Tim Heald's Blog

Mrs.Thatcher went while we were with Emma and family.  I interviewed her for the Express after she stopped doing free milk for children (she must have been education minister).  Ours was not a happy relationship. I can hear her explaining au Gerald Nabarro how an interview consisted  of her holding forth while I nodded and noted. (My words!).  Simultaneously I was explaining (politely) that my idea of an interview was my asking the questions and taking notes when she answered.  That’s still my notion but it was not hers. Oh, no.  The Express did not use what I wrote – I suppose my antipathy showed.  Odd, since Anna Neagle only had to fart you would have thought Mrs. Thatcher…

Colin Davis also shuffled off.  The Express did use that piece. About much the same time I interviewed the man I always thought of as Charlie (later Sir Charles which didn’t really suit him) Mackerras. He was Australian. The paper used that too and I was in danger of becoming, pace Herbert Kretzmer, the Express music critic. Luckily for  everyone that didn’t happen. Patrick Garland also died. I never interviewed him but admired him from afar.

“Wonking on about death again, Heald”.I’m afraid so, sir.  It’s the end of a chapter. And I’ve been twice to Yeovil Hospital, once to the GP and wheel-chaired through Heathrow.  Death is inevitable.  Happens to us all.  Read Julian Barnes. Went to the Crime Writers’ conference in a hotel in Bowness overlooking Lake Windermere. Chauffeured by a friend whose car had been serviced three weeks earlier, it collapsed short of Bristol, the friend hired a substitute, which was bigger and more comfortable and more fun to drive. Even so we arrived four hours or so late.  Basil Copper, a former chair, had died and Bob Barnard, a Balliol stalwart, was in a home with rumoured Alzheimer’s.  And I was walking with a stick and slow of speech.  Wonking on? Afraid so.

It was fun though. That first night I attempted the salmon en croute and failed thanks largely to a late picnic in the service area at Stafford.  The friend is an accomplished cook and assembler of lunch. Hence smoked salmon in Bristol followed by a salad roll and two of  Mr. Barclay’s excellent sausages in Stafford. Oh and grapes. Very good.  We anticipated wall to wall rubber chicken at the hotel but not, emphatically,so. Nevertheless I failed with the fish. Otherwise I enjoyed Martin Edwards who was well-informed as ever about the Golden age and my dinner neighbour that first night who spoke with equal authority on fire arms. Also attended the AGM which was just as I remembered when I was chair.  Oh,  John Kennedy Melling and Any Other Business.  There was always business when JKM was around.

Otherwise the first half of the month was a fortnight in Florida with Emma and family. Hot, Florida. Not like Somerset.  Apart from the excitement of a wheelchair at Heathrow and at Miami airport I spent a lot of time by the pool reading my newish Kindle.  Kindle is an advance for the reader.  No question.  Probably for the writer too, but emphatically not for conventional publishers. Apart from the heat, the dogs, the little boys and all that that implies the two weeks were deliciously lazy.  I hobbled to Joe’s for ritual crab claws, hobbled to watch a grandson play foreign and therefore incomprehensible flag football and hobbled to the local farmer’s market on Sunday morning.  Correction.  I may have hobbled once there but I was Landrovered or SUVed to and from by my hard-working daughter.  Well played, Emma. The old man is very grateful.  The family went ski-ing in Colorado in the middle leaving us to dog-sit Karl and Beggar.  Both are rescue dogs; Karl is beautiful and Beggar, well, Beggar not. Despite being a rescue dog (Emma cheated to get him), Karl looks as if he happened on purpose. Beggar, who is part poodle, has too many teeth and is a one-trick animal, does not.  He does not like thunder either which is  why Penny and he were under the bed  at 2.30 in the morning the night we arrived. I was, apparently, asleep at the time.  The dogs spent much of the day curled up at my feet when they were not shouting at interlopers or neighbours.  Shortly after our return Emma resigned from her job as Vice-President of the local museum in charge of fund-raising and I was offered a new hip on May 29^th by Yeovil Hospital. The children will bring grapes and according to the experts – which means everyone – I shall be frolicking.  It doesn’t feel like it at the moment.  British Airways were ghastly, by the way. They sent a  questionnaire (the electronic nerve) and totally failed to absorb our quite expensive return seat booking.  And, and…it is a bit sad for those who remember BOAC and first flew in Stratocruisers!

Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe.  Actually I have a theory about my health but, for a variety of reasons, I am unable to articulate it.  Suffice it to say that I remember a nice GP in Cornwall warning me off hospitals and medical experts. His grounds were probably spurious and I have good reason to be grateful for the medical profession but I can’t help remembering what he said.  I was always difficult which, for me, is a consolation even though it is a nightmare for others.

I have written about Florida for the CGA.  In a sense it is like the Lady.  Pace my “aunt” who would have thunk it?  The country gentlemen are unconventional which is good.  Other more conventional outlets would have demanded (and got) something more conventional about Pinecrest, the Biltmore and suburban  Miami but I wanted to write something more original.  Luckily Melanie and the country gents seem to like it.  I have another theory about how relatively bad old-fashioned magazines and newspapers have become while specialist magazines that people used to warn aspiring journalists against have become acceptable. Discuss.  It is a point of view anyway.  And I like hearing things discussed.

Off to London next week-end for galleries (P) and restaurants (me).  We shall take Berry’s bus and by the time we return First will “reluctantly” have withdrawn the 52 from Bower Hinton to Yeovil. It doesn’t turn a profit and I am sometimes the only person on board. As everything these days has to make money this is clearly ridiculous. The Prime Minister says so and Cameron has decreed that austerity is the name of the game. Part of the problem  is that the crisis is or appears to be artificial or at least man-made.  We took it for what may have been the last time, had a pizza at Tamburino and were turned out of the cinema about twenty minutes in to something beyond the Pines, the film.  The manager did it and said that the movie was displaying wrongly (looked all right to me) and then said that the technicians had discovered something terribly wrong. He made it sound as if the techies had saved us from a fate similar to if not worse than death and we all got a refund and a freeby. So that was all right then wasn’t it?

So April has gone and now it’s May.  Both are girls’ names, indeed I had a great-aunt called May Why not November? Or indeed January when I was born.  Discuss…discuss everything.  Death even!

The importance of ritual is increasing .By “ritual” I suppose I mean custom, habit, and doing things in the same order. Perhaps it is having something to hold on to?  Discuss as I am boring to say. Commander Warren used to say that the Royal Navy had traditions; the Army had customs; and the RAF had “nasty little habits”.  As a Naval man, he would, wouldn’t he?

Anyway the month started with Mr. Fuller at the Eye Clinic in Dorchester. Penny drove. He was, on the whole, encouraging and I seem to have plateaued eye-wise. Driving good though next day was bus and a movie with Richard Gere playing a financial whizz in Arbitrage.  Slick but dislikeable.  Friend stayed night en route to family in Fowey.  Woke and found myself unable to get double-barrelled names out of my system. Pine-Coffin, for instance is almost the only functional one but why not Oak-Coffin or, in these environmentally conscious times, Cardboard-Coffin?  What about Stanger-Leathes, Ruggles-Brize, Wyldebore-Smith?  Who was Stanger? What are Leathes?  Why Wyldebore?  Come to that why Smith? Why the hyphen?  A request from the Country Gentlemen’s Association for words of wisdom about the Royal Warrant. It’s almost 25 years since my first book on it.  The CGA magazine arrived.  Rather good actually. Note the “actually”.  Surprise is mandatory but why?  Today is the hip-man in Crewkerne.  The world has a new hip but today’s paper says that way lies death.  It’s routine but…

Saw the hip men, and then the “elderly care” doctor in Yeovil the following day, who gave me the unpalatable news that the expensive French test in Bristol suggested that I was indeed suffering from Parkinson’s. Well, lumme. Everyone is different but it gets worse and that way lies dementia.  The doctor was brisk as was the GP that afternoon.  The side effect of the new pills could be gambling and sex. “Florida eh?”, remarked the GP when he heard this and our plans.  “Could  be interesting”.  Well, yes. I suppose so.  This week’s movie was Russell Crowe as a crooked New York mayor.  Like last week, slick but dislikeable.  However the bus was good.  I am trying to tell everyone but part of the problem is that everyone knows  someone who has Parky – as apparently it is called by those who know about such things – and some even play tennis. Real Tennis, of course. The Parkinson person wins. Also “of course”. I, on other hand, thought I had something exotic and unusual.  More fool me!  One person even suggested that I might glow in the dark.  The expensive French test was nuclear, you see.  So…anyway, I think Parkinson’s is odd. Exotic even, but I am obviously in a minority. I said I was working on glowing in the dark. That WOULD be exotic.

To Yeovil for a screening of the National’s production of Alan Bennett’s “People” – the world and his wife were there.  Over a million world-wide of whom many spilled over in to Screen Four.  Frances de la Tour excellent, ditto early pizza at Tamburino.  Wall to wall bright bumpkins.  Could this be the future?  Incidentally at least half the world has a friend or relation living with Parky!  The number is growing exponentially. Well it feels like it. More and more of them. I thought I had an exotic and unusual disease but it turns out to be boring and common.  Bit sad.

Friends from London came to stay. I feel more and more like a field mouse confronted with town mice. Sophistication has vanished never to return. As for gambling and sex, I am obviously immune. Still it was good to see them and they brought their dog, a Border terrier, which was…well,  interesting.  Actually Hettie is fantastic.  The CGA evidently like my piece, so that’s all right.  I’ve suggested doing Coral Gables for them and they will think on it. Emma rang and she and Penny had a long conversation as a result of which I am to organize specific seats.  Spent an inordinately long time trying to do this online (they suggest this and it saves paper) but gave up when BA said their systems were down. Of course.  Bring back people say I but fat chance…This way may not work but it’s cheaper!  Earlier to-day I hobbled back to the main house and Penny phoned a real person. The whole transaction took less than five  minutes.  Compare and contrast.

Meanwhile we go to London and thence Florida on Easter Sunday and I shall therefore try to post a blog early.  The actor, Richard Griffith, just died after “routine” heart surgery  (No such thing alas). He was 65 and overweight so no huge surprise.  I liked him best in “Withnail and I”.  Never met him but another part of my scenery has gone.  RIP.  Affectionate, friendly valedictories in the following day’s papers including one from David Hare.

Meanwhile  I am producing a conclusion for Otto Penzler for the Venetian (and last?) Bognor; and more everyday names I interviewed but have since forgotten for the memoirs.  Spoke to a gratifyingly concerned literary agent the other day who wanted to know whether I wanted to go on writing.  I’m afraid I replied  that it was essential therapy which is barely consoling for those who have commissioned work.  Meanwhile we went to the local pub for a sandwich lunch and at the end the landlord came running out with a white, no off-white, object in his hand.  He addressed Penny.  “I think he must have dropped his handkerchief”, he said.  A sure sign that all is not well and , although the wretched man was doing his best, on the lines of “He does take sugar, doesn’t he?”.  At which point Florida calls and I shall draw the proverbial line.  BA are supposed to be  providing a wheelchair and a person to wheel same, we are having lunch with someone from Hong Kong, seeing a man about money and a man about wills, taking in exhibitions and trying to pretend life is normal but it isn’t – not really.  Oh well.  What can one say?!

One of the many problems about my age and health (not THAT old and not THAT bad) is a tendency to regard them as of primarily academic interest. In other words I find myself saying, for example,  of the Malacca cane “That’s interesting” and only later realizing that I have such a thing and it is me we are discussing and not simply an abstract.  Well, maybe it’s not that interesting! If I think so, well I would wouldn’t I?  Anyway I am now in the hands of the National Health. Watch this space!

The good news is that the Malt House is finally sold. At least I think it is. I had a revealing message from the daughter in Florida saying in effect that she had no idea that selling property in the UK was so difficult.  Too right.  The saddest thing about the whole business is that it is being done largely on the grounds that it is safer here. I think this is tripe. Like so much that is to do with the new technology it is predicated on these grounds. True it takes longer than elsewhere and we are asked for our mother’s hat size more often but that doesn’t make life safer.  Au contraire.

And suddenly February has almost gone. I know it’s a short month but even so its disappearance is alarming if welcome. It began with a cold but crammed visit to London which started with a puncture in Wincanton and continued quam celerrime with a Chinese New Year lunch with the friends of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) at the Joy King Lau in Soho.  Good lunch, took the cane and wife and felt suitably senile and uxorious. From lunch to the Rag and the Ribbon and  rugger on TV. Abandoned the cane but not the wife so felt uxorious and relatively unimpaired.

Who would have thought, by the way, that putting on the right sock in the morning  would be such a challenge? The knack is to…but no, no, stop! That way lies ridicule and derision.  There is no way anyone wants to hear my advice on the sock after porridge.  After rugger I hobbled to the  Gods at the Harold Pinter  Theatre which used to be the Comedy for Kirsten Scott Thomas in 80 minutes of Harold.  Uncomfortable, very; and Pinter very, well, Pinter.  KST, a Leweston girl, brilliant especially at the pregnant pauses.  After that back to the Ribbon for a sarnie and so to bed.

Next day to the Manet at the Academy which was surprisingly uncrowded and then a meeting with my sons.  Noonish.  Me and the cane (wife had moved on to the Man Ray) waited until ten past and then hobbled back through thin rain to a beef sarnie at the Club and victory over the Irish (more rugger) before lurching off to Lincoln. Must remember to carry switched on mobile in London as boys (must stop calling them boys as they are now middle-aged men!) turned up cold and damp just after I left. WILL remember.  Oh well. Senility. Day-Lewis was wonderful and deserved the Oscar though.Spielburg less wonderful, less deserving, and the movie despite  Day-Lewis, slightly grim. We had not realized Lincoln was so corrupt. Positively Blair-like.  Afterwards a risotto next door at the Spaghetti House and so to bed.

Next morning to see the lawyer in Richmond to discuss wills.

Wills accordingly discussed. Sorry about that. More death!  I guess it is inevitable and comes to us all.  Stopped off at the Swan in Hammersmith for yet another sandwich. The Swan has become our London HQ and is surprisingly agreeable. However someone had nicked “our” table by the fire. Felt cross but it is a free world.  And so by Berrybus home again to hunker down  in the cold.  Nevertheless spring, they say, is sprung and if you  believe that you will believe anything.

On Wednesday Penny had another driving lesson and got dropped off in Yeovil where we lunched at the Viceroy (apparently an  Indian haunt of Paddy Ashdown who lives nearby.) I came on the bus which I now look forward to. It passes through Martock, Stapleton, Ash, Tintinhull and Chilthorne Dormer on its way to town.  The countryside is lovely, everyone but me knows everyone else and it costs nothing. Bliss.  Wednesday is old people’s day at the Yeovil cinema  (half price) so the matinee for Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave was full. Agreeable  audience though  (oldies don’t do popcorn – discuss ) and we enjoyed the film.  Two of the producers were at Balliol I learn from the college e-news letter so I fired off a query asking if they might be interested in filming my Oxford whodunnit. I have obviously slowed but not stopped altogether.

The Malt House obviously IS sold. Julia rang last night and said, inter alia, that the buyers intend much building, moving in properly in what to me seems the distant future.  In doing so the eucalyptus will come down. The large gum was first planted, I think, by my Ma soon after they moved in the early sixties.  Penny who comes from Adelaide where such trees grow wild knows all about them and so I have written to Mrs. Buyer asking if we might buy some wood as a souvenir.  Local craftsmen alert!  I have just heard back in the affirmative so in a few months the Healds will all have a plank or so! Attention gang!  (All these screamers).

Meanwhile workwise it is mainly books since the magazine and newspaper market seems fraught.  There is Sherborne, of course.  This is a problem not least because the glaucoma means that driving is a problem which limits my capacity for bullying. It is OK if people are aware and sympathetic but I am currently dealing with a period of unusual sensitivity and those who were involved at the time are, for all sorts of reason, understandably reluctant to commit themselves. Meanwhile I have signed one new contract for an old book and sent an e-draft of Yet Another Death in Venice to my new and immensely distinguished publisher in the States. So I crack on though times are tough and I am glad I’m not embarking.

Meanwhile I am booked, British Airways, for Miami on April 3^rd.  But what to do?  Naturally I am anxious to see Emma and Leo and my grandsons but old habits die hard and I feel I should be writing something.  But what?  The world and his wife have been to Florida recently and many have written about their experiences. So any suggestions are more than welcome. I have a Malacca cane, an Australian wife, a sustained curiosity and some sort of track record.  And a web-site. Not to mention this blog.  But the question remains.  What should I write? And for whom?

Meanwhile I stagger on. Next week looks like old people’s bus, old people’s films and old people’s eyes.  Glaucoma is fascinating in the abstract, the trouble is it seems to be about me.  Never mind, though, the DVLA have arranged a test and they appear to think…but, oh never mind.  What are eyes after all, what is sight…never mind.

I chickened out of Maurice’s memorial citing a vile forecast and dodgy hips which the X-Ray says have “excessive wear and tear” and Michael Winner has just died. So don’t tell me I am obsessed with death. Instead remind me to tell you about obsession and Tom Stoppard. Nothing to do with death.  Apparently Stoppard was working on the Bristol Evening News when the London Evening Standard advertised for a political correspondent. Stoppard applied and got an interview with the editor, Anna Wintour’s dad, Charles.  Stoppard had already said he was interested in politics and half way through their meeting Wintour leaned forward and asked Stoppard to name the Home Secretary. Stoppard thought for a moment and then shot back, “I said I was interested in politics – not obsessed.” End of story.

The day after my birthday I saw the hip specialist at South Petherton hospital. Charming man. Burmese. He confirmed “excessive wear and tear” and had a blow-up of the X-ray on a screen by way of proof. I declined to look, to much hilarity, but Penny had a gander and said it looked as if killer mice had been nibbling away at the joint.  They both seemed impressed so now it is down to  the NHS.  The hip man says about three months. We shall see.

Birthday was fun. I made the Guardian list just below Jessica Ennis who is over forty years younger. Sarkozy is younger too though not Acker Bilk or David Lodge. So that’s all right then. Phew! But who would have thought that I would make the Guardian and not apparently the Times or Telegraph? Strange. Penny cooked sirloin and we had smoked salmon to start.  P thought the sirloin had been frozen and you wouldn’t get that in Oz. You would however have Wangolina Station from the Limestone Coast, but that is probably another story.  Penny got me an impenetrable device for recording TV programmes and a couple of things for holding credit cards. And there were greetings from assorted Guardian readers. And that was my birthday, that was.

Workwise it’s always been a tricky time of year and most of my work time has been taken up by Sherborne. I had a row with the other half on the thorny question of footnotes  (Guess who is for them!?) and just wondered about presenting the material in the encyclopaedic non chronological way in which it is being assembled.  I tend, as always, to have an open mind. My  enemies would say too open but I think closure is a failure.  The latest bits have concerned women and benefactors both of them ever-present but different.  Anyway everybody is being very supportive which is good. But I still feel relieved not to be embarking on a career in old-fashioned print.  Things are tough out there.  Everyone says so.  Thank God for Sherborne, Otto and the blessed wife and the blessed literary agent.

I think a lot about Sherborne, of course. Christopher Andrew gave a talk about Alan Turing recently and seemed to have difficulty finding anything about Turing’s time at the school except  that Sherborne had had the wit to let him get on with being a genius. I don’t think Sherborne did that on purpose but Turing was clearly unfathomable. The School put that down to eccentricity.  Turing was gay too which was bad but he would  doubtless grow out of that. On the other hand he was good at cross-country and quite grand. Maths was probably irrelevant.  Work invariably was.

All this is very English and perhaps at the end of the day it is the school’s sense of Englishness which marks  it out. I don’t know.  When I finish the book all will be revealed but I just wonder if Sherborne doesn’t stand for echt-English virtues – politeness, bloody-mindedness particularly when chaps don’t queue or doff their boaters, and above all a sort of muddling-through attitude. Never mind, we’ll get there in the end.

Ed Koch just died. I never met him but he was my Mayor of New York.  I had a reply from someone who just wrote an obit  of someone else I would like to have met but never did.  I felt the same about the subject of his eulogy, said so and elicited the response that the writer was always reading valedictory pieces about strangers he wished he had met. Story of life and one of the cries of this blog which has elicited birthday verdicts complaining that I wonk on too much about death. I don’t, not really, it’s just that the more I go on the more aware I become of the frailty of the human body and the wonder of the soul, brain or character that it encases. All the time people are toppled when their bodies are weak but their minds are better than ever.  I know this is not a profound or original thought but the older I get the more ludicrous the vehicle and the more profound the engine.

Obviously I feel this strongly at the moment. On the one hand it’s glaucoma, hips and heaven knows what and on the other I feel astonishingly wise and vibrant.  I think we live in an ageist country and a ditto period. End of story. I think I would be dishonest pretending otherwise and I don’t mean to go on about it. At the same time we – that is to say many of us – are living longer and our bodies seem not to have adapted. Maybe it’s just God’s idea of a joke.

Still I persist in going  along with it and planning for the future.  Thus I have booked a flight to Miami to see my daughter Emma and family. My former Oxford college celebrates its 750^th birthday later this year and I have  booked two nights at the Buttery Hotel for the relevant period in September. Meanwhile the Malt House remains resolutely if technically unsold.  I feel terribly sorry for the people who want to buy it.  I hope the sale will go ahead and it is not our fault that a nice house has been empty all this time.Honestly.

It makes something of a mockery, incidentally, that financial security depends not on my career (which has made it in to the birthday section of the Guardian after  all) but on something my uncle did many years ago and a house my father bought in the early 1960s.  It is ever thus I suppose.  Slightly depressing but  another example of God’s sense of humour.  Incidentally I have also booked into the annual crime writers association conference.  Many years ago I was the chairman and this is a special anniversary. So…Roll on the Lake District in April, a new hip. Plans, plans, jokes,jokes…

To London with the cane to spend time with three Old Boys – a former Warden of Radley and two erstwhile cricketers – a leg-spinner who once chaired a publishing company and his skipper who batted and  rose to be deputy chairman of the Stock Exchange. Ah, Sherborne. As usual I found the subject at once up-lifting and enervating, the company daunting and the cane similarly contrary. We shall see.

Soon after I returned there was a National Health letter saying that the head of ophthalmology could not make the appointment which had been arranged. Never mind. Another had been fixed for that morning, several hours earlier. Made you think. Buggered up by the state that’s what I thought, I’m afraid. If I go blind it will be put down as an administrative error and someone whose fault it most certainly won’t be will apologise. And some people will be happy.  Boxes will have been ticked and forms filled in. I shall be blind but bureaucracy will be satisfied.

There was also an email from Laurie about Aunty Biddy. She may not be my aunt but Laurie knows everything there is to be knowed. And some. She also ticked me off for my bad grammar.  I protested. To no avail I dare say but Aunty Biddy is fascinating – she came from Dunmanway in West Cork, was torpedoed in 1917 and married my great-uncle Walter. Thanks, Laurie. This month’s small hours word is Retsina, the resin-flavoured wine of Greece. Why Retsina? God knows, but I couldn’t remember it. Try as I might and I did. I did everything but no dice. The latest problem is trying to identify the first names of the Indian cricket  captain Dhoni. He is always known by his initials which are “M S”. Difficult in the small  hours.

An e-mail from Otto Penzler saying my letter had arrived and welcoming me to his fold. A visit from  three of the four children but they have gone leaving us alone with, echoes, memories and the phone which rang twice this morning. Christmas was quiet but agreeable, the aftermath noisy with grandchildren, but equally amusing.To-day is a grey  day and I am contemplating 2012 which is about to become  2013 and this blog.  Aha!  This blog.

I suppose the first point to make is the novelty. Previous generations did not have  the internet or e-mail so that those natural bloggers made do with diaries and letters aimed originally at one reader, often themselves. My own view is that diarists such as Alan Clark, Pepys or “Chips” Channon wrote for ultimate publication. Likewise great letter-writers such as Richard Cobb. In Richard’s case I know that he was one of the great (and last?) letter writers and had one eye on publication. We discussed it in the King’s Arms. Does this matter or make any difference? I don’t think so.

More to the point are your perceptions particularly as my literary agent is against innovation and my wife makes a point of not looking at my blog but believing what some of you report about it.  I am reminded of Brian Johnston whose biography I wrote but who was pre-blog.  His widow, Pauline, told me that at dinner parties he  would  sit at one end of the table and she at the other. To start with those on either side of Pauline were dutiful and polite hanging on her every word. Gradually, however, as he told more and more stories and cracked an ever increasing number of jokes, their heads swivelled and by the time they left it was Brian’s word on which they were hanging. Pauline remonstrated. Of course she did and for a while all was well but before long Brian was the life and soul and his wife neglected again. Maybe the successful blogger is similar – better with the world at large than his nearest and dearest.  Certainly his family complained that Brian was like a favourite uncle.

Thus, perhaps, me.  It must be distressing to encounter virtual strangers or even old friends who seem to know more  about you and your friends than you yourself,and to discover that others know as much about your spouse’s apparent preoccupations as you do.  I say “apparent”  advisedly. Take death for instance. I don’t think I am preoccupied but you don’t have to be a cricketer in the days following the demise of Tony Greig and Christopher Martin-Jenkins to give the matter some thought. On a superficial level it is a salutary reminder that I shall never now score a century before lunch at Lord’s – or anywhere come to that. Greig, of course, was a phenomenal sportsman but CMJ was good enough to captain Marlborough  and score 99 against Rugby at Lord’s. That makes him pretty good in my book and far better than one whose top score – at prep school – was only fourteen. The man in the Guardian was disparaging about CMJ’s cricket. Wrong.  And William Rees-Mogg died, at 84, after what his son Jacob, M.P. for North East Somerset, described as a short illness.  I remember William coming in to the Atticus office and suggesting a piece on Winchester Cathedral which was also the subject of a song which was currently riding high in the charts.  As I was soon reminded I had written a draft for his Telegraph obituary.  You can’t, even now, grumble about falling off the proverbial twig at 84, but his demise is another blow at the structure of my life.  All three were part and parcel of me. A very small part, a tiny parcel but an essential strut in the whole edifice. So it is, surely, right that I should take note of their absence. This doesn’t make me preoccupied with death. Well maybe it does.  Above all it is evidence that reading is as important (cf “Q” or Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) as writing. Up to a point. In its way. Discuss.

In a moment an old friend from Cornwall comes for a ham sandwich.  She is giving us a lift and a bed in town.  She is not old but you know what I mean. How odd that we should now be able to boast of old friends in Cornwall. Oh, Jim died. He was old, sick but uncomplaining. RIP Jim. Another plank from my past removed. More evidence of my pre-occupation  He too  was an incomer to Cornwall and a member of the Royal Fowey. Happy days. Happy Saturday mornings.

On which selfish note I should perhaps close. A Happy 2013 to all my readers.  Really.  I hope it is not as wet. I hope it is better than 2012. Really. Oh, by the way, I shall take the cane to London later today.  Happy New Year and don’t believe everything you read – even in my blog!

To town for dinner at the Savoy given by Boston University. Vita Paladino spoke and Asa Briggs responded. I sat between Lucy Brett and Brian Fremantle and felt happy but slightly ancient. I didn’t have my stick but felt people saying “So sad”, “He smells”, “Doesn’t make much sense these days” Worst of all is the speculative “Didn’t that used to be Tim Heald?”

Stop…I must remember how lucky I am, immensely privileged, well-looked after…just elderly. Stop chuntering on. I saw the boys – two sons, and grandson, the day after in Hammersmith at the Swan.  Late lunch and good fun.I simply never expected to become not terribly old and spend the mornings fighting my right sock and, worse, regarding victory as significant!  Ludicrous.

Graham – I think he’s Graham – came and removed a bush to be replaced by an espaliered apricot which John Horsey is to plant this Friday.  It had to be done but I hate killing something alive even when it’s only a bush. Mrs. Blackbird was most reproachful – can’t say I blame her.

On Thursday a.m. I took the cane to Langport. As I said this morning to Dr. Eaton  it wasn’t just that I limped faster (true) but that even grey-beards older than me got down and genuflected in the gutters . Almost literally. Well. Oh all right. Later on in the Langport day BBC came to do a Prince Philip obituary-interview and I felt old and smelly once more. A few days later I took the cane to Yeovil. Lunch and a film, preceded by bus and out-patients. Must be getting old!

Incidentally I consider that I am up to speed technologically. Not perhaps in the Tom and Laurie class but not bad. It’s not just the blog but I also have more than 500 people Linkedin. Ah, I hear you say, Linkedin. Nothing polarizes people like a good social networking site, especially this one. I tend to go with the flow but other people, particularly my contemporaries, are seriously exercised by sites such as Linkedin which do have a tendency to run things, and are obsequious when you can help, less so otherwise. Which reminds me that Emma bought me a new Kindle when she was over. But she is still trying to deregister! A real human would be good but that’s asking the impossible. There is a limit to my capacity for taking in American self helpery.

Following a couple of more or less successful visits with the cane I decided to go ahead with a marathon in London. Everything should have been enjoyable but the prospect was daunting and arduous – three lunches, two formal dinners, a family stay with one son and family and the baptism of the other son’s son in Ealing Abbey.

Well I didn’t (quite) fall over and I had fun so that was all right. The cane was much admired, the bus free and I appeared to be tolerated!  The dinners were at the Dorchester (Detection Club) and  the Reform Club (Balliol) and the lunches were with the trusty agent and friends old and new.  The family was family. Oh, and there was a meeting of next year’s organisers (!) of an Oxford Crime Festival and an aborted session  to discuss work. All go in other words.

The guest speaker at the Detection do was Charlie Collingwood and at the Balliol one Rory Stewart – both were fine if true  to type. At the first I sat near Janet Lawrence and Susan Moody and the second my host, Bill Trythall and Janet Hazelton. Also present were lots of old friends but not, alas, Margaret Yorke for whom we signed a card but who died soon after getting same. She was very old but I miss her and was fond of her. Very!I was asked to write her obituary by a national paper and did so with some diffidence.She was a member of the Detection Club whose president is Simon Brett whose latest novel concerns a corpse on the Real Tennis court. A copy arrived  a day or so later suitably inscribed by the author. I introduced him to the game! I thought the Dorchester meal was dull – fishcakes and rosbif.          Not worthy of Ducasse or even  a minion but Janet, who knows more about food, disagreed. She said you could taste the lobster. So. The main  course at the Reform was lamb cutlet. As this was eponymous and invented there by Alexis Soyer when he was chef I was more sympathetic, though I recognize that this is absurd but I do appreciate effort.

The lunches were entertaining in a different way, even the one with my agent, and the AIEP planning session was even more like work. The culmination was Henry’s baptism preceded by a night on the sofa chez Tristram. No pretence possible here, not that pretence is part of my philosophy nor possible elsewhere. The result is a gratifying  level of concern for hobbling father. Apropos of which I have endless appointments as a result of which I have a wheeze to put in for the  prize which must be surely be available for most tested patient in Britain. Yeovil, Dorchester, Bristol, South Petherton. You name it and I’ve been there and  done the test.

Earlier in the week we went to see a film in Yeovil. Fun, despite the subject matter – wonderful female lead and Robert de Niro in one of his cameo roles. Before that the bus. We both adore the bus which , pace Thatcher, strikes us as what “community” is about. The drivers are courteous and helpful, reversing for the halt and maimed and everyone knows everyone. Most people are very old and on sticks or zimmers but that doesn’t prevent them greeting their friends, enquiring after their health (a  cheery grimness) and generally    passing the time of day. Next week is “Great Expectations” with Ralph ffiennes and Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Haversham.(sp?cfPhilip French who approves but spells Miss H differently). Can’t wait for the film. Must be getting old. And tomorrow for another test at Yeovil Hospital. I  shall take the bus  and wave, smile and generally ingratiate. Can’t wait again.

I realize, re-reading, this that I sometimes seem to spend all the time being checked by doctors. Not actually so but talking about “community” made me think of the new state-of-the-art hospital in South Petherton. It is all whistles and bells, the latest X-Ray cameras, smart new chairs for waiting patients and yet when I took Penny there the  other week-end we were greeted by a shuffling caretaker. The new hospital was closed and the state-of-the-art machinery was unused. It was the same every weekend. The nearest real-life doctors were down the road in Crewkerne, no doubt in a horrible old Victorian dump.

Compare and contrast with the bus. Like the National Health transport is free for the old.I was going to bang on about the value of the good bus against the largely redundant cottage hospital but today the bus twice let me down. First the driver failed to drop me at the hospital as required and requested and  then after I’d (thanks super efficient technician) made it to the clearly indicated request stop opposite, watched the 377 to Wells take on two passengers without fuss, I saw the 52 clearly marked “Martock” speed past. I waved the cane but it simply made me feel old, smelly and redundant. In vain did I wave but the empty (of passengers) bus sped on. I must, obviously, revise my thoughts. Next day I had a surly Scottish driver.

Meanwhile I write the memoirs. The working title is “Who exactly WAS Aunty Biddy?” My internal debate is whether to put “Anyway” at the end of the sentence. Uncle Tom says (I think) that Biddy was a nurse and her hospital ship was torpedoed in WW1. But what sort of relation was she? Maybe she was an Honorary Aunt. Not a real relation at all. Does this matter? Discuss.

Tomorrow I go to London to discuss Sherborne with illustrious Old Boys.I shall take the cane. Pray for me. Meanwhile I realize that next time I blog Christmas will be a memory. So have a good one. Eat too much; drink too much. Have one on me…

I always craved respect and deference and this month began with able-bodied strangers displaying both on the Spanish Steps  in Rome as they scrambled to avoid the eccentric elderly Englishman limping from the obelisk to the piazza. I’d rather not have gained either in quite this way but it had its merry side. Oh well. Penny bought me a Malacca cane  at the Bath and West but I left it behind and took a panama hat with a hole in the brim instead. Elderly and eccentric, very! By the time I returned to Somerset the hole had got bigger and the limp more pronounced, but I hadn’t resorted to the stick.

I was reminded of the Malacca cane the morning after my return by Ian Jack writing in the Guardian. Ian revealed that he now had a stick and recalled meeting the writer, Harold Pinter, at a party for Simon Gray. Jack, host for the day, greeted Pinter with the conventional greeting “How are you?” at which Harold, leaning on his stick, exploded. Typical. Harold was like that. I once took him and Ronnie Harwood to protest about the West Bank at the Israeli Embassy on behalf of P.E.N. and most of the time was spent attempting to prevent a Harold explosion. On the other hand you do need people whose reaction to a conventional greeting is to treat it as if it meant what it said. Can’t help feeling for Ian Jack though.

My uncle Tom and his wife Laurie dropped in for a vegemite sandwich (joke!) the other day – I hesitate to describe Laurie as my aunt because she loathes the notion, my uncle Tom being my mother’s little brother and Laurie  related “only” by marriage. Laurie is a fierce critic of this blog which she thinks unduly bleak. I can only bleat on about “honesty”. With her bread and butter letter Laurie also included genealogical notes on various Heald ancestors. It turns out that my maternal grandfather was a butcher and his father a baker. They came from Bedfordshire. My father worked for Prince Philip and held a CVO, a DSO, MBE and MC. He was a Colonel in the Army and my brother and I both went to public school. Which says something about  social mobility in Britain. This is what among other things I am a product of.

I did the Literary Festival at Sherborne which was exemplary. My session was a workshop ostensibly on e-books. It was upstairs in the Arch which apparently used to be a second rate pub but is now a first rate brasserie. About twenty people which was good at ten in the morning and they were well-informed, articulate and talkative. When I said that rivals (at more civilised times!) had virtually sold out my wife said “If you write such depressing things on your blog what do you expect?” I should point out that my wife hates blogs and the new technology, doesn’t read what I write here and relies on other people for up-to-date information. Which makes this aspect of life challenging.

That same day the now former accountant called in with his wife on their way to a regular holiday in Sidmouth. Memo – must go there not least because it is only a short drive. Good seeing them both and I’m sure he will understand (he is a regular reader of this) that I prefer him now that he is “former”. Another memo: stop digging holes! I think he and his wife are lovely. I am just hopeless where money is concerned.

I am also hopeless at communicating. It’s a form of disease and I believe a certain honesty is important no matter what the effect. We have a guest from Adelaide and she looked severely discomfited when I got a wigging for having got a crucial figure’s Christian name wrong. My view is that his Christian name is immaterial but this is a view not widely shared. I think there are more important things to forget.

The other morning lying sleepless I found myself silently humming “Father hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer may be”. Rather good I thought though I couldn’t  get it out of my head nor remember the words of the next two lines which I thought collapsed rather after that fine beginning. Nothing in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, alas, but the web, naturally, provided all the words of the Offertory Hymn. I remembered the rough beginnings of another verse which went something like  “Not for nothing by still waters, must we idly sit and stare…” and it turned out that I was right about the conclusions. The “but” was quite stirring but the rest was not. Too difficult to find a rhyme perhaps.

A note on the web from my friend Edward about Maurice Keen’s memorial on January 19^th in Oxford. I’ll be there. And another thanking me for my part in the Sherborne Festival. I think often about e-books. A long exchange of memoes with an old friend about a possible editing project. And another with an old university friend who experienced similar symptoms about a year and a half ago. For the record I have had an ECG and a second opinion from Dr. Sofia and I see the GP next week. Yesterday P and I went to Yeovil by bus to  see the new Bond and for me to have a hair cut. For the record we enjoyed the Bond, we thought the haircut expensive and both  thought there was a marginal improvement in the walking. Marginal though. I adore and am impressed with pilates but I think we need to do something about the right hip. I also love the internet and the web. A huge leap forward.  And I went to see the nurse in downtown Martock and she syringed. Success!  I can hear once more.

So next weekend I  go to London, have a Boston University dinner at the Savoy, stay at the Groucho and see the two sons in Hammersmith on Sunday before coming home. Next week is doctor and dentist. So there’s posh. Meanwhile the BBC come to the house to record another obit of Prince Philip and the Telegraph want a post Jubilee update of my effort on Her Majesty. So life goes on. Here a blip, there a blip, but it was ever thus. Meanwhile Denis Compton’s grandson may open the batting for England. Now that’s important. Denis would be chuffed to bits but Denis has gone. Had an email, by the way, from his widow Christine. We continue to plot. Thus life – the same only different. I suspect it was always like that and there is no reason for depression. Far from it. Nevertheless there is no point in pretending.

To illustrate this I went back to a year ago. My mother died, aged 90, while we were in Spain and I went to see a former headmaster of my old school and had an abortive trip to a local dinner. A year later my mother’s memory recedes and she is becoming part of history but her house, despite everything, remains unsold. The Spanish piece remains unused and has caused much grief. I have written about the former headmaster but the overall project is unfinished and unresolved. The local host has not asked us again and I fear for the future in that respect.

Life in other words is much the same yet also quite different. The paradox is, I suspect, the same for all of us. Existence moves on but is seldom predictable. We had two guests the other day, by the way. Both sans spouses though they must come next time. We saw cider being made chez Temperley, called in at the pottery and smokery, had an interesting lunch, were met with a closed Montacute but went later to Martock church and the family grave. The same. Different. Life moves on. But stays the same. Discuss.

I promise not to seem depressed which one or two perceptive critics have thought about my recent blogs. Instead in I will begin with thoughts prompted by a recent “Discussion” on “Linkedin” (The new vocabulary is also an interesting subject) in which the  writer wanted to know people’s views on doing something for nothing. First off I think there is a lot more of this about and especially in the once specialized field of writing.

I was about to bang on about the necessity of cutting according to the prevailing cloth when Maurice Keen went and died. I couldn’t conceivably not mention this. I had known him since 1961 when I was nervously waiting to be examined by the Balliol dons. The loo nearby flushed and Maurice emerged like the White Rabbit buttoning up his flies.Zips, you have to be joking! He was so youthful looking and so diffident that when he took his place ahead of me I assumed he was just another candidate and therefore berated him on the awfulness of dons in general and Balliol ones in particular. Then to my horror I entered the room to find Maurice curled up in a comfortable leather chair and asking me impossible questions about the Pope and Canossa. I’ve adored him ever since and now he is gone leaving happy memories. I couldn’t not refer to him, could I? Besides I have spent a fair bit of time writing an obituary of him  for the Times in London.

Back to something for nothing. The paradox is that new technology means greater freedom but also brings starvation closer for those of us who believed that journalism and authorship were closed trades open only to those who had proved themselves in some way. At the back of my mind I can hear Hunter Davies , my employer at the London Sunday Times, saying at the end of the week, “I’m still looking for a proper journalist but until I find one you’ll have to do.” This was marginally unfair because I had started two national student magazines, spent a month on a national tabloid and had articles published in Punch and the Spectator. Hunter was, however, right in the sense that I thought a not very good degree in Modern History was a fair training for journalism.

I digress. Not everyone agrees I know but some of my most recent experiences have involved nostalgia, friendship and not much financial reward. My four children are all grown up, married and have university degrees. Pace Doctor Johnson, who famously said that only a fool writes for anything but money, I tend to believe that other things matter more, that few us have money anyway, and that it is a faintly grubby necessity. But I concede I am in a minority, that it helps to have some, but there are other  aspects of life as ,if not more, important. Vide Tom Braun. No money but good vibes and the knowledge that  there now exists a volume of Tom Braun and that his ephemera has now achieved a sort of permanence.

Health matters and I haven’t been feeling a hundred per cent this last year or so. I  have (minimal) private insurance but believe in the National Health Service and what enemies call “socialized medicine”. I do see that I have been lucky. However I have suffered according to the tests no more than the usual wear and tear and yet I am feeling fairly putrid, having trouble walking  and so on. I blame the family blood pressure problems but  I would wouldn’t I? In any event I do not believe I should be feeling as I do. I do understand that I am relatively lucky, that there are plenty of people worse off than myself  but even so…Saw the GP the other day and I have an appointment with the physio who will stick needles in me. Better work particularly as I went to Sherborne yesterday and there several old boys much older than me leaping around like spring whatsits. Not fair; not right!

Had lunch the other day at Janet Laurence’s – lovely nosh, good company. Ruth Dudley Edwards was there which was fun but, naturally, she knew Maurice and his now widow Mary. Nothing too glum but sad nonetheless and we could hardly avoid talking about him.  So, sad, RIP, and all that but obsessed I don’t think so…

Anyway I hope that clears that up. Maybe it’s my fault for having started so young. Anyhow I feel grotty and friends die. End of story.

Something for nothing: it was Keynes who said, I think, that in the long run we are all dead. I tend to think that things such as financial rewards seem very important in the short term but in the long run…well less so. I do agree that in my relatively privileged position it is easy to say that but in essence we are lucky to have the chance to do things. The opportunity to visit the South Island of New Zealand or learn to knit is unlikely to recur. Take it, take it…carpe diem…tomorrow will almost certainly be too late. On the other hand it is easy to be a philanthropist if one has spare cash, I too would like to have my name on a grand new building but I can’t afford it. Saw the GP this morning. All checks are fine – blood pressure, chloresterol, sugar, kidneys – all relatively good so how come I still feel grotty?

Enough of this. On the theme of something for nothing the monthly bulletin came from the Crime Writers’ Association recently and next year is their silver or something jubilee. They have a conference in Windermere and I am minded,as they say, to go. Many years ago I was the big cheese. Was I called President or Chairman? The latter, I think, though correctly just “Chair”. It was something for nothing even then and though I have written more crime novels – unlike some – I seem CWA-wise to have faded away. No-one these days knows or cares who I am and, alas, the feeling is reciprocated. The names are all new, and largely unknown. I suppose it was ever thus. I tried to halt the habit of former chairs shuffling off into the equivalent of outer darkness by setting up an ex-chair lunch but alas I have hardly ever been. But maybe Windermere. If I am around. Memo to new names – please be nice.

I’m still banging on about something for nothing. Of course it’s good to have the opportunity but if we do then I think one should. Well don’t you? The Sherborne do was in memory of the school’s most famous old boy, Alan Turing. In my day at the school the computer was not known and Bletchley was the same. I tend to think the reason Turing was not celebrated was that he was gay and killed himself by eating an apple injected with cyanide. But who knows? He was good at  cross country running and when his friend Morcom (even better at Maths!) died prematurely he was eulogized by his housemaster, Alec Trelawney-Ross, who is now widely regarded as a fascist pig. Turing is remembered, A T-R, not – revenge of a sort. And Doey Randolph was senior maths master and taught Turing all he knew. Doey tried to teach me and did so by standing at the back of the class and asking questions. When the boy at the front of the class got the answers wrong Doey hit the boy nearest him at the back. I mentioned this to Chris Knott and he said Doey had taught him calculus like that but he still remembered what Doey said and others not. Hmmm…

Anyway I lead a workshop discussion in Sherborne at their first Literary Festival in mid-October. E-books are the main topic and we shall touch on something for nothing. Watch this space but meanwhile,er, watch this space.

I never met Gore Vidal, who died the other day, but he phoned me once from his Italian home after I had asked him to write something on Margaret Trudeau for Weekend Magazine, the Canadian weekly for which I was then working. “I’m so glad Canadians are interested in something really serious”, he drawled . He declined to accept the commission, I laughed ruefully,  and thought of sledgehammers and nuts, my usual reaction when confronted with Vidal’s famously barbed wit. I did genuinely know (and admire) John Keegan, the military historian who also died the other day. He was my mediaeval history tutor’s  contemporary and brother-in-law. As well as being Maurice’s friend he was Mary’s brother, fiercely original and part of my furniture. Another piece gone, Rest in Peace.

Meanwhile I stagger on. The other day, for example, I went to Bristol for cricket and saw an ex-headmaster of Sherborne who is a member there and also the Shirburnian captain of Hampshire batting against the home county, Gloucester. There was a man and a dog in the ground, it was grey and dank and I had the cod. I thought of God and the school and wondered what sort of Chief my host would have been. I heard from Julian Temperley re a book about him and his family and apples. His grandfather was head of school and Master of Peterhouse but he is the only Temperley listed in my records. Money from Wales – God Bless Julian and Mrs. Ruck – and a commission from Matt, editor of the Lady. El Pueblo Ingles are venturing in to Ireland and I have enrolled but alas, made the mistake of trying to use Nat West Reward Points on the e-mail. Big mistake. Und so weiter. Heard from Julian who asked about Somerset.

At the weekend Emma and family  came from Coral Gables. I got a Kindle as a pressie and learned about Abraham Lincoln’s early life on the train to Bristol. Had a note from a fellow writer who has published his latest as an e-book. Memo to self: crack the kindle properly and order book. A film crew came to record an obituary for CBS of Prince Philip. Felt mildly absurd but it took me back.

A word about death. I know I seem to go about it but the more of it there is, particularly among those who have been part of my life, the more such news tends to resemble “Valete” notes at the back of the school magazine. I don’t mean that it’s not important – far from it – but it is increasingly familiar. I think what I mean is that the more people experience death the less right you have to be frightened by it. It’s still alarming – the prospect of eternal nothing is terrible as is the prospect of whatever is the alternative but the fact that so many others have died surely makes the prospect less intimidating. Well doesn’t it? I mean if X and Y can endure it so can you. Can’t you? Can’t one? Mind you death can seem desperately sad, even more if it is out of  sequence and still more if self-inflicted. You have to be seriously depressed to want to end life and it is not possible to experience such despair, however, vicariously and not be moved. Which brings me back, perhaps, to Anzio in 1944 and my uncle who was killed there. However the young men were motivated  and though  they often believed their deaths were essential and perhaps inevitable one’s  feeling has to be of waste and the end of hope, optimism and  the future.

I suppose these are the fat, lazy thoughts of one who has been lucky. They are not necessarily depressed just realistic. Man that is born of woman has but a short time to live. Death makes us all trite and banal but the end is always close. I wish I could write something original on the subject but failure to do so seems to be universal. Max Bygraves died. He died on the Gold Coast of Australia whence he had emigrated. He was old enough to be my father, had Alzheimers and squillions, so no worries. On the other hand he was part of my furniture. I was brought up on Educating Archie. He was always around  with dreadful jokes, awful songs and so on but he was there and now he is not.

Meanwhile we saw the accountant in London and watched cricket at Lord’s. Perhaps life ends with cricket and accountancy. Discuss. The symptoms are worse if anything and we saw the doctor together. I came away unaccountably elated. Results are in and show me to be battered but,but…Maybe    I am just naturally optimistic. Again, discuss. Or not. Suffice it to say that even walking is a problem. I wanted to meet up with the boys at the cricket but we failed to make the RV. Instead we sat behind  three friends one of whom had Parkinson’s and arrived in a wheel chair. The stewards could not have been more charming or polite. Sir this, sir that, would sir want his chair after stumps, did sir need help. Quite restored one’s faith.

We stayed at the Premier Inn and had just the one course at Terroir and Les Deux  Salons and got upgraded from the Gods to the Stalls at the Duke of York’s Theatre. So maybe there is a God. I suppose too that a decent restaurant costs more but it was more than compensated by the quality of the nosh and the service. Nothing worse than paying anything at all for garbage, whereas…I did various things for the agent with the same thought at the back of my mind. It would be possible skimp and do second-rate things. Lots of people do that and get away with it but it always leaves a sour taste whatever some people say. I have often had  rows, I think some so-called editors stink, but I have always done my best even if not everyone would agree. Even so I have the feeling that ageism  stalks the land and a significant minority do not reply to perfectly civil suggestions. Which can make life difficult.

A message from a friend in Fort Lauderdale. We are plotting an American trip. Went and bought a lawn mower. Had the eyes tested (very thorough but I have to return tomorrow and glaucoma apparently threatens!). So we plan for the future, knowing that often that future is limited and in any case there is a very old joke about planning being God’s idea of, well a joke I suppose. Anyway all one can do is one’s best. This morning’s death is Lord Oaksey; Paradiso e Inferno, Bill’s favourite place, is closed and the pub where we used to have Sunday lunch has no weekend kitchens any more. See what I mean? Life continues, but the furniture has changed.

I wish I could say something profound but I leave that to other people, surprised as ever by  their hurt and  anger. In the long run we are all dead and nothing matters that much. On the other hand we have to believe the opposite, or pretend. I am with the former Bishop of Exeter who said once “Very rum. But I’d like to hear it discussed.” Or words to that effect. I have never forgotten the sentiment but don’t ask for a conclusion. Just remember, like Grace Bunbury, that furniture moves.

One of the grimmest aspects of clearing my Ma’s house was the discovery of so many things of my uncle Howard’s. He was killed in 1944 at Anzio and years ago when I can’t have been much older than he was when he died I visited his grave. In life I never met him. He was educated, thanks to Na (?) at Bedford Modern. What are we to do with him in the school cricket team or the school officers’ training corps? We’ve found the photographs. Also his bible. He was commissioned in the Dorset Regiment so the Regimental Museum at the Keep in Dorchester may be in for a shock. Watch this space.

Since then I have been in touch with the archivist at Bedford Modern. He seems keen, so another space has opened.

Early in the month we went with Norma Izard and her two grand-daughters to see England beat India at cricket in Taunton. Women.  I enjoyed it though everything about the ground is  changed except for the playing area. Thought of Aunty Tim and Betty. Poor Lobb! He was a “Trumpery thing” and he was supposed to be a fast bowler. Was given a picture of the ground which was a kind memento.

Checked the graves in Martock churchyard and the good news is that the headstone is back and James and Ma are duly recorded. No room for anyone else and James is “much loved” while David is simply “son”. Oh well. The point is that it’s done, dusted and OK. Thanks Uncle Tom! I wanted to discuss it at home but it isn’t something that is to be discussed alas. Likewise the offer which we’ve got through Chestertons on the Malt House. It is hugely below the guideline price and therefore not to be entertained at the moment. On the other hand. But no. I must not discuss it here. Suffice it to say that we are in the hands of experts. Are we downhearted? Emphatically not. Reflective yes, downhearted no. End of story, end of chapter.

On the 17^th to Dr. Sophia in Yeovil for a second opinion. Second opinion on what you may perfectly well ask and the answer is that the Vaughans have a history of high blood pressure and for ages I have been taking pills. My new, post move doctor changed the prescription since when he is well content and I…well I am not. In fact I’ve been feeling perfectly bloody! Anyway Dr.Sophia told me to give up one lot of pills and reduce the alcohol intake (which I already have – abandoning booze  except at the weekend). Oh well. Confronted with family correspondence, particularly from those who died young, one has all sort of thoughts about longevity and I am not sure that it is necessarily all it is cracked up to be. Thought this on reading the Maeve Binchy obits. I never met her and she was “only” 72. Her last few years seem to have been spent in some pain and suffering. Should she have gone when she was entirely well? I simply don’t have  the answers.

Anyway I have accepted an offer on the Malt House, so it really is the end of a chapter. I have spent much of  the last couple of (fine!) days going through my Ma’s things and learning lots about the long dead. Mainly my Dad who was obviously exceptional. Lots of letters to his own Ma, known to me as “Granny Heald”. Also her brother, Harvey, who died in the thirties while serving with the RAF. There I sit at the bottom of the garden with the tears running down my face as I read letters from my father at school at Colston’s or later when he was ADC to Ike. Bizarre!

At the end of July to the first ever e-book festival in Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire. Everything worked  except for the audience, which failed to materialize. This caused all sorts of ructions if you will pardon the pun for the festival was organized by Julian Ruck at a race course in the middle of. Well, I won’t write nowhere for nowhere is nowhere if you see what I mean but nevertheless Ffos Llas was a long way from big connurbations, particularly millions of readers, aspiring writers or in short an audience. It was not helped that the night speakers arrived  was the opening of the Olympics. Luckily most of us had been here before but poor Mr. and Mrs. Ruck evidently had not, so they were dispirited. Not necessary. More fool the punters. Or the putative punters.

The race course was new and nice; stall holders sold this and that; and there were stilt-walkers and a jolly-ish collection of authors. But audience came there none. Obviously there were reasons for this and equally obviously these will come out in the wash. This author, however, has had bigger audiences and worse experiences. The pub was nice, we were expected and made a tolerable fuss of. Pity about the audience. On both days Martin Edwards and I joined forces and spieled on crime to barely filled round tables. I thought the wide world was missing something but I suppose I would wouldn’t I? Home to the Olympics, controversies involving the Chinese (of course), the  London economy, (also of course), lack of British medals and empty seats. Feels familiar. But thank God we have a gold medal.

Anyhow I came home without much incident except that I foolishly took a bus to Yeovil bus station and after an interesting tour of a hitherto unknown housing estate found myself passing Yeovil Pen Mill station for the second time that day.  Then we  went to the bus station and caught the Bower Hinton bus.Interesting but I shall never understand the local bus services. Thank heaven it’s free for the ancient!

I am reviewing a book about sex and the Victorians for the Tablet and might be writing about Yeovil Town for the United States. Emma and her blokes from Coral Gables , at the weekend. All quite unlikely but nevertheless true.