterborne Houghton to spend two days with Tom and Mary Norman. I had told them that I longed to see cowslips; they were part of my childhood walks in the Shropshire countryside, seen, too, when I cycled as a schoolgirl along the flat roads of the fens, but I rarely come across them now. Tom drove us into West Dorset. We walked along a stony ridge, across two fields and then found ourselves in a sloping meadow leading down to a valley. The field was covered with cowslips, a shivering sea of bright yellow blossom with hardly space to plant a foot between the clumps. It was a warm spring day with some breeze and it seemed that the whole air was delicately and subtly sweet. I had asked to see cowslips and was seeing them in an almost unbelievable abundance.

  This morning Tom and Mary drove me to Poole to speak at a luncheon in aid of Dorset Victim Support, held in the old town. This went well, and I am now in the train travelling back to London. I shall be only briefly at home before it is time to go to Oxford on Friday to speak at a conference on “The Novel and Society” at Rewley House.

  TUESDAY, 12TH MAY

  On Sunday afternoon I left Heathrow for Paris to promote the French edition of A Certain Justice. It was a good day for a flight. The rural landscape passing beneath us looked, as always, like a needlework collage; the hemstitched fields, the silver satin of rivers, the clear linen patches of green and yellow and the tightly knotted woods of dark green wool appeared so cunningly contrived that I half expected the whole design to be drawn up and hung against the blue backcloth of the sky.