A Publisher's Diary

The occasional diary of an independent publisher in rural Oxfordshire

Above: diarist Henry Peerless with his wife Millie and children Cuthbert and Reginald, 1901; see the Day Books homepage for news about how a later generation of the same family have discovered their past.

Thursday 6 March. I've just received the latest issue of 'Carousel', which contains a great review of Alan Fraser's book Zoot. The reviewer, Anne Faundez, describes the book as 'touching and funny', and says that it is 'memorable for its characters, vitality and a realism that effortlessly combines everyday situations, racy dialogue and moments of poetic intensity'.

I hope Alan's suitably pleased - as he was when I told him that John Harle ('the world's foremost saxophonist', as he's described on his website) had phoned to say that Zoot was 'terrific!'

Thursday 17 January. I've had two fascinating emails from Mary Sinclair-Powell of the Heritage Centre in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. The diarist Henry Peerless visited Ross in 1914, and described the novel experience of being driven in a motor-car by a woman - Irene Baynham, whose father ran the local garage.

I was astonished to find that, almost a century later, Irene Baynham is still remembered as 'one of the great characters of Ross,' as Mary Sinclair-Powell writes. 'We kids used to be mighty afraid of her. Woe betide any child who travelled on her buses and misbehaved - we could do with more of her kind today. Her (sideways) family still run a bus company in the area. One favourite anecdote about her is she could "out swear any man". And if you were late, don't think she would have waited for you...'

Thursday 20 December. To Ascott-under-Wychwood for the annual mummers' play, written by Fred Russell and directed by Carole Angier.

Fred has been writing these plays for ten years now, and last night he explained how it was Thomas Hardy who gave him the initial inspiration. In one of the Wessex novels there's a reference to a mummers' play, and Hardy even gives the first line, but nothing more. So Fred set himself the challenge to take Hardy's line and to write the rest of the play; and it was such a success that he's written a new play every year since then..

Saturday 20 October. I've just received the news that Alan Fraser's brilliant new book 'Zoot', which we published recertly, is to be issued as a BBC Audiobook.

Alan's last two books were issued as audiobooks too, and there's something about his work that cries out to be read aloud.. Perhaps it's because he's a born performer, and that never fails to come across, whether he's blowing his saxophone or penning his latest story.

Friday 7 September. Our 'online diaries' page now contains three diaries - the latest addition being Mary Wordsworth's diary of her travels in Europe. Mary's husband William rated the diary very highly, and here's a sample entry from 7 September 1820, to whet your appetite. On that day, the Wordsworths took a boat to Porlezza, in Italy, to see an eclipse of the sun. That's startling enough; but my favourite aspect of the entry is Mary's description of the people she sees around her, going about their daily business - the 'light-footed fruit Girl [who] shewed us the nearest way to our Hotel ... Boys playing with Walnuts, as English Boys do with marbles – & young Men in the Town at a pitched Game at Foot-ball..'

Wednesday 5 September. A fellow publisher once told me that when you’ve got a bestseller on your hands, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up selling many more copies than your other titles – you’ll just sell them faster. And that’s what happened with Inside Stalin’s Russia, which was our big bestseller a few years ago, with rave reviews in all the newspapers. It sold and sold for about six months – and then virtually stopped.

But recently it has come into its own again, and I’ve been receiving a steady stream of emails and letters about it from historians and researchers. Another email came today, from a researcher into Anglo-Soviet relations during the 1920s and 1930s, describing it as ‘an invaluable and unique source of information’. And that’s where it’s enduring value lies, I think. Bestsellers so easily go out of date, but Reader Bullard’s Soviet diary is more than that. It’s a brilliant piece of eye-witness history – and that means it ought to last for ever.

Saturday 23 June. Fulwell, Oxfordshire. Mont Abbott - 'Carter, shepherd and storyteller'- and the subject of Sheila Stewart's book Lifting the Latch - has today been honoured with an Oxfordshire Blue Plaque, at a ceremony attended by the Lord Lieutenant Hugo Brunner, and by scores of admirers of 'Old Mont' and his story.

Today I learnt that the Blue Plaques Board was established in October 1999 'to provide a means whereby notable persons and sites of historic interest may be remembered' - and I was amazed that this is only the thirtieth plaque to be erected since then. So Mont Abbott joins the company of J.R.R. Tolkien, John Betjeman and Barbara Pym. But as Sheila Stewart pointed out, in her beautiful and moving speech, it's a tribute not just to Mont Abbott himself, but to all those unnamed farmworkers and labourers who have contributed so much to our 'agricultural heritage and national character', in Oxfordshire and beyond.

Thursday 19 April. I've just had a card from Sheila Stewart, describing as 'wonderful' the decisionto put an Oxfordshire Blue Plaque on Mont Abbott's cottage in Fulwell, near Enstone. The idea was first put forward by Hugo Brunner - the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire - after reading the Day Books edition of Lifting the Latch: and I'm so glad that his proposal is now coming to fruition.

Oxfordshire is a beautiful county, and the plaque to Mont Abbott - 'Carter, Shepherd, and Storyteller' - ought to remind us of those thousands of nameless men and women who devoted their lives to the land and who made it what it is today.

Tuesday 10 April. A customer has just pointed out that the Day Books website doesn't make it clear that we accept cheques. Actually it had struck me as too obvious to mention, but lots of places are now refusing to take cheques, so I realise that it's worth making it clear.

Cheques may be going out of fashion now, but it wasn't so long ago that they were something of a novelty. In July 1915, the diarist Henry Peerless was boasting to his friend Tom Garrett: 'Peerless and Son's cheque is practically like a bank-note, and will generally pass all over England.' He made a point of paying his hotel bill by cheque, 'just to prove that they will take it'.

But this form of payment has always had a somewhat 'chequered' history. Just a year later, in July 1916, a hotelier in the New Forest was complaining to Henry Peerless about 'some of the officers who pass through the grenade school, who have victimised several people by cheques which are marked "No account" etc., until, taught by experience, the gentle natives of Lyndhurst have adopted the "pay before you have it" line with them. Officers' cheques are out of favour at Lyndhurst just now.'

Wednesday 14 March. I'm still going through the Collingwood Ingram diaries, and am continuing to find entry after entry which surely ought to be published... like his entry for this day, 14 March, 1918. Ingram starts by talking about the magpies and rooks (ornithology was his main interest), but then tells an extraordinary and haunting story:

'Captain Taylor of this squadron shot the pilot of a two-seater the other day. As the observer had apparently exhausted his ammunition and was seen to be stretching over to the forward cockpit in a harmless endeavour to reach the controls, Taylor did not fire upon him, but flew close up and pointed in a westerly direction indicating that he was to steer to the side of the lines. Unluckily for the Hun, an SE5, not realising what was happening, dived down and put a burst into him and Taylor saw the machine crash.'

To add to the poignancy of this episode, the entry finishes with a brief note added a few months later: 'Taylor has since been killed.'

Wednesday 14 February. A month or so ago, a correspondent in Australia told me about his father's war diaries which he was editing. Then today I had another email, telling me that 'Jim's war diaries are now completed. For the time being, we have put it on his website as a pdf eBook - the website link is below and diaries are located in section "footprint/Jim's war diaries". We're charging a small fee per download (A$8) which we'll pass on to Rotary International's Polio Fund who use it to immunise kids from polio in third world countries.'

www.vickers-willis.com

'If you get a chance to read them,' Tony Vickers-Willis adds, 'I'd be pleased for your feedback on the writing and also on how we might market it properly.'

I'll definitely have a proper look - and you should too! There's a lot of other material on the website as well. Jim Vickers-Willis was something of a celebrity in postwar Australia, and he continues to make waves and to influence the world for the good in a whole variety of different ways.

Thursday 8 February. I've been reading some extracts from the diaries of Collingwood Ingram – airman, ornithologist, gardener and centenarian – which were sent to me a few days ago with a view to publication... The diary's editor also sent a covering letter, which said: 'I have just started to look for possible publishers and got the impression that in general (and perhaps sensibly) they make it as difficult as possible for a potential author/editor to make contact.'

Sensible indeed! It's never pleasant to reject a manuscript, so perhaps the easiest thing is just to discourage submissions in the first place. As it is, whenever a new manuscript arrives, my immediate instinct is to look for reasons to turn it down.

Well, I've been looking for reasons to reject the Ingram diary for a couple of days now, and as yet I can't find any. In fact some passages are just crying out to be published. Take this entry from 7 January 1917; Ingram, on active service in France with the Royal Flying Corps, has been given leave to return to England following the birth of his daughter:

'I was delighted at the prospect of the cross-channel flight... At nine exactly the chocks were pulled away and we glided out of St-Omer aerodrome ... The chocolate earth, a spreading patchwork of purplish brown, grew more and more remote. Inconceivably small trains puffed along tiny lines and little bunches of red and grey roofs clustered round certain roadways like nests of insects around a stalk... And where was England? Could it be that dark smudge floating high up in the sky? I never looked for it there – I could hardly believe my eyes and I had to wait until the familiar chalk cliffs assured me that this dark stain was actually substantial and moreover was the land of my birth...

'We... finally spiralled down and landed, with the gentleness that denoted a master hand, on Manston Aerodrome - one hour and twenty minutes after leaving St-Omer. Half an hour later I walked into Flo's room and was introduced to a very minute infant – I need hardly say my unexpected arrival was a very complete surprise for everyone.'

I find this as strange and enchanting as anything in a fairy-tale. If Ingram had described arriving home on a magic carpet, the effect could hardly be more magical. Oh – and Ingram's drawings, which fill the manuscript, are exquisite and enchanting too.

Saturday 6 January 2007. They are 'immediately evocative', 'wonderful things' which 'pull in a modern reader with force'. I'm talking about diaries, of course - or rather, Irving Finkel is. And that's just how he started his talk on BBC Radio 3 tonight. He went on to describe diaries – all diaries – as being 'of unique significance' and 'priceless. We must take the highest view of diaries as historical source material.'

I've quoted Dr Finkel so many times on this website that I'm wary of doing so again - but tonight he was so eloquent and passionate that I can't resist it. What I love in particular is his completely unsnobbish, all-inclusive approach. 'All diaries have certain qualities that make their status as human documents unique,' he said. 'The very mechanics of a diary mean that the writer becomes a primary witness to history... Any human document that can survive to be read over in say 200 years' time will possess an enduring fascination and unanticipated interest.'

At the end of his talk, I almost expected him to issue a direct appeal - 'Please send your unwanted diaries to me, Dr Irving Finkel, care of the British Museum...' – but in fact I think he was looking further than that. It's not just diaries he wants, but somewhere to store them: and that, I think, was the true purpose of tonight's appeal.

Monday 18 December 2006. I've had a series of charming (but poignant) emails from a correspondent called Anne Falloon, who came across the diaries of Rafe Neville Leycester on this website's 'Online Diaries' page, and decided to do some research.

'I'm sorry to say,' she writes, 'that he died in Kensington in 1883, aged 40. I imagine he must be your Rafe. There is also a census retun for a Rafe Neville Leycester in 1861 for a house in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, with a sister, Isabel, mentioned i.e. as in the diary.'

Anne goes on to say that, according to the 1881 census, a Rafe Leycester (born in Valletta, Malta) was living with his parents – clearly still single – in Cookham. A year later, though, Rafe's mother Harriet died, and his father (Edmond Mortimer) remarried in June 1883. 'Could the loss and the change to Rafe's home life have triggered his early death?' Anne speculates. Whatever the case, 'it looks like he never married. Sad. ...'

Thursday 7 December. I’ve been exploring a great new website called the Diary Junction, run by a writer called Paul K. Lyons (or ‘Pikle’, apparently). At first I couldn’t remember the web address, so I did a google search using the terms ‘the diary junction pikle’, and up it came, top of the list.

No surprises there ... but what interested me was that pretty well all the other results referred to individual diarists who are featured on the site. So could this be seen as an international league table of diarists? Here’s the top ten, in reverse order: Robert Falcon Scott, Paul Klee, Mina Benson Hubbard, Hugh Casson, Maria Nugent, Count Galeazzo Ciano, John Evelyn, Matsuo Basho, Lawrence Durrell and, topping the list, the Japanese diarist Ki no Tsurayuki.

Two explorers – an Italian fascist executed for treason – an artist and an architect – a woman who died under the wheels of a train – men and women, and a man pretending to be a woman ... I’m not sure that the list should be seen as real evidence of one diarist’s pre-eminence over another, but the variety of the diarists alone – spanning a thousand years, from three different continents – goes some way to explaining why this is such a fascinating literary form.

Thursday 16 November. I've just finished putting together the latest issue of 'The Oxford Writer', and the showpiece is a wonderful article in which historian Ian Cotton explains why he's so interested in diaries. 'One of the first diaries I read was that of a friend of mine,' he writes. 'I stumbled on it by mistake, and opened it, not realising what it was. Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw the words "Ian Cotton", and then, reading on, saw them attached to that further attention-arresting phrase, "that bastard".'

Ian could have reacted in any number of ways; but he decided to adjust his behaviour – 'and, from that day forth, began niceing my friend mercilessly. Checking back, as I did, in his diary later, I found I'd rung the bell. Ian Cotton had become "this great guy, really nice to me". And so the entries went on. To this day, I swear, the schoolfellow concerned will never know what caused this turnaround. Never, that is, unless he should happen to read this.'

Friday 3 November. There are many remarkable things about the diary of the organist Elizabeth Campbell, which is currently being transcribed by filmmaker Rob Cox for possible publication. Not the least surprising thing is that she was an Australian, whose first words on docking at Plymouth were 'Oh England, England! How I Love You!'

What's more, this love-affair continued, even in the depths of a London winter. Here's one of my favourite entries, from 1 December 1933:

'I have never seen anything more enchanting than Marble Arch in the evening from Hyde Park. The blaze of lights from the new Cumberland Hotel (which is flood lit) & all the shops & hotels on that corner, seen through the leafless trees in the Park & the buses & cars looked like some gigantic millionaire’s dream city in the clouds. The tracery of leafless trees against the sheen of the Serpentine & the lights surrounding the lake & the darkness of trees against the less dark sky was a scene any poet could have gone into raptures over. As I was gazing at this glorious scene & thinking, as I have thought a thousand times, “how glorious London is” two white swans floated past the light nearest me and disappeared into the shadows.'

Friday 13 October. Irving Finkel told me that he would be on 'You and Yours' on Radio 4 today, talking about diaries with Tony Benn and archivist Dorothy Sheridan and blogger Catherine Sanderson, so I tuned in. The discussion was meant to be about the National Trust's forthcoming mass diary-writing event, but Irving had told me he would try and promote his idea for a National Diary Repository, and it was amazing how he managed to turn round the whole discussion!

He started off by saying that he doesn't collect diaries – he rescues them, because he's discovered ('by all sorts of misery stories') that most diaries ultimately get destroyed: 'There's no provision for them in the will, people think they're private, they're secret, and on the whole they get skipped and burnt. And what I would like to do is to find somewhere where they can be rescued , perhaps an underground station which nobody wants any longer, and where we can just open the door, and throw in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of diaries until it's full, and then lock it, and in 200 years' time some person will think it's an absolute goldmine!'

Tony Benn called the idea 'very interesting', and further declared that 'every life is interesting ... The theory that only important people are interesting is a load of absolute rubbish.'

Tuesday 10 October. I've just received an email which I almost deleted as spam because it had such an improbable header: 'WHAT A MARVELLOUS WEBSITE!!'

It turned out to be from a South African diarist, talking about diary-keeping and her love of Francis Kilvert. Kilvert is a favourite of mine too, so here's what he wrote on this day, 10 October 1870:

'Here come a fresh drove of men from the fair, half tipsy, ... all talking at once loud fast and angry,humming and buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. Their blood is on fire. It is like a gunpowder magazine. There will be an explosion in a minute. It only wants one word, a spark. Here it is. Someone had said something. A sudden blaze of passion, a retort, a word and a blow, a rush, a scuffle, a Babel of voices, a tumult, the furious voices of the combatants rising high and furious above the din.. ... Tonight I think many are sore, angry and desperate about their misfortunes and prospects ...'

I find this as vivid and real as virtually anything I've ever read - and there's more of it, on almost every page of Kilvert's diaries.

Tuesday 26 September. I got a call this morning from Dr Irving Finkel of the British Museum, about his idea for a national diary repository which we're both very keen to see established. He's already started amassing a collection of manuscript diaries, and he's eager to receive more, especially if that would mean saving them from destruction. But he can't do it without a great deal more help than I'm able to provide. And we need a proper, carefully thought-out plan. 'Put something on your website,' Irving told me. 'Perhaps that'll spark off some interest.' I wish it could!

Sunday 24 September. When I receive a well written manuscript which I feel personally unable to market, my advice is usually the same: 'If you've already identified a market for this book, why don't you publish it yourself?' And it's always rewarding to be contacted again, months or perhaps years later, by someone who has successfully done just that. Like today, when I got an email from Kimberly Bright to say that her book Chris Spedding: Reluctant Guitar Hero – the first ever biography of this 'A-list session guitarist, pop star, producer, arranger, and songwriter' – is due out this autumn.

I once thought that if I was going to publish the book, I'd have to give it a stupid title like Rock 'n' Roll Womble (a reference to one of Chris Spedding's less street-cred incarnations) – so I'm really pleased that she's managed to bring it out on her own terms. Go to http://www.quaintrealist.com and check it out.

Friday 22 September. To the Alden Press in Witney, for the official opening of their new printing house by David Cameron MP. I got talking to another publisher, who told me of a short-run book that he had recently brought out. The text had been printed digitally, but he said he'd had to print the colour plates by traditional methods, because 'It'll be five years before the technology has progressed enough to let us print high-quality colour illustrations digitally.' Barely twenty minutes later, on our tour of the factory, we were shown a new digital machine which can print in full colour, with results that are indistinguishable from expensive traditional reproductions.

Oh yes — and I dropped off the disks of Alan Fraser's new book Zoot at the same time.

Monday 11 September. One of the nice things about publishing Janie Hampton's new book – Letters from Aldeburgh – is the way that it has brought me back in contact with traditional bookshops all around the country ... booksellers who call me up direct and ask for copies of the book, ten, twenty and thirty at a time. They know they'll be able to sell it, whether a customer has specifically asked for it or not - but still the speed at which it's flying off the shelves has surprised everyone.

Wednesday 6 September. Received two letters today, from two authors with a 76-year difference between their ages: a 92-year-old Scottish travel writer, and a first-time novelist aged just 16.

The 92-year-old was writing to thank me for my 'delightfully long and helpful letter', which humbled me a bit, since it was essentially a rejection letter that I'd sent her.

I wonder if the 16-year-old novelist will still be writing when she's 92? I hope so. Publishers need writers more than writers need us; so we should always remember to value them and treat them with respect, whether or not we're able to publish their work.

Thursday 31 August. To the design studios with Alan Fraser to do a page layout for his new book Zoot. On the way I asked him about his influences and he mentioned two names, the writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and the jazz musician Charlie Parker. What impresses him in particular is the enduring influence of their work – and he said that although people don't listen to Charlie Parker much these days, you can still hear his music in the playing of practically every modern saxophonist.

Tuesday 11 July. To Oxford for the launch of our latest book Will I Still Be Me?—Diana Sanders’ account of the events surrounding her life-or-death decision to undergo a heart and lung transplant. The great surgeon Sir Terence English delivered a brilliant and generous address. It was quite moving to find myself flanked on one side by this pioneering scientist, and on the other by living proof of his miraculous achievements.

Monday 26 June. Janie Hampton rang, thrilled with how well her latest Joyce Grenfell collection has been received. She has just returned from Aldeburgh, where the book is literally the talk of the town!

Saturday 10 June. Received a charming card from possibly the greatest living poet, the Australian Les Murray, commenting on Fred Russell’s book Tongue Pie. Les Murray had picked up on the fact that Fred Russell has always felt impelled to write, in defiance of his father’s instinctive distrust of the arts. ‘I’ve come across that deep class resentment of art Mr Russell’s dad evinced,’ Les Murray wrote. ‘Alas, I mostly meet with it in faculties of Arts and in schools, these days. I mean among the teachers!’

Friday 26 May. Received a proposal today for a book entitled Living with Diabetes, from a woman in Detroit. I’m always sympathetic to people who offer serious work, but in this instance – as so often – I didn’t feel that the author had taken sufficient notice of the kind of book we publish. Nor had she considered whether we were best placed to find a readership.
So I wrote back, asking her if she had a clear idea of the kind of reader she wanted to reach – and then to think hard about the best way of reaching those readers. Had she tried posting material on the internet, for instance? Or getting feedback by writing for specialist and/or local periodicals? Or printing up a short digital run of her book, and selling it direct?

In the old days, publishers had a disproportionate amount of power. Today, a writer who knows his or her readership – and how best to reach it – has more power than ever before.

Thursday 11 May. To Ascott-under-Wychwood to drop off some copies of Tongue Pie at Fred’s. He immediately bundled them into a black binliner, which is the way he treats everything of his – just as he’ll take great pains with a sketch of his, and then fold it up and stick it in his back pocket. Perhaps it’s the sign of a genuine creative spirit – what matters to him is the act of drawing, or writing, rather than having anything tangible to show for it afterwards. I think children are like that too.

Wednesday 1st February. To Greek Street for Hana Pravda’s surprise birthday party in a little private room above a place called the Gay Hussar. Hana had been expecting to have a family dinner, and hadn’t known till the very last minute that so many of her friends would be coming to pay tribute to her. Her three granddaughters were there – and her grandson, who’d flown in from the US – and various friends from her long career, including Tom Conti, who was clearly the guest of honour as far as Mrs Pravda was concerned. But tonight she was the star. What an amazing life she’s had – and how amazing that she was there – still.

Sunday 1 January 2006. I received a lovely email from Francis Bennion – an old friend of my uncle's – telling me that he had recently made the following entry in his diary: 'Finish the Peerless book... He was a Brighton timber merchant and the book consists of the diaries he kept of his annual holidays ranging from 1891 (Southsea and Ryde) to Bath (1920). He regarded each of these as a "brief jolly change" from his humdrum working life. I did not expect much, and was surprised by their high quality. Peerless comes over as a hearty, energetic, uninhibited character nearly as artless as Mr Pooter. This means that the book gives a remarkably fresh flavour of that period in England.'

I love the idea of Mr Bennion recording his impressions of the Peerless diary in his own journal – and then telling me about it, so that I can put it in my diary!