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Christmas 2013

25/12/2013

Hastings Seafront - leaning back and barely able to stand

We’ve been experiencing torrential rain and gales for the past thirty-six hours here in the UK. It has passed now in the area of South East England where we live, although I believe some parts of northern England and Scotland are currently suffering. I understand many homes are without power and I have every sympathy with them.

Yesterday, out on a last minute shopping trip, soaked to the skin and feeling a bit sorry for ourselves, my wife and I passed a shabby sleeping bag that had been left in the recessed doorway of The King Charles the Martyr Church in Tunbridge Wells. It was an unexpected sight, here in this most affluent of towns, and a timely reminder to myself that at this time of year when I have only known joy, loving warmth and companionship, there are so many whose experience is altogether very different.

December 2013 saw the death of a very great man, Nelson Mandela. His life stands as an example to the whole world; his legacy was tolerance and forgiveness. After suffering twenty-seven years of imprisonment under an inhuman and unjust system, he was able to offer new hope and reconciliation where he might have sought to pay out his former oppressors with vengeance. After just one term as the first black President of his country, he did what he'd always said he would do and stood down - not many politicians of any colour creed or race have been known to do this voluntarily, it is not instinctively (unfortunately) for them a natural modus operandi. So, what better Christmas message could there be than how this one man taught the world a lesson in humility and compassion?

He was very old and death was inevitable, yet his life, like the spirit of Christmas, represents a beacon of light and hope. We shouldn't just feel sad for his passing but also a deep sense of gratitude for his life and what he gave us.

Take care this Christmas, be kind, and if you, like us, are fortunate enough to have every creature comfort and are tucked up safely in 'the fold' - perhaps just spare a thought for those who don't belong to a loving family. There weren't any fairy lights on that sleeping bag!

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The Spire (and another book on Mediaeval Cathedral Building)

19/12/2013

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I started to read a doorstep-sized piece of popular fiction about the building of a cathedral, billed on the cover of my copy as 'The Classic Masterpiece' - but fifty pages in discovered myself rapidly losing the will to live. Ah well, horses for courses as they say!

"This is flippin' awful," I told the wife.

"Don't read it then," she said.

She was right, of course, and I'd already passed my fifty pages rule! Aforementioned book was swiftly consigned to the charity shop box. The book has a huge number of admirers who heap nothing but praise on it, but frankly ...

"Shame," I said, "I just fancied reading something about the Middle Ages."

She disappeared off into the other room and came back with a copy of The Spire by William Golding. "This is good," she said, "Same period, same cathedral I reckon."

I set off.

I think it's possible to measure (to some extent) a great piece of writing by how large it looms in your psyche. This book and the religious hubris of its main character seemed to take up residence in my dreams from the moment I started reading it. It is a book packed with metaphor, and although written in the third person, it is fully inhabited by the main character Jocelyn's mental landscape. He is a man obsessed by a vison and a charge, which he is convinced has been placed on him by God, to erect a huge spire atop an already existing cathedral. This building lacks the necessary foundations that might be considered sufficient for such a vast undertaking, and against the advice of Roger Mason (the master builder in charge of the project), wisdom and sanity, Jocelyn forces through what he believes to be God's will. He is a man who feels as if he's supported by an angel, yet at the same time is tormented by demons. The book, although written in linear time, has a nightmarish quality, and an out of sync feel about it - just as the main character's clarity of purpose is unbalanced by obsession.

Serious stuff, superb writing.

Nothing whatever to do with the above, although it does perhaps illustrate how important books are in our home. Earlier this week:

After supper my wife Judith was texting a friend. She asked me, "My mind's gone blank ... who did The Source?"

Casting my mind back, "Er, James Michener," I said.

She laughed, "No, THE SAUCE - the one we had for tea!"

"Lloyd Grossmann," I replied.

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Cymraeg

12/12/2013

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'Mynd' magazine August/September 1966

I've started to learn Welsh (Cymraeg). I grew up in a home with one parent fluent in both English and Welsh and the other one (Mother), who although she had a solid understanding of her native tongue, lacked the confidence to engage in conversation with more able Welsh language speakers. Despite attending a Welsh speaking chapel throughout our childhood, my brother and I, without the benefit of Welsh being spoken at the hearth-side, grew up with only English. This is something I've often regretted deeply and always meant to remedy. Thing is, it's hard to commit to learning something new, not that Welsh is of course an entirely new thing for me.

I did Welsh up to O Level - the equivalent of a GCSE when I was in school. I really enjoyed the subject and tended to be fairly good at it. However, learning a language formally via the text book and speaking it as it is spoken are two very different things. I was talking to one of my brothers-in-law yesterday evening on this very subject. He, like most of my wife's brothers and sisters, has whatever the necessary gene is for language learning. As children they also had the benefit of spending their summer holidays on a campsite in Spain among kids from half a dozen other European nations. When you're a child you don't stop to find out if your last sentence was eloquently put or wholly grammatical in its structure - you just say it! My brother-in-law describes himself as a 'guerilla language speaker' - he explained: 'I'm not worried about making mistakes. I don't mind getting dirty, I simply get down in there and start speaking.'

My wife has often spoken of her Dad's Herculean efforts to learn Spanish. He studied tapes and text books in his dressing room in Drury Lane, but whenever he got over to Spain and tested it out on the natives, he found people just looked confused or thought him crazy. He had learned the poetic language of Cervantes - "Landlord bring forth a flagon of thy foaming ale , that I may quaff it!"

See the problem?

His wife on the other hand was a natural 'guerilla' language speaker and like her children got right in there, low-down, mean 'n' dirty, regardless of all the mistakes she was no doubt making.

My wife Judith, who has always considered herself honorary Welsh, has taken up the learning challenge with me. I do of course have an advantage, as discussed above, with Welsh. However, she was born with an innate interest in everything, has a large propensity for learning, may actually be part parrot I think; and I do have a little niggling worry that in a very short time she will be up at the bar telling rude jokes in Welsh with the boys, while I sit lonely and confused on the sidelines!

They say it's always good to express your innermost fears!

The internet is of course a great resource for any kind of learning and BBC Wales has loads of lessons and help to offer any Welsh learner. The magazine Mynd (verb 'To Go') pictured above, was at the heart of Welsh language learning at the the time I started secondary school and contained sections for every ability level. As I'm a hoarder, I still have all of mine - incidentally 1/3d (one shilling and threepence) was in pre-decimal currency approximately 8p - I'm not sure this would buy you a fruit chew today!

Onward and upward!

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Do They Mean Me?

4/12/2013

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There's a moment in one of my all-time favourite comedies Young Frankenstein, when Friedrich Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is locked in a room alone with the monster he fully believes to be a vicious brute. He naturally fears for his life and all he can think on the spur of the moment to say is, "Hey there, good looking!"

The monster (Peter Boyle), with a forehead like the landing strip on an aircraft carrier and not exactly much of a 'looker', is completely thrown by the remark and looks over his own shoulder to see if someone else is standing behind him, who the good Doctor is talking to.

Sometimes being a writer feels just a little bit like this for me. It still surprises (but mostly just fills me with delight!) when folk I don't actually know, who I haven't had to bribe, blackmail, or pay large sums of money to, tell me how much they actually like one or other (or both) of my books.

Do they actually, honestly, really mean me?

Back at the end of August, Simone, writing a review on behalf of The Orchard Book Club, a group of self-confessed book adorers, left a review on the Goodreads site entitled I absolutely loved, loved loved this book! for Niedermayer & Hart. Simone had read the book on her Kindle. A couple of weeks back, Simone's friends ordered a copy of N & H from my website for her birthday and asked me to write a message in it for her - something that I was of course more than happy to do!

This afternoon, after completing my writing for the day, I checked (as I do every day) my emails, website, facebook page, tweets etc. Simone had sent me a tweet to say thanks for writing in her book, and another to say how much she couldn't stop stroking its lovely cover! See, I said the Orchard Book Club are a group of totally unabashed book adorers!

Anyway, this blog wishes Simone a very happy birthday and many, many, happy returns of the day!

And finally, I'd just like to say how grateful I am to all you avid readers out there who have taken the time and trouble to sit down and say what it is about either of my books they like. It not only means a very great deal to me personally, but good reviews always encourage renewed interest which in turn (hopefully) improves sales. If it weren't for people like you, my books, without the weight of a publishing house and publicity machine behind them, would have reached a tiny audience of mostly friends and family and by now would almost certainly have pretty much sunk without a trace.

If you haven't seen this short clay figure animation, made by my son Tom Johnson to help to launch Niedermayer & Hart ever before - then you're in for a little treat. Enjoy!

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Christmas 2013

The Spire (and another book on Mediaeval Cathedral Building)

Cymraeg

Do They Mean Me?

M J Johnson

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