CONTENTS

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EDITORIAL - Ken Clay

MY LIFE IN STRETFORD – John Lee

LONG CAUSEWAY – Keith Howden

JE NE REGRET RIEN - Keith Howden

SHOW TRIAL HOLLYWOOD – Jim Burns

MOORE’S APPLES - Alexis Lykiard

LATE NOTES ON BOARDING SCHOOL - Alexis Lykiard

OLD BULLY BOY - Alexis Lykiard

THE BEECHES (5) – David Birstwistle

BIKING FOR BEGINNERS – Ron Horsefield

SOCIAL DEBRIS GANGBANG - Tanner

MOVING ON (3)  -  Ivan de Nemethy

TWO FIRES – Mark Ward

STAMP COLLECTING – Mark Ward

SHOPPING THIEVES (3) – Bob Wild

SPLASHING OUT – George Aitch

THE END OF THE WORLD – Nigel Ford

THE BEAT YEARS – Ken Champion

BRONCHITIS MK II – Vivien Leslie

 EDITORIAL 

La Vie Litteraire 

In spite of all that business in Haiti I still patronise the Chester Oxfam and was scanning the shelves when a young lady, flushed and with her frock on back to front, emerged from the back room, She was clutching a complete set of Walter Scott’s Waverley novels which she said were cheap as chips. My own search came up with Roger Shattuck’s The Banquet Years (1969) about the origins of the Avant Garde in France 1885-1914. I stumped up the full price (£2.49). No point in an ugly old git asking for a discount. The opening pages of Roge’s book got me thinking about la vie litteraire after I’d copped the following: 

In barely a generation, Princesse Mathilde had learned an aristocratic ease which gave her the proper "presence" for a salon. Her guests never felt like performing animals. Madame Aubernon, however, a somewhat vulgar aristocrat of the old school, passionately interested in literature and the theater, conducted her rival salon like a lion tamer. About a dozen guests attended her poorly cooked dinners in the Rue d'Astorg, and Madame Aubernon alone decided the subject for discussion. One guest at a time was per­mitted to orate, and his chances of a second invitation depended on the brilliance of his performance. The hostess silenced any disorderly interruption by ringing a little porcelain bell which stood at her right hand. One evening when Renan was discoursing at some length, she had several times to call to order the dramatist Labiche (author of The Italian Straw Hat). When she finally asked him to speak, he admitted with some reluctance that he had onlv wanted to ask for more peas. On another occasion Madame Aubernon asked D'Annunzio point-blank what he thought of love; his reply was not designed to bring him a second invitation: "Read my books, Madame, and let me eat my dinner." A lady, asked with similar abruptness to speak her piece on the subject of adultery, replied, "You must pardon me, Madame. For this evening I prepared incest." 

Yes, they do order these things better in France. The Goncourt Journal is the finest example – catty, vindictive, even libellous. Although Edmond died in 1896 a complete unexpurgated edition couldn’t, for legal reasons, appear until the 1950s. Subtitled la vie litteraire it set the template for subsequent French productions – notably Gide’s massive Journal (1889-1949) and the 19 volumed Journal Litteraire (1893-1956) of that crazy old coot Paul Leautaud. He may have had an incestuous relationship with his mother but otherwise remained faithful to his 20 cats and dogs. This collection can be had for as little as £300 on Abebooks, maybe even cheaper in Oxfam if you have the right attributes. Like the Goncourts, and Gide, Leautaud knew everybody on the Parisian literary scene. Is there an English equivalent other than the diaries of Alan Bennett?  

It seems to be a metropolitan phenomenon. The nearest thing we’ve got to the salon of Princess Mathilde, or even the lesser Madame Aubernon, would be that congregation of pissheads in the Soho Pillars of Hercules – the Amises, Julian Barnes, Clive James, Robert Conquest and Ian Hamilton. As for the provinces – scraping a living is the principal concern. A recent Guardian 28 June p17 says the average full time writer earns approx £5.73 and hour. When “occasional” writers are included this comes to £3000 a year. I conclude that the most authentic accounts of the current UK vie litteraire are to be found in the harrowing, but hilarious, episodes of le journal de Tanner,

ALEXIS LYKIARD

MOORE’S APPLES 

i.m. Merrill Moore MD (1903-57) 

A sonnet a day keeps the doctor away.
An ample store of words will feed the memory,
and so between hard stints as psychoanalyst
he harvested a myriad calm, uncluttered lines –
grist also to the practice mill, a subtle means
of circumventing daily pressure. What relief,
wry formulae for peace worked out through patience,
a way past those sad, formless traumas which persist…

 How, though, to extract a valid style from the despair
of others? Always the puzzling mind, aware
no certainties exist, runs on, while noting awkward hints
at what’s concealed. To explicate some blurred belief
meant honing one’s own meanings; still the neater codes
held healing truths as well as wild, audacious odes. 

[Dr Moore, a veteran of the US Army Medical Corps in WW2, wrote two to five sonnets a day, having developed a ‘compulsive addiction’ to this form. His numerous collections included M: One Thousand Autobiographical Sonnets, 1938.]

La Baigneuse Nu - Jean Metzinger 1937