Johnny St. John, pronounced sinjon with the stresses equal, was a friend of my first wife’ s family in Karachi. He subsequently became sales manager of Heinemann in the Charles Pick era and produced a slim volume for the Folio Society called to the War with Waugh . I imagine that he wore braces and smoked a pipe but I never met him. Sales managers in those days wore braces and smoked pipes so J assumed he did,I have his book though, a slim volume about Evelyn bound in Laura Ashley; green whirls on a white background.
I knew Evelyn through his books – I particularly enjoyed the wartime trilogy and liked to model myself on the mad brigadier who was with the Halberdiers aka the Royal Marines who perished vainly but gallantly leading a charge against the biffing Germans, his brother Alec was also a novelist and at school in Sherborne. He, Alec, had the tiniest handwriting, used to stay at the Athenaum Court and achieved cricketing fame as Bobby Southcott in England, their England.And his son Auberon was editor of the Literary Review for whom I wrote. I reviewed his autobiography for the Times. Evelyn, Auberon’s Dad and Alec’s brother was the best writer Sherborne never had, but it all went wrong with Mais, Nick Shakespeare’s relly.. I mused on this recently.All this in the middle of the night.
No wonder I ramble in my blog and this suggests the question, yet again, of what are the wretched things ‘for’. I once appeared on national BBC radio to establish just that. We failed to reach a conclusion. Do I flit unnecessarily from one thing to another? Certainly, the person in my street has increasing trouble keeping up.It’s arguably my fault for going too fast, not pausing enough and generally being hard on the slow listener. ,One moment it’s money the next Auckland with seldom a pause. Do I go on about death, about me, about being in the next room, about biffing boffins, about giving identities of people who will find out anyway, about this and that? The blog is a diary, a note for those who don’t keep one and it is easy to correct. Enough said.
The month was marked by the death of Jane Bown, the photographer, who died while we were in Santiago de Compostela for Christmas. She was almost ninety and had been my photographer at Pendennis on the Observer. I sent her a herogram as one or I did in those days. It was after her doing a characteristically good job on Kate Mortimer or Gyles Brandreth. 1990 – it feels like yesterday but my son Alexander who was having Sunday lunch didn’t understand the concept pf the herogram, pervasive though it was in my day. Jane hadn’t had one since David Astor’s day and was thrilled. After she attempted my picture for my Prince Philip book and failed explaining it away by saying flatteringly that she normally only photographed complete strangers and I wasn’t.
The other death was Phyllis James. She was in her nineties.I have a photo somewhere of Phyllis and me before she became famous. I am in my denim suit with flares and am showing her something. She looks interested. She always did. I chaired her at the only ever English Bouchercon and recall that there was no one to thank her, Years later I asked her to Fowey and she distanced herself from her friend Ruth to David Treffry. Ruth had refused D’s invitation to tour his house and (on reflection I think it was David who did the accusing) and whoever it was said that R hadn’t “quite fulfilled her function as a guest”. Whoever spoke it was the rudest thing they ever said and the effect was chilling. I don’t think it was Phyllis but it could have been.
I reflected that the clouds would be full of friends when my turn comes.The boffins will be there too – complete with beards and clipbosrds but that’s another story. As is the rest of Martock churchyard and Stanley Spencer and his pram. Ah well. Santiago was fun. The parador was effectively unchanged since Ferdinand and Isabella’s day which was some time in the 1490s. The plumbing was better and the octopus was succulent. Only the lone bagpiper was off but Penny saw to him. The bagpiping was ubiquitous, also the pulpo, but the breakfast was something else AND the hot chocolate which I christened philboif studge after the Saki short story. There were restaurants and bars everywhere and archbishops and incense.. I managed to evade the ibcense at morning mass but the archbish’s sedan chair complete with relics processed to a halt at my elbow.and the Christmas day lunch was really spectacular. Who would have predicted Spanish lobster for Christmas 2014? Elsewhere the bus between Hammersmith and Victoria failed to work but Premier Inns did. And Alexander and tribe came to Sunday dim sum and I made loads of new year’s resolutions at Spanish new year’s eve dinner at home. One of our few trusty friends from Fowey came to stay and suddenly that was 2014, that was. All that sturm und drang gone in a trice! Must do something about income. And vote for committee. It’s a rule of life – there is always a committee to vote for and never enough income!