Authors Electric

De-censoring, un-editing, dis-interring and resisting the temptation to airbrush Catherine Hichens  with a portrait of her husband by Peter Scott Rather late in the process of preparing the HMS Beehive edition of We Fought Them in Gunboats (WFTIG to its friends) I decided that it felt a little like restoring an old painting – scraping off accumulated layers of nicotine, dust or flaky varnish to reveal the freshness and accuracy of the original. I imagined seeing as if through new eyes, being transported back to the artist’s studio or the picture’s first unveiling, spotting fine detail that had been buried under the residue of time. I know nothing about picture restoration so I googled a specialist Fine Art site and was immediately taken aback by the plethora of potential problems and promised expert techniques to address them. Was my painting torn or punctured; stained or discoloured; cracked and flaking; overpainted or altered? Had it been damaged by fire, smoke, mould or wate...

Our lockdown viewing has been the overwhelming TV series The World at War first shown on Thames TV in 1973-4. Just stop and have a listen to its opening theme by Carl Davis (looking on the cover of this   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds1xUE7hKzI   which is then explored across 26 hours of utterly gripping viewing. It's actually too big to write about. It took five years to make, cost £900,000 (£11,000,000 in 2019, Wikipedia tells me) was the inspiration of Jeremy Isaacs and is narrated by Laurence Olivier.  I dug out Mark Arnold-Forster's companion volume but somehow that didn't cut it.  The extraordinary thing about the series - as well as the footage, the music, the narration, the statistics, the sheer scale -- is the cast of interviewees. Last week we were listening to Traudl Junge and Martin Linge (Hitler's secretary and valet, both of them there in the bunker at the end) Albert Speer has been attempting to explain the inexplicable throughout, with Anth...

‘I ’m going to leave you all my books,’ said Uncle Jack. ‘Except the dirty ones,’ he added hastily. I was quite relieved by this.   Jack (1915-1990) was my father’s older brother, my much loved godfather and my mother’s dear friend. ‘I would have married you,’ he told her. ‘If I’d been that way inclined.’ (Typically he didn’t think to ask whether she would have liked to marry him.) Jack was talented and arrogant, embittered , opinionated, generous, charming, extravagant, good at hating as well as loving. I don't ever remember him taking much notice of other people opinions. Although towards the end of his life, when this book offer was made, Jack was living in a settled relationship with an affectionate younger man, he had a reputation for having been extremely promiscuous in the part, with rumoured fetish for leather & rubber excitements . I thought he was probably right to assume that section of his library would give more pleasure elsewhere .   Jack’s sexuality was ce...

Frederick Norway (Nevil Shute Foundation) Nevil Shute Norway was born in 1899, part of the generation whose schooldays were overcast by the ever growing Roll of Honour as younger schoolmasters and older contemporaries died in the First World War. As a teenager he came to believe that ‘I was born for one end which was to go into the army and do the best I could before I was killed.’ ( Slide Rule )  His older brother Frederick did exactly that, leaving university in his first year to join the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and arriving in France at the end of December 1914. Fred survived the 2 nd battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915, but was wounded in trenches near Armentieres and died aged 19 in Wimereux hospital with his mother by his side. The Norway family were living in Ireland then: Arthur Norway was secretary to the Post Office and the depleted little family was thus directly involved in the Easter Rising of 1916. Arthur was briefly imprisoned in Dublin Castle as Patri...

This week began on Monday (as they  so often do). Private Eye magazine was almost ready to go to press and Francis, who was in charge, was privately congratulating himself that everyone was likely to get away for home in good time. Then in came the Metropolitan Police, clearing the building. An unexploded WW2 bomb had been discovered in neighbouring Dean Street and the Soho area of London was being evacuated.  The Private Eye office is in Carlisle Street, one of those hit on ‘the longest night’ – that raid May 10 th -11 th 1941 when 550 bombers, dropped 700 tonnes of high explosive on the city, killing 1500 civilians and taking the death toll since September 1940 over 43,000    ‘The explosion tore through the western end of Carlisle Street, damaged Richmond Buildings – two streets south – and blocked off Dean Street. The heavy blast also completely demolished Carlisle House, an elegant eighteenth century city mansion, home to the British Board of Film Censors ...