Philippa Stockley, novelist
This is Philippa Stockley, novelist and painter, who lives in an old house at the back of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel with her cat Battie, named after the famous Dr Battie that once lived nearby and treated patients with mental illness (renowned also for his bat like ears), who became the origin of the colloquial term “battie” for insane.
I offer you this diverting story of Dr Battie as a single example of the myriad pieces of unlikely and intriguing information that garnish Philippa’s astoundingly articulate conversational style, making it quite an adventure even to sit down for a chat with her. She has that rare gift of confiding such informed observations of the world, couched with a particular elegant levity, that it makes you feel very intelligent simply to be the recipient of her insights and in turn you strive to match this eloquence, in order to return the compliment, which results in a conversation with as many swift twists and turns as the tango music that was playing on her stereo when I arrived. The dialogue was advancing at a break-neck pace, until Battie jumped onto the table next to Philippa’s chair which was the cue for her to engage in a nose-rubbing battle with her cat, allowing me time to collect my thoughts, being unused to such sharp company.
I shall never be able to establish whether Philippa Stockley always wears a glamorous dress and a silk shawl in the afternoon, which is surely the prerogative of a novelist, or whether this dazzling outfit was for my benefit, but I was certainly impressed to step from the dusty street and follow the trail of her perfume into the parlour where I took her portrait. There was something familiar about the pose she assumed, the décolletage and the satin drape. “Who was that seventeenth century painter who painted ladies in silks?” I asked rhetorically, to distract her as I composed the picture,“Lely,” she replied without pause for thought or even having to search.
Like many smart women, Philippa Stockley wears her intelligence lightly and describes her achievements in the context of her shortcomings. Having revealed that she wrote her first novel, “The Edge of Pleasure,” in two weeks, writing two thousand words a day – six thousands words some days – to complete it in sixteen days and selling it the week after, she then qualified the story by informing me that she could not drive, swim or run. I think we can overlook these deficiencies in the roll call of Ms Stockley’s accomplishments, because I have no doubt that there are always plenty of volunteers eager to drive the charming novelist wherever she pleases to go, also available to dive in and rescue her if she were drowning, and equally delighted to run that vital errand on her behalf whenever it should be required.
“I was so excited.” she enthused, “Those two weeks were the best two weeks of my life because I had no idea what I was going to write about. I didn’t know my characters’ names and I couldn’t believe how they just walked into my pages fully dressed. I wondered what they were going to do next. Once the story began I couldn’t stop it.” In retrospect, Philippa Stockley treasures the experience of her first novel because it was something that could not be replicated, “So you think this is easy, but then you discover it’s hard. Your heart tells you, you can do it, but your brain insists you cannot. The next one took two years but I was also working full-time and I never took a day off. I wrote every evening, every weekend and through Christmas.”
After a degree in English at Oxford, Philippa Stockley studied at the Courtauld Institute where she wrote a thesis upon costume in the novels of Fielding and Defoe which gave her an introduction to the background of her second novel, “The Factory of Cunning.” It was envisaged as the sequel to “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” which Laclos had intended to write but never got the chance. Philippa read texts of the period for a year before launching into an elaborately plotted drama that brings the Marquise de Merteil (who escapes at the end of Laclos’ novel) to England where she adopts the name Mrs Fox, using her wit and ingenuity to forge a new life exploiting the debauchery, romance, intrigue and avarice that comprised eighteenth century London.“I had this character Mrs Fox and I couldn’t write fast enough to keep up with her story,” recalled Philippa fondly.
She turned down a three book contract when her first novel was published and has never accepted commissions, preferring to pursue her writing on her own terms, which is a rare course of action when most people who would be eager to accept the money. Instead, she has remained true to the capricious art of novel-writing, chosing to put the manuscript of her third novel in a drawer for over a year because she was dissatisfied.“I think I spliced a truck onto the back of a bus,” she explained bluntly, “I am going to reread it and rewrite the second half.”
At this point in our conversation, Philippa poured herself a generous glass of sherry and produced a box of chocolate mint wafers to bolster her spirits, as we made our way into the garden in hopes of a fleeting pool of sunshine cast beneath the April sky and she revealed that this was only the second interview she had ever given. I feared I had stirred up such a multitude of thoughts, asking her to account for her writing, that I left her now with her head spinning. Fulfilling his role as a writer’s pet magnificently, Battie gambolled on the lawn to provide respite.
We talked about Dickens and his extraordinarily tenacious ability to pursue a narrative without looking back. “All roads lead somewhere,” said Philippa, in unquestionable confident summation. The tantalising paradox is that writers set puzzles for themselves to solve, acting in blind faith that there is a solution, knowing that they alone can find it and then setting out to write their way there. “It sounds mysterious but really there is no mystery,” Philippa declared brightly, trying hard to persuade herself, as she sipped her sherry in the sunshine, her red hair glowing with light and her pale hands turning blue with cold.
Alexander Hartog, Tenor & Mantle Presser
Clive Murphy put a small acetate on his turntable on Saturday morning and we settled down together to enjoy the crackly recording of Alexander Hartog singing. He had not heard it since 1978 when Clive’s book edited from interviews with Hartog,”Born to Sing,” was published. At first, we could not even get the record to play because it was such a flimsy piece of plastic, but eventually we used sellotape to fix it in place on the turntable and, once we had experimented with the speed, Hartog’s sonorous tones filled Clive’s kitchen.
Alexander Hartog died in 1983 and when Dobson Books (the original publisher) closed down, all the other recordings of Hartog were lost for ever, making this unique recording especially significant. So you will understand that it was powerful moment for Clive, as well as being the ideal opportunity to remember the remarkable life of this gifted singer. “It’s almost as if he were here,” said Clive, when the disc began to play, recalling the original studio recording session.
Clive Murphy moved to Spitalfields in 1973 to search for subjects for his oral history project, living at first in the former headmaster’s study of St Patrick’s School in Buxton St, and dining at Georgina’s Cafe in Brick Lane. “I ate there regularly and there was this very loud talker, always arguing, always debating. So I invited him immediately to do a book. He was frightfully keen, he’d come down Buxton St almost dancing on his way to the interview.” recalled Clive in delight, uplifted by the rich operatic tones of Hartog singing.
Alexander Hartog earned his living pressing clothes in the garment industry, but his being was focussed upon fulfilling his musical talent as a tenor. In “Born to Sing,” he gives an engaging and candid account of growing up in the Jewish community in the nineteen twenties and of his lifelong pursuit of a singing career.
“The feeling I had – and it didn’t go away throughout my youth – was that the Lane (Petticoat Lane) was a carnival. There was a man who sold ointment to cure corns. He didn’t have any corns himself but he’d put some ointment on the side of his hand and say if you wrapped it in a bandage you could peel off the corns like the skin of an onion in the morning. People bought and nobody came back. Another man sold what he said was extract of Spanish fly – ‘Don’t give it to minors! It’ll make them into men and women before they leave school!’ He had – as a come-on – a strong-man with a heap of rubber expander-sets he was forever threatening to pull but never did. I’ve got an idea they were related!
An old Jamaican woman had a birdcage with a canary in it and hundreds of little printed pink strips. She’d ask what month you were born, then tap her stick on the perch and the bird would pick up a pink slip and that was yours for a penny. I found out that I was going to be married three times and have seven children, I want my money back.
A very plausible Welshman with a good speaking voice did a mind-reading act. He bandaged a girl’s eyes and asked her questions about people he pointed to. He pointed to me and asked me did I want to ask her anything. Very quietly I asked him to ask her would I succeed in my ambition. She said, ‘No,’ and that came true.”
In the nineteen thirties, Alexander Hartog took singing lessons five days a week at the Toynbee Hall in Commercial St with Robert Kent Parker who was both an inspiring teacher and an anti-Semite, yet Hartog adopted a philosophical attitude, taking what he needed from these lessons. Conscripted in World War II, he encountered similar prejudice and was discharged for “lack of moral fibre” but never became cynical or discouraged, and it is his resilience and optimistic nature that make his story such a charismatic read.
“I heard Music Hall choruses, popular songs … I was entranced. It was my first taste of Show Business. It was my first Variety Show. I went every night for a whole week! They used to greet me at the door. ‘Hello! That boy’s here again!’ But I had to pay a penny every time! The next show I saw was the last season of the London Music Hall, Shoreditch. My brother Alan took me. I laughed at Max Miller’s jokes though I was only four!
Tonight was my turn to be on a Variety Bill of some importance. And what an evening it was! My voice was at full blast, and they used to say at the Mile End Old Boys’ you could get up off your seat, walk out of the hall, out of the building, across the road and fifty yards down to the bus stop and still hear me. When they stood up to applaud at the Troxy you knew you’d done something. It never seemed to end. They’d to bring on the pop group to quieten everyone down. A stagehand gave me the thumbs-up. He’d heard me from the flies. He said, ‘I always like to hear from the flies. If they’re good they’re good, and if they’re bad they’re terrible, and you were good, kid!'”
I was fascinated by Alexander Hartog’s eye-witness account of the shabby world of the last days of Music Hall and Variety, seen from the sidelines by an affectionate stage-struck enthusiast – a true amateur (in the complimentary sense of that word). His dream of a musical career granted him a sense of artistic possibility and drew the applause of audiences who appreciated his gift. “I have no regrets because, although I didn’t make a success of it, I enjoyed the company, the excitement and the endeavour. Even the disappointments make life interesting.” concluded Hartog, with endearing candour,” There was always hope and something to keep me going over long and sometimes dreary weeks of work. There was always the pleasure of anticipation.”
Thanks to Clive Murphy, Alexander Hartog’s story exists in print for all to read and his voice lives on in this tantalizingly brief recording – both are touching evocations of a robust and generous spirit. “Born to Sing” was the epitaph upon Hartog’s tombstone at Rainham and, as a firm believer in reincarnation, ever true to his undaunted nature, he ended his book with the wish, “Better luck the next time around!”
“Born to Sing” Clive Murphy’s oral autobiography of Alexander Hartog can bought at Labour and Wait.
Columbia Road Market 31
My neighbours came round to help me polish off a bottle of rum last night and we sat in the garden until late before retreating inside to enjoy the fire. Consequently, with rum still coursing through my veins, the perfection of this Spring morning acquired a surreal clarity that was further emphasised by the beauty of the crystalline sky, unsullied by a single jet trail. The eruption of the volcano in Iceland has permitted a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the London sky before the age of the aeroplane and although I was never particularly aware of their sound, the absence of this background noise has engendered a powerful eerie silence in the early morning streets of Spitalfields.
I should have got up earlier though, because Columbia Rd was crammed with excited customers when I arrived, including some wide-eyed folks still dressed in their finery who had come straight from the nightclub to the flower market. Another neighbour asked me to get him a Rhododendron and Foxgloves, so I bought him this sturdy red Rhododendron for £10 and five Foxgloves for £8. For myself I bought an unusual Periwinkle (Vinca Minor Azurea Flore Pleno) for £4, in a delicate blue with fine double petals, to plant in a shadowy dry corner of my garden, where even Hellebores and Bugle have not made an impact. If it thrives, it can remind me in years to come of these rare silent skies of April 2010.
Dan Jones, Rhyme Collector
This is the amiable Dan Jones who has lived down in Cable St since 1967 and has made it his business to collect children’s rhymes, both here and all over the world since 1948. Dan has many hundreds in transcripts and recordings that are slowly yet inevitably converging into a book of around a thousand rhymes that he has been working on for some years entitled “The Singing Playground” which will be his magnum opus. He explained that the litany of classic nursery rhymes which adults teach children have barely altered since James Halliwell’s collection” The Nursery Rhymes of England” of 1840, when they were already old. In contrast, the rhymes composed and passed on by children are constantly changing and it is these that form the mass of Dan’s study.
When you enter the bright red front door of his house in Cable St, you can barely get through the passage because of a huge mural painted by Dan of the playground of St Paul’s School, Wellclose Sq, that is about ten feet tall and twenty feet long. Painted on wooden panels, it is suspended from the wall and jutting forward, which puts you directly at the eye level of many of the children in the painting and, thus confronted, you see that all the figures are surrounded by rhymes. The effect is magical and one name comes into your mind, the name is “Breughel.”
As well as collecting rhymes, Dan is a painter who creates affectionately observed murals of children in school playgrounds, all painted in rich natural hues and with such levity and appreciation for the exuberant idiosyncrasy of childhood that I was immediately beguiled. I have always loved the joyful sound of the children playing in the school playground that I can hear from my house, but Dan has found a method to explore and celebrate the specific quality of this intriguing secret world through his scholarship and paintings.
Once you get past the mural, you find yourself in the parlour lined with more paintings and some even protruding from behind the row of comfortable armchairs, arranged in a horseshoe, like an old-fashioned doctor’s surgery, indicating that Dan lives a very sociable existence – and that this room has been the location for innumerable happy gatherings over the last forty years he and his wife Denise have lived here. There are bookshelves brimming over with all manner of books devoted to art and social history, and children’s books on the coffee table for the amusement of Dan’s grandchildren who wander in and out as we are talking.
Rhymes spill out of Dan Jones endlessly and I could have sat all day hearing the fascinating stories of the origins of familiar examples and all their remarkable different versions over time and in different languages. Dan has a paradoxical quality of seeming both young and old at the same time. While displaying a fine white beard and resembling a patriarch in a painting by William Blake, he also possesses the gentle nature and spontaneous enthusiasm of youth. I can understand why children choose to line up in the playground to tell Dan their rhymes, as they do when he arrives in schools, and why old people too, when Dan puts on them on the spot asking “What rhymes do you remember from your youth?”, would summon whole canons of verse from the depths of their memories for him.
The heartening news from the playground that Dan has to report is that the culture of rhymes is alive and kicking, in spite of the multimedia distractions of the modern age. The endless process of repetition and reinvention goes on with ceaseless vigour. Most rhymes accompany action and melody, which means that while the words may change, other elements – especially the melodies – can remain constant over centuries or across continents in different languages and cultures, tracing the historical movements of peoples.
Perhaps the most astounding example Dan gave me was Ching, chang, choller (paper, scissors and stone), a game used to select a random winner or loser, which is depicted in the tomb of Pharoah Akhoron four thousand years ago and of which there are versions recorded in Ancient Rome, China, Japan, Mongolia, Chile, Korea,Hungary, Sweden, Italy, France and USA – Dan recorded it being played at Columbia Road Primary School. By contrast, I was especially delighted to Learn that “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was written by Jane and Ann Taylor in Islington in 1806 and to discover the Bengali version recently recorded by Dan at Bangabandhu School in Bethnal Green. “Chichmic chicmic koray/ Aka shetay tara/ Dolte deco akha chete/ Masto boro hera/ Chichmic chichmic koray/Aka shetay tara.”
Sometimes, there is a plangent history to a rhyme, of which the children who sing it are innocent. Dan has traced the path of stone-passing games that were carried by slave children in the eighteenth century from West Africa to the Caribbean and then, two centuries later, brought to London by immigrants from the West Indies. Meanwhile, new rhymes constantly arise, as Dan explained, “Some burst forth just in one particular school playground to blossom like a spring flower for a few weeks and then vanish completely.”
Living in Spitalfields, surrounded by old buildings and layers of history, I am always fascinated to consider who has been here before. You have read the tales of the past I have collected from old people, but Dan’s work reveals an awe-inspiring historical continuum of much greater age. There is a compelling poetry to the notion that the oldest thing here could be the elusive and apparently ephemeral games and rhymes that the children are playing in the playground. I love the idea that these joyful rhymes which are mostly carried and passed on by girls between the ages of eight and twelve – marginal to the formal culture of society – have survived, outliving everything else, wars and migration of people notwithstanding.
If you click here you can go to a vast interactive painting by Dan commissioned by The Museum of Childhood entitled “The Singing Playground” where you can to listen to recordings he made of all the different rhymes in the picture.
Dan’s wife Denise and his children, Davey, Polly and Sam walk in the foreground of his painting of Christ Church School, Brick Lane in 1982, as reproduced in “Inky, Pinky, Ponky”, a book of playground rhymes.
The Coriander Club, Lutfun Hussain
Yesterday, I returned to the Spitalfields City Farm, where I bought the wonderful spinach & eggs recently, to meet Lutfun Hussain and hear about her gardening and cookery club that she founded for Bengali women in 2000. We met in the polytunnel where Lutfun proudly showed me all the seedlings that she has grown from seed that she planted last autumn, and which will shortly be planted outside in the raised growing beds, to replace the winter vegetables that are ready to eat now. At every season of the year, there is activity here as the current crop is nurtured and harvested, while always the next crop is underway, ready to take its place, creating a supply of fresh vegetables all year round.
We took advantage of the sunshine to sit outside together by the fountain among the beds, where an impressive display of garlic was ready for picking, and Lutfun explained how it all began. Growing up in Bangladesh, Lutfun’s father grew fields of rice on their farm and she was always surrounded by the culture of growing vegetables. Then in 1969, when he married, she came to East London to an alien climate where no-one grew the traditional Bengali vegetables. Fortunately, there was a large garden and Lutfun made her own experiments but the first year her vegetables were killed by the frost. The next year she had some success, though the following year all her vegetables died again. But Lutfun persevered, and over many years she discovered which vegetables suited the climate and when you could plant them. “I tried and tried because I love gardening – when you are successful and even when you are not, you learn something.” she confirmed, revealing her tenaciously positive disposition.
Lutfun first came to the city farm as a volunteer, applying the knowledge she had acquired through her own experiments. “At that time, there were not many people planting Bengali vegetables, but slowly, slowly, people came to see the garden and then the community started to join and the club began.” explained Lutfun, who was appointed first as an Ethnic Minority Support Worker, then as a Horticultural Worker/Co-ordinator and finally as a Healthy Living Co-ordinator – which amounts to a lot of bureaucratic jargon for teaching the noble art of growing vegetables, that is Lutfun’s gift.
Today, The Coriander Club serves a vital function for Bengali women, some of whom only speak Bengali and do not have other opportunities to the leave the house. In isolation, they can experience loneliness and home-sickness but the club provides a regular opportunity to socialise with other women, learning to grow vegetables and how to cook them too. Each Monday, there is a pick and cook session, encouraging healthy eating, Tuesday and Thursday are gardening days for women at the farm and Wednesday is mixed, when all are welcome.
Lutfun is especially proud of growing Kodu or Bottle Gourd which is the pièce de résistance of all the vegetables grown by The Coriander Club – each August, the polytunnels at the city farm are hung with a phenomenal display of the hugest Kodus you could ever see. The plants grow on nets, so that the vegetables hang down, each suspended by elaborate contraptions of string bags that support their weight. In fact, thanks to Lutfun’s influence, you see these monster veg everywhere throughout Spitalfields each Summer, and I photographed some last year.
These eye-catching vegetables are symbols of the success of Lutfun’s experiments year ago, which have proved so influential through The Coriander Club, that Spitalfields has become remarkable for the large number of beautiful flourishing vegetable gardens, which embellish unlikely corners of the neighbourhood each Summer and introduce a welcome verdant influence upon our inner-city quarter. With glistening eyes of excitement, Lutfun revealed that she understands the exact science of the pollination of the Kodus, which possesses male and female flowers and has to be pollinated manually at the correct moment in the growth cycle. As a consequence, large coach parties now come regularly from Croydon, Birmingham and Manchester, of Bengali gardeners eager to learn the trick from Lutfun, so they can return to extend the spread of these extraordinary vegetables nationwide.
“People can come to volunteer, to learn how to grow and how to cook. Anyone can come and see.” Lutfun told me, extending an invitation to readers and indicating that vegetables are available to buy, “This is an educational garden, not a shop – but we do sell a little bit, we use a few in our cookery lessons and we give some to our members.”
It was a pleasure to meet an ardent and natural gardener with such a strong instinct for plants. As we walked around, Lutfun kept touching, stroking and caressing leaves, caring for her seedlings. As we approached each tray and or plot of vegetables, a different emotion passed like a cloud across Lutfun’s face as she willed them into growth. There was an atmosphere of pervasive calm in the vegetable garden, as the women worked quietly, repotting their seedlings and weeding the raised beds to the accompaniment of the fountain dancing in the background, and I could happily have stayed all day to share the consolation of growing vegetables in this sympathetic enclave.
Lutfun told me she grows pots of rice so that children who eat rice every day, but who have never seen a field of rice in their lives – as she did everyday when she was growing up in Bangladesh – can see a plant and understand the origin of a staple food. In passing, with a smile, she gestured to indicate displaying the rice plant to children and, in her simplest action, I could see it exactly.
Over the Summer, I plan some return visits to The Coriander Club to discover how this year’s crop of vegetables is progressing, but in the meantime copies of their cookery book are available from the Spitalfields City Farm.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Spitalfields Antiques Market 4
This elegant lady is Ali Wollen who gave up teaching twenty-one years ago when she went “a little loopy” and bought a place in a remote corner of Brittany where she is a peasant farmer for part of each year. As a consequence, everything on Ali’s colourful stall is French, and trading gives her the perfect excuse to hop across the channel and mow the grass and prune her trees, every time she requires more stock. Ali specialises in religious artifacts, lighting, hooks, kitchenware, ceramics and taxidermy including the rare albino cobra you see in the picture. “I do appreciate the social life of the market because it can be a bit solitary in France, where the nearest village is over a mile way.” revealed Ali with a shy grin.
This is Jo and Richard Waterhouse, proud father and daughter. It is Jo’s stall but, “He’s my encourager,” she explained, turning round to show the patch on her sweater than her father darned expertly for her. Jo began trading a few years ago in Totnes, where she supported herself through Dartington Hall by a stall in the Butterwalk Market. I was particularly attracted by Jo’s stock of unused vintage bicycle bells at just £3 each. Father and daughter had driven up for the day from Arlesey in Bedfordshire, “well known for its cement works, mental hospital and artificial limb factory”, apparently.
This is the adorable Beverley Barnett, a former jewellery designer who has diversified into collectables to get into the markets where she wanted to be and is now seen at Covent Garden, Portobello and Spitalfields, specialising in mid-twentieth century glass and ceramics. “I have been knocked back since my brother died but I have got things moving again.” Beverley confessed, opening her heart to me and sharing her enthusiasm, “I love the market, it’s tough and challenging but fun, and the best buzz of the day is when you are packing up and suddenly get a good sale at the end of the afternoon.” Be advised, if anyone is seeking a Scandanavian glass bowl for fruit salad this Summer, Beverley has several nice ones to choose from.
This is Catherine Martin, a passionate traveller, artist, and collector who is selling some of the extraordinary charismatic spoils of her exotic journeys, including beaded work from Cameroon, beaded skulls by the Huichol people and nineteen fifties wrestlers’ head moneyboxes from Mexico, German flour sacks, American money bags and false teeth from Morocco. This is only Catherine’s second week in Spitalfields Market but already her stall is drawing a lot of attention.“Anatomy is increasingly popular as people are becoming more interested in the mechanics of the body,” explained Catherine, with a lighthearted smile, raising an eyebrow and gesturing towards the famous collection of false teeth.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Vote for Nina Bawden!
I took this photograph of Nina Bawden’s copy of the first edition of her novel “The Birds on the Trees”, sitting on the green velvet armchair in her quiet study at the back of the old terrace where she lives next to the canal in Islington. Several weeks ago, I wrote a pen portrait of Nina Bawden to celebrate her nomination for The Lost Booker Prize of 1970 and now I am delighted to report that she has been shortlisted for the award, which will be decided by an online public vote closing at the end of this month.
The author of over forty novels for both adults and children including the classic children’s book “Carrie’s War,” Nina Bawden has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize in the past but has not won, yet. This week, circumstances conspired to make it imperative to read “The Birds on the Trees,” which has just been reprinted by Virago, and I was grateful for the excuse to stop everything, sit down in a quiet corner, open a copy and write you a report.
“She had always been the same, seen people as objects to be manipulated; her husband, her family, all grist to her mill in one way or another. That first book – oh, we were all disguised up to a point, she took the trouble to change our names, but it was a shameful thing, all those wicked lies set down for all to see! That young woman, having an affair with her husband’s best friend, all that hopping in and out of bed and no one knowing which child belonged to whom! And these were supposed to be good people, let me say, not cheats and liars! ‘All I can say is,’ I said to her, ‘I hope your children never read this book!'”
There is a vivid eloquence to Nina Bawden’s prose style. She writes such beautiful sentences and in “The Birds on the Trees,” they draw you in at once to the web of stories woven around her central narrative of a family accommodating to their wayward son Toby, who rejects their aspirations for him. Maggie and Charlie, a novelist and a journalist, are of the first generation after World War II who achieved professional success, exceeding their parents, and now are baffled to discover in the nineteen sixties that their teenage son does not share their ambitions and values. They cannot understand why he grows his hair long and does not want to go up to Oxford.
The crisis created by Toby’s expulsion from school for possessing drugs forms the substance of the novel but I do not think it is the subject. The narrative of the repercussions of his mild long-haired rebellion is consistently interrupted by interior monologues, revealing discord spanning three generations of the same family. In each case, we are party to the mind talking to itself. The characters recount their stories, both as a means to understand who they are and in order to persuade themselves of the veracity of their own point of view – attempting to make the elusive nature of their experience more concrete. As these stories accumulate, their emotional import grows and deepens, but I could not say who was living in the real world.
Yet there is a luminous beauty to this writing, that is full of acute personal detail, attempting to trace an intricate and diaphanous web of self-deceits and justifications. Nina observes the tragically comic self-consciousness of the liberal intellectual bourgeoisie with sympathy and humour, and without ever allowing herself to be wiser than her characters. The simple irony is that the one with the strongest grasp of reality, who uses words for their real value, is Toby, the boy being taken for psychoanalysis. It becomes apparent to the reader that Toby’s situation is some kind of judgement upon everyone else, and it does not permit you to read dispassionately. This is the question the book asks, and it is the same puzzle that obsesses the characters too.
I cannot detach the novel from the story of Nina’s own family and her son Niki who experienced mental illness and problems with drug addiction in adolescence, taking his own life in 1982 at the age of thirty-four, twelve years after “The Birds on the Trees” was published. The most extraordinary sequence in the book to me, is when Maggie’s best friend calls to break the news that Toby is a heroin addict. After the phone call, in one of the most emotionally naked pieces of prose writing I can recall, Maggie walks into the boy’s empty bedroom and sits alone with her grief. The real events give the book an unavoidable poignant quality, especially because the novel ends on a note of hope, when Toby prepares to run away.
“She said slowly, ‘Toby, what are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and smiled with hardly any effort at all. ‘But I promise it’ll be better than this.”
“The Birds on the Trees,” brilliantly evokes the brittle reality of a class of nineteen sixties liberal intellectuals that feels as historically remote as Virginia Woolf’s or Marcel Proust’s world does today, but more than this, the novel stands as an enduring exploration of how we all create personal myths to bind ourselves to existence, and the tragicomedy of family life that ensues when the stories do not match up with each other.
If you read my portrait of Nina Bawden, then you will know that Nina is a both a friend and a personal inspiration to me. She became a heroine when she stood up to fight for compensation for the survivors of the Potters Bar rail crash of 2002 in which her husband Austen was killed and Nina herself was cut from the wreckage at the point of death.
I think that anyone who can endure the London blitz, write more than forty novels, survive a train crash at a hundred miles an hour, then take on the rail company and win, and still be in good form today at eighty-five deserves a prize. So I am asking you to vote for Nina Bawden to win The Lost Booker Prize by clicking here.
