Books
Sum Total
First published by Faber and Faber 1962, reprinted by Pomona 2004
I READ THE PAPER STANDING OVER THE MARBLE-topped bar I read the paper. Says I’m tired, played out; that I’ve shocked parents, stirred nationwide publicity, and that I have left this city. This paper, it tells me I’m on an extended holiday with friends in the North. Int that nice – bloody lie. I’m here, still in this city, waiting for a train to take me south. At last I’m going away. I don’t know where. I bought a ticket for London, but I don’t know. I fancy going home for a start. Whisky – feel it burn all the way down. Cigarette – feel the nicotine cling. That woman in green, she needs some lessons in how to pour beer. The bloody trains they’re late again. Not surprising, everywhere there’s fog. I love You. I love You. Write it with the wet beer on the marble. I love You. That’s why it’s taken so long for me to get out of this place. When Leicester went bust, there was only You to keep me here. But now I’ve got to go. I can’t stay any longer. But I tell you this: when all this is over I’ll be back. Don’t worry I’m coming back; back to Banners and The Ratcliffe, Le Gourmet and The Marquis and The Old Barley Mow, and all them places I can’t really name. I have, I do, I love You. (read more...)
I READ THE PAPER STANDING OVER THE MARBLE-topped bar I read the paper. Says I’m tired, played out; that I’ve shocked parents, stirred nationwide publicity, and that I have left this city. This paper, it tells me I’m on an extended holiday with friends in the North. Int that nice – bloody lie. I’m here, still in this city, waiting for a train to take me south. At last I’m going away. I don’t know where. I bought a ticket for London, but I don’t know. I fancy going home for a start. Whisky – feel it burn all the way down. Cigarette – feel the nicotine cling. That woman in green, she needs some lessons in how to pour beer. The bloody trains they’re late again. Not surprising, everywhere there’s fog. I love You. I love You. Write it with the wet beer on the marble. I love You. That’s why it’s taken so long for me to get out of this place. When Leicester went bust, there was only You to keep me here. But now I’ve got to go. I can’t stay any longer. But I tell you this: when all this is over I’ll be back. Don’t worry I’m coming back; back to Banners and The Ratcliffe, Le Gourmet and The Marquis and The Old Barley Mow, and all them places I can’t really name. I have, I do, I love You. (read more...)
Personal Copy - A Memoir of the Sixties
First published by Faber and Faber 1980, reprinted by Five Leaves, 2010
St. Ann’s Well Road was an absolute maze of back streets that seemed to go on for ever. I had never seen so many. Whichever way you looked, up and down the hillsides, as far as any road ahead stretched, were the tightly-packed roofs of poor people’s housing: and it was full of surprise.
The smell of wood from a theatrical carpenter’s yard up a quiet cul-de-sac. The almost Americanized good-looking, middle-aged women singing to Music While You Work at the brightly coloured bobbins and spindles in this undergarment factory you could look right down on to from a street on a cliff-buff above.
There were Greek cafes, an Italian pastry shop, shops with German sausages- strings of black sausages in the window – beautiful pastry. Polish bread with poppy and caraway seeds and a shop with nothing in the window but a globe atlas on a white slab of marble and a little old lady, like a dwarf, behind a wooden counter. (read more...)
St. Ann’s Well Road was an absolute maze of back streets that seemed to go on for ever. I had never seen so many. Whichever way you looked, up and down the hillsides, as far as any road ahead stretched, were the tightly-packed roofs of poor people’s housing: and it was full of surprise.
The smell of wood from a theatrical carpenter’s yard up a quiet cul-de-sac. The almost Americanized good-looking, middle-aged women singing to Music While You Work at the brightly coloured bobbins and spindles in this undergarment factory you could look right down on to from a street on a cliff-buff above.
There were Greek cafes, an Italian pastry shop, shops with German sausages- strings of black sausages in the window – beautiful pastry. Polish bread with poppy and caraway seeds and a shop with nothing in the window but a globe atlas on a white slab of marble and a little old lady, like a dwarf, behind a wooden counter. (read more...)