The Mind Of Kenneth Williams:

Today, marks what would have been Kenneth Williams 97th birthday.  in April, it will also have been 35 years since what; in many senses was an untimely death.  I recently finished a copy of his diaries (published in 1993, currently out of print).  He kept them, on and off for 47 years.  Russell Davies waded through what amounts for 4m words. You can look at the whole collection in The British Library, if you wish.

A major feat, especially as the author is continually derided and insulted throughout them (IE a disgusting slob).  

Of course, the thing that looms largest over Williams' career was The Carry-On films.  Out of all the actors in them, he made the most appearances over twenty years.  He's continually ruminating on whether to appear in another.  In a way, they appear to him to be comedy hurricanes - massively damaging at the eye, but beautiful at a distance.  But he really enjoys them when they're on TV.  And of course, he is always the best thing in them. 

There's also that darker side to his personality.  And I know now, we can dismiss racism and right-wing politics as archaic.  But if bigotry is the language of people with no opinions; it's becoming the national tongue. 

So, within Williams' diaries you'll find references to that brave woman Margaret Thatcher and the marvellous man Norman Tebbit. You'll also find the worst examples of racist language, even in the published edit. Two thankfully outmoded terms for anyone who isn't white, the cockney rhyming slang for Jewish people. See also: the admiration for Enoch Powell, a man who cloaked his own hatred in references to classical literature.  Powell was right.  They should have deported the lot of them.  All they have done is imported alien cultures and poverty.

And it's incredibly easy to dismiss this as a man who was a product of his own East End upbringing.  The Great Lives profile on Radio 4 in September 2020 certainly did that.  But we can trace that poisonous, acidic line from then to now... it was becoming socially unacceptable then, it would certainly put a firebomb under any career now. Or possibly get him a spot on the cheap sofas of GB News.  

And for a man who inwardly felt those views, put the ink to paper; there is still that cognitive dissonance.  He loves working with Floella Benjamin.  Lenny Henry is one of the few decent talents around at the moment.  Work that one out.  

Williams' sexuality is the real grey/gay area here. It was always a subject for speculation.  And the diaries really don't provide a definitive answer.  There's that Maslovian need for a partner.  But no real, hard (ooh) evidence of whom it might have been.  Instead, there is references to the odd, inconsequential fumble.  Being approached by gay men on the streets.  His regular holidays in Morrocco, with mild incidences of S&M.  Catching crabs. The use of Polari terms such as naff and Marconi. The cockney rhyming phrase The Barclays, which is usually the end of a perfect day.  

His celebrity crushes appear to have been varied, ranging from Kevin Keegan to John McEnroe, to Dirk Benedict, to Gary Wilmot. But his masturbatory activities generally involved fantasy, or even himself. As Peter Cook said, "Ken's not interested in sex, he'd rather have a wank and a Mars bar".  To which he replies in the diary, "I don't eat Mars Bars."

The end of his career comes with a painful diversification.  He's proud of being on Equity's council, but at the same time becomes a regular face on TV chat/game shows; he can even note which anecdotes he's going to use.  He makes one successful foray into directing - Loot, by his late friend Joe Orton.  He appears in the first production, which is disastrous.  Come 1980, he's directing it - even starring in the lead using Orton's playscript; when the actor playing it gets mugged.

At the end of his life, he's the proverbial tear-stained clown.  Literature, poetry and classical music lift him up.  Back pain, a stomach ulcer and caring for an elderly mother push him down.  He's cultured enough to regularly quote Ode To A Nightingale by Keats ("To cease upon the midnight with no pain"), but the most quoted phrase is "Oh, what's the bloody point?"

And that is the final entry in his diary. His death is recorded as an open verdict. 

And where would he be today?  For a man who often referred to other gay men as queue, often dismissing them as poofs, queens or queers, he might be surprised to find societal acceptance of the latter as no cause of shame.  He came from a time when Frankie Howerd was closeted, but in a steady relationship.  Maybe, this would make him a stranger in a strange land.  Would he appear on a chat show with, for example Tom Allen (a huge Kenneth Williams fan)? What would be his thoughts on his lifelong friend Stanley Baxter outing himself at the age of 93?

Like all hypothetical questions, there is no answer.  See also, attempting to contextualise someone 35 years dead.  Williams was a mass of contradictions; as much as he was a talented individual.  He belongs to history, but like all legends - he'll never truly die.  

 A Mother's Hope for the Cornish Girl's by Betty Walker: 

 

This is the third book in a popular series. Romantic fiction is always popular, and this is an amiable, well-plotted and entertaining read.  

 

We're headed to Cornwall. St Ives to be precise. It's 1943 and the Second World War is at its height. The framing device is Symond's Hall, a convalescent home. Lily a cockney, is presented with a moral dilemma when she cares for her first love. Meanwhile, Mary falls in fall with Dick - who is the schoolteacher of the evacuee her parents are caring for. Most interestingly of all, is Sonya. The daughter she gave up after a teenage pregnancy comes back into her life and she is forced to confront her past; to secure a better future.  

  

If that sounds like a lot of plot, you'd be right. There is a lot going on for a novel that is just shy of 400 pages. But Walker is always in control of a sprawling narrative. In that sense, she switches between the three narratives, cross over them occasionally and ties them all neatly together in a neat bow at the end.   

 

She's also very good on the discussion of what love is. Again, not something that's been ignored in this genre, but it's three very different definitions of what love is and how its perception is determined by the people in the relationship. Lily falls in love as an act of duty and gradually accepts love on her own terms. Mary falls for a phlegmatic, but idealistic man. Mary struggles with becoming a grandmother in middle age, let alone her "spirited" grandson.  

Walker is also as good on the wartime period as much as she is on Cornish culture. There's also the framing device of the married couple working at the orphanage, which is reminiscent of Call the Midwife. In an age of constant content, it would be interesting to see this on TV.  

 

Ultimately, it's a poignant fairy-tale. There's even a fairy godmother. It's a comforting read that reminds the reader; even in wartime or an ever-changing world love can both thrive and survive.  

This Family by Kate Sawyer:

I have been an evangelist for Kate Sawyer’s first novel The Stranding since it was published eighteen months ago.  I’ve frequently described it; to people who read my blog, people in it’s general vicinity in bookshops, when I’ve been doing books of the year on local radio as: ‘the kind of book you’ll need a good lie down and a cry afterwards.  Probably both’. 

This Family is in that area where you’ll need soft furnishings and folding tissues.  It is also evidence of a writer growing not just in confidence and maturity, but someone who can play with a non-linear narrative and still maintain a reader’s interest.  

It is also a novel where it’s probably best to go in spoiler free.  So, let’s just give you the merest thread of the narrative.  Emma, Phoebe and Rosie return home for their mother’s wedding, the last event in the family home before it is sold. 

Now, if you’re erudite enough; you’ll probably have sussed the nod to at least one Chekhov play.  Well done, three points. But let’s be blunt here: tributes to Chekhov tend to be dry, tedious and an attempt by a writer to appear clever.  The only one who’s done it recently with any sort of grace or wit is Gary Shteyngart in Our Country Friends.  And he has a very strong track record of parodying Russian literature, tovarisch.  

But this is a different, more graceful kind of dance.  Sawyer shows a family in its true Larkinian state - and you can say that of most families.  She pulls and twists the narrative back and forward, with each character’s narrative being revealed through reveries, filtered through the last forty years of history. 

There is also the confidence to misdirect the reader and make them gasp - for example, the daughter’s Mother is not marring whom you think she is. Sawyer is also excellent on the small cruelties on family life as much as she is on what German’s call Weltschmerz. 

The Stranding was a CliFi novel with a human face, but it was as deft on the sensual  side of nature.  Here, there is sunlight, sunflowers, animals.  Most notably, as far as I’m aware the only use of pigs as the darkest of plot devices.  

And let’s return to those literary nods.  This novel includes the use of a pond as Chekhov’s gun.  I’ll say no more. 

But this is where the admiration ends and the recommendation begins. This Family is a gorgeous, slow-burning firework as much as a bittersweet study of family life.  As novels on homecomings go, it’s on the same street as The Green Road by Ann Enright. I’m probably going to spend the next eighteen months recommending this as much as did The Stranding.  

It’s published on May 11th. My thanks go to Kate Sawyer and Veronique Norton at Hodder for a proof copy.  

Books Of The Year: 

 

"Outside of a dog, man's best friend is a book" wrote Groucho Marx.  Adding "Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."   

 

We are always surrounded by darkness at Christmas.  This year the match of the festive spirit seems difficult to ignite.  Never mind, a book is the perfect pressie that informs, educates and entertains.  It rarely needs charging and generally delights the soul.  I read a lot of books and blog about them so you can make an educated guess as to what a distant relative might like.  It's kind of my thing.   

Christmas is always good for a ghost story, so I would recommend Small Angels by Lauren Owen, by a long branch the best thing I've read this year.  I read a proof copy in May, three months ahead of its publication and it was enough to give me nightmares then.  Sam and Kate plan their wedding in the eponymous church in Sam's childhood village and are terrorised by the spirit of the woods, Mockbeggar.  Partially about the sacrifice of love, partially about love on your own terms, but eloquently terrifying all the same.   

Marian Keyes returned with Again, Rachel.  A sort of sequel to her 1998 novel Rachel's Holiday.  Our heroine is now counsellor at the rehab she attended, and she has settled for life on her own terms. All that equilibrium is blown by the return of her ex, Luke.  Keyes has a lightness of touch that few novelists possess.  She is a comic novelist with a mellow side. The Walsh family are a deft creation of lunatics, but there is also the sense of wisdom that comes with loss. 

I'm going to cheat here, which is appropriate as Christmas is a time for mischief.  The Stranding by Kate Sawyer was originally published in 2021, but this year saw its paperback release.  It's a sadly overlooked work, which is often filed as CliFi.  But it has a growing reputation - a Radio 4 Book At Bedtime and it’s currently being adapted for the big (or small) screen.  Set at Christmas and ending at Christmas, Ruth escapes the apocalypse with a photographer in the belly of a dead whale.  The narrative is split in two, meeting at the end of the novel.  By which time, you'll probably need a lie down and a good cry.  Possibly both.   

In non-fiction, let's start with The Slow Road to Tehran, Rebecca Lowe's journal of her bike ride across The Middle East.  It's full of delicious details, but tautly written enough to make the mouth gape at bike crashes and broken laptops.  It's expansive enough to explain the politics and culture of the area, but with the human touch of people just wanting to be happy.  

Anthony Beevor's book take roughly four years to write and research.  They are always grimly fascinating, but with a strangely addictive quality.  Russia suggests topical connotations but looks at The Russian Civil War following The October Revolution. Beevor doesn't stint on the gore and lunacy of conflict, but also throws details into his prose that are incredible - such as The Tsar having a military band in one room of his palace, which played The National Anthem when he walked in.  

Janina Ramirez is the smiley face of TV history.  Feminina looked at the woman of the Middle Ages, erased from history by The Reformation (the title was written on documents created by women).  In some small part, Ramirez is returning them to our collective consciousness. It's well-researched enough to stand as an academic work but is engagingly written to work as something that can be read in chapters, with one woman, lost from history in each.   

Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries was everything I thought it would be.  Rickman is a still a great loss to the acting world. Alan Taylor edits his thoughts and elegantly scripted journals into a cohesive whole.  A man who is quietly proud of his films, but actively hates the boy wizard who conjures up the fame and fortune he secretly craves.  It's a classic of the genre, up there with the diaries of Richard Burton and Alec Guinness.  

Finally, A Pocketful Of Happiness is Richard E Grant's account of losing his wife Joan.  It's easy to dismiss it as a light, frothy, insubstantial read.  But there is real weight in here.  He's starry-eyed as ever, but it portrays grief and loss in a more deeply personal way than Kubler-Ross ever could.   

Merry Christmas.  Buy your books locally.  Know that better, brighter times and days are coming for us all.