As the accompanying music swells, George, never the most robust of vocalists, has to strain a bit to answer his own previous line, ‘You’re asking me will my love grow’. The first time he replies there’s resignation in his voice – but the second time, arguably, some irritation.

As a member of the Fab Four in 1969, George Harrison could do pretty much whatever he liked. (He not only wrote and sang the sublime Something, for instance – he reeled off its exquisite guitar solo too.) But hey, nobody can read the future. By acknowledging in three short words – I don’t know! –  that some issues can’t be categorically resolved, this world-historical icon showed he was also nakedly, constructively human.

Today, by contrast, the dominant voices within our politico-cultural complex seldom proclaim their uncertainty about – well – anything.

In the spoof rock-documentary This Is Spinal Tap, the band’s vocalist suggests that a visit to Elvis Presley’s grave ‘puts perspective on things’. ‘Too much f****** perspective,’ his guitarist demurs. For years we members of the public have likewise been subjected to far too much f****** certitude.

God alone knows what fiendish problems will go on arising to face the world in 2025 – but just watch our presidents and pundits rush to announce they have the solutions, while rubbishing everyone else’s alternatives. The occasional initial Harrisonesque ‘I don’t know’ might at least give all of us a little more room for manoeuvre.

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BOOK LAUNCH BLUES

or

The Unconditional Love of an Author

They say that a book’s like a baby:

conception, gestation, release.

But you uncork a storm

when a baby is born

and when most books come out,

though their authors might shout,

the silence, you’ll find,

can be cut like a cord.

And yet you can’t stay unattached.

The all-but-stillborn’s still been born.

If you don’t love them, no one will,

and after all they’re yours.

They always will be yours.

At times, besides

– small pause for cough –

the wider world can bugger off.

Haydn Middleton 2024

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https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-2023/those-golden-years/

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The book has been adapted for radio by Roger James Elsgood, and the play has been made for the BBC by his own company, Art and Adventure Ltd. Willi Richards directs.

I won’t get to hear it myself until it is broadcast but I’ve heard great things about the recording. The play will be available on BBC Sounds after the event.

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By way of an update on my own activities, I reproduce below part of an article that recently appeared in our local Village News. I was one of a handful of people interviewed by its editor on ‘Work-Life During the Pandemic’.

“For author Haydn Middleton the pandemic brought some problems but also a great opportunity. Haydn writes history books for children under the pen name Haydn Kaye and fiction for adults under his own name. He also teaches creative writing to Stanford University students. He had two children’s books in the pipeline this year, both written before lock-down. The Girl Who Said No to The Nazis, an inspirational story about Sophie Scholl and the plot against Hitler, was published in August as part of Pushkin’s “True Adventures” series, but publication of Albert, a children’s book about Einstein in Oxford publisher David Fickling’s “First Names” series, has been delayed until next spring. His teaching commitments were cancelled. This may well have hit the monthly bank balance but it did give Haydn what all creatives need – space and time to develop his ideas.

“Way back in 1998 Haydn had an idea for a life-affirming novel set in a world recovering from an unspecified cataclysm. He wrote the first 9 pages and then set it aside. Seven years later he did produce a full first draft but his literary agent found it “bewildering” and so it was never submitted to a publisher. In 2019 he started on a different version which the break in other activities this year enabled him to complete in July. He considers himself incredibly fortunate to have been able to “plough his own furrow” during the pandemic, but he also became more aware of his own mortality! So the pandemic not only gave Haydn the space in his diary to work on the novel, it also sharpened his motivation. He told me, “As a 65-year-old in these dire global circumstances I decided now was the time I had to get this book, 22 years in the making, finally written”. His publisher said on reading it, “As it stands, I can think of nothing like it, in any discipline”. It will be published next spring under the intriguing title The Actual Whole of Music. Keep a look-out for it!”

Over the next few months I plan to say a lot more here about TAWOM, which is a dream come true in more ways than one. I’m thrilled that Henry Layte and his team at Propolis Books, who made such a brilliant job of The Ballad of Syd & Morgan, are going to be publishing this one too, and have slated 1 May 2021 as its release date.

Meanwhile, as mentioned above, The Girl Who Said No To The Nazis is now on the market. Here’s the Amazon link which allows you to look at some of the text as well as the excellent illustrations: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Who-Said-Nazis-Adventures/dp/1782692754/ref=sr_1_1?crid=F0RYH1LE1RI7&dchild=1&keywords=the+girl+who+said+no+to+the+nazis&qid=1602775739&sprefix=the+girl+who+said+no+%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-1 And here is a video clip of Frank Cottrell-Boyce endorsing the book as part of the “True Adventures” series: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CEWmgAZnk3X/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet (He takes a while to get on to the new books but do bear with it!)

And finally here I’d like to draw attention to some fine work by an artist friend, Iwan Bala. The heading of this blog post, From Confinement, is a little doff of the cap to Iwan, since that’s the title of his latest collection of paintings, which can all be found here: https://www.iwanbala.com/node/594

They make a powerful statement in their own right, of course, but they also intrigue me as the prolific response of a fellow-artist to the lockdown conditions he found himself in, just across the village green from me. He has subsequently returned to his native Wales, but during the period while he was producing these paintings, and I was writing the better part of TAWOM, we saw almost nothing of each other, yet I believe some of his images strike resonant chords with elements in my novel, and vice-versa. Reassuringly spooky.

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Back in the summer an independent producer pitched his own version of the text to BBC Radio 4 – having secured an agreement from Sir Simon Russell Beale, no less, to read the part of Morgan – but the Beeb didn’t bite. Discussions continue on taking a dramatised stage version of the novel to Edinburgh.

The Shindig! Review can be found on page 90 of this PDF of the magazine:

SD88

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