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NEWSLETTER FOR APRIL

I am now in the middle of writing the fourth Simon Serrailler Crime novel…. THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN… I have also picked up a novel I started about six or seven years ago, left, picked up, left again… this does occasionally happen and I never know why. It happened with AIR AND ANGELS which actually took 11 years from the first line to the last..and it started out even before that as a film script for David Puttnam.
Why a book ‘sticks’ I will never know but there are only two things to do – tear it up, or leave it alone and see if it stays with you and goes on coming back into your head, in which case it is asking to be finished.
This has happened with FELIX DERBY, and now I have picked it up again, I am pretty sure I will finish it. When ? Now that is another question ! It could not be more different from the crime novels.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Has another birthday in June – 18 years in the West End. It still plays in Mexico City (12 years ), and has recently been in India .. and will have another short run in Los Angeles later.
It is always a poignant moment when something or other happens to it and I reach for the phone to talk to Stephen Mallatratt, who adapted it. Stephen died eighteen months ago. We used to laugh about the show we called ‘the dark lady’ and which we expected to run for 6 weeks in the tiny studio theatre in Scarborough one Christmas. We could never really believe in its good fortune… and never quite take it seriously. If we ever did we thought it would jinx it and the show would close.

A lot of high-profile people have been to see it lately.. Jamie Oliver, Ricky Gervais, Jonathan Ross and his family, Hugh Grant, Henry Kissinger and a dozen huge security men...
The present cast are superb .. Robert Demeger has been in the play so many times he deserves a long service medal.

IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE YEAR and COLLECTED SHORT STORIES.

All of my earlier books have been in print in Penguin paperbacks for many years but they are now having a clean sweep and getting rid of lots of backlist titles. This is very sad. It saddest of all for authors who can`t do anything about it. Fortunately, I can. I don`t want to see all my early novels back in print – not believing all my geese to be swans – but I am often asked for IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE YEAR, and so, I know, are many booksellers. So I will be bringing this back, as a paperback, under the Long Barn Books imprint, later this summer.
At the same time, I have gathered up all the short stories NOT including the recent ones published in The Boy who Taught the Beekeeper to Read (Vintage paperbacks and very in print..), and gone through them, weeded them a bit, added a couple of new ones, and am bringing those out too with Long Barn. They will be called FARTHING HOUSE and other stories. Waterstones have taken both but excitingly, they are highlighting the short stories in a nice novel way – I get to choose my four favourite collections of short stories by other writers and they shelve these prominently alongside my new collection. Lovely idea and fun to do… I'm busy working out my choice. It will certainly include some Katherine Mansfield.. but other than that I haven`t decided.

POEMS ON POSTCARDS

When I was a child I was pretty naughty and at the convent I attended, the sisters made us learn a poem while we sat in detention. So I have an awful lot of poems by heart and it has stood me in good stead over many years… for crosswords, for capping quotations, for showing-off – but more seriously, for enrichment of my life, mind and spirit.
It is very sad that children and young people are not often required to learn poems by heart now – even my own daughters, aged 29 and 21 this year, never did. I think they are missing a lot.
In August, Long Barn Books is publishing a book to coincide with the John Betjeman centenary and as I have always loved his verse and as it is so easy to remember, I hit on the idea of putting some of his poems onto postcards – for sale individually, and as a set in a nice folder. But like many ideas, it grew and now I am thinking of doing more Poems on Postcards… they have to be short-ish of course, to fit on the card, even though it is 7 inches by 5 – and for the time being to be out-of-copyright poems or I couldn`t afford to do them at all.. (The Betjeman Estate gave permission for his poems to be used.)
They will be on sale in quality bookshops and other retail outlets, I hope, and also via my own and the Long Barn Books website .. if the idea works, we might found a website for Poems on Postcards.

I would love some feedback. I would love to give away some poems on postcards to young people who might read and even learn by heart, just one..
It might be done through schools. I haven`t worked it out, which is why I would be glad to hear what you think about it all.
Meanwhile, there will be a competition up on the website in July, ready for the August John Betjeman centenary and some sets of the postcards will be given away to the lucky winners.
There will also be a competition for just ONE person to win a copy of the facsimile of John Betjeman`s children`s book ARCHIE AND THE STRICT BAPTISTS. He wrote this out and illustrated it, by hand…just one copy exists. We are doing an exact facsimile in a limited edition of only 500 copies, each one numbered. So it really will be a special prize.

MY LITTLE BORDER TERRIER

It really is amazing how something takes off. As you may know, our little Border Terrier Maudie went missing, almost certainly stolen, just before Christmas and there is a piece about it on my website. The Gloucestershire Echo was looking at the website when preparing it list of 100 Most Influential People in the county.. (I came in at 92 you`ll be glad to hear..) and rang me. A reporter came and I told her the missing Maudie story, and before I knew it, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail had picked it up.
The publicity has not brought Maudie back but it has brought in so many kind e-mails from dog-loving people, enquiring, offering to put up posters, giving advice, even suggesting possible sightings. I was so touched. And I do not despair as three people had dogs returned to them after 18 months, two and an incredible three and a half years since their loss. Meanwhile, Beano`s two new Border Terrier companions, Dandy and Smike (brother and sister) are trying but failing to persuade him that they now rule the roost.

HERITAGE CHILDREN'S BOOKS

A lot of very grown-up people, parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts and godparents, feel unhappy about some, at least, of the children`s books now on offer but they do want to buy books and build up libraries for the littles.
They remember stories they themselves read and loved and wish they, or their like, were still available. I am among them. So I am launching Little Barn Books.. a small series of Heritage children’s books..and no, I do not mean yet more reprints of Little Women and Treasure Island.
The first two are pony books and pony-children do not change any more than ponies, pony club and gymkhanas change. Grandparents who loved and rode ponies want a new generation to enjoy some of the classic pony books – among which are two by Hester Knight. Anyone who is at all familiar with the horse world in one form or other will recognize the name – she was the mother of the great racing trainer Henrietta Knight (yes, trainer of Best Mate.. Three times winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup..) and of Lady Vestey, whose husband Lord (Sam ) Vestey is Master of the Horse to the Queen.
Hester's books were first published in the 1960s – Escape to the Downs and
Donkey Derby, and were illustrated by one of the great sporting artists and illustrators, Raoul Millais.
Millais also drew the pictures for another Heritage children`s book, but this one has never yet seen the light of day. It was written in the 1960s by Lord Erne – Harry Erne, of Crum Castle, Northern Ireland, for his own children. Millais was a friend and he drew the pictures – and when he died in his 90s, his family found the manuscript and the original drawings. Lucky Little Barn Books to be publishing all three for a new generation of children and for nostalgic Oldies too.

AND MAY I WISH ALL SUBSCRIBERS TO THE NEWSLETTER A VERY HAPPY EASTER.