Walter Macken

by Ultan Macken

  I realise that those carpets that my father bought from the Countess in 1951 are probably the same ones that I have in my house in Menlo to this day!

  A further letter came from Countess Metaxa:

  Gort na Ganiv.

  20.6.51

  Dear Mr Macken,

  I understand from Mr Joyce that you might be interested in the carpets of the above, if you or your wife could call and see if you want anything in the furniture left, I would be glad as I am single-handed here; I’m going into a very small bungalow which I can’t have until December. I will not need the large carpets or linoleum which were made specifically for the large rooms here – and I have to make plans for storage of same. Mr Joyce said you might be willing to put the annex at my disposal to store my stuff until December; as you wouldn’t require, he thought, all the rooms at first – I shall be in Dublin on Tuesday evening next at the Gresham Hotel – could you or your wife meet me there to solve these difficulties of mine? It would perhaps save some time. I have just been reading your wife’s account of my daughter’s wedding [written for the ‘Connacht Tribune’], it has made me wish to meet her again.

  Yours sincerely,

  Ruth Metaxa

  While all this excitement was going on, my father had completed the novel he had started before the American adventure. His new novel, The Bogman, told the story of a young seventeen-year-old boy Cahal Kinsella who arrives at the train station in Ballinasloe, but there is no one to meet him as his only relative, his grandfather Barney, didn’t bother to come to the station. Cahal is the bastard son of Barney’s daughter and has been in an industrial school since he was young. Despite the harsh regime imposed by his grandfather, Cahal is glad to have somewhere to lay his head and to be living with a relative.

  The novel’s setting is confined to a small farming community in East Galway and is based on my father’s memories of working there every summer with his Uncle Frank and his wife. It is also a tribute to his father who was in the industrial school from the age of nine to fifteen.

  My father deliberately chose to make his principal character a songwriter or ballad-maker. Each chapter had a song at the beginning, and he wrote melodies for these, but sadly these have been lost. Here is the one he wrote for Chapter 23:

  The soft breeze will blow,

  Where the water hens play,

  The rushes will sigh at the turn of the day,

  The heron will call and the curlew cry

  By the free roamin’ Ree in the evenan

  Ori ó, I will be,

  Far away, but I will see

  The wings of the swallows caressing the Ree

  When I’m closin’ me eyes in the evenan.

  The Bogman portrays a close community which doesn’t really accept this young man into their midst and he antagonises them in the way he reacts to them. His publishers liked it:

  Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

  26th June 1951

  Dear Macken,

  I have not yet finished ‘The Bogman’, but I hope to do so by tomorrow. I cannot, however, even at this stage, refrain from sending you a private note to say how magnificently I think you have done it. It is immeasurably the best book you have yet written, and I hope, indeed I am sure, that all my colleagues will agree with that view, when I can write you officially about it.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lovat Dickson

  P.S. Are you the author of the verse at the head of each chapter? Don’t tell me you are a poet – as well as actor, novelist, playwright, angler!

  The following day he wrote an official letter accepting the novel:

  Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

  27th June 1951

  Dear Macken,

  I am so happy to be able to tell you that we have now read ‘The Bogman’, and we are all delighted with it. It strikes us all as being the best book you have yet done. We are so glad to add still another book of yours to our list. May it be the precursor of many more!

  I see that we have paid you the same royalties on the previous books, but my fellow directors feel that we should improve the royalty scale now, and we are suggesting to you 15% to 5,000 and 20% after. I hope you will be pleased with this suggestion. If you will let me know that you are, we will prepare an Agreement right away and send it to you for signature.

  Have you a duplicate of the MS which we can send to the New York Macmillan Company? I am sure that they will be most anxious to do the book. They can wait for proofs, but they would much prefer to have an earlier sight of the MS. There are a number of important things about which I would like to talk to you, and I wish it were possible for you to come over to London soon. It would suit us here best if you could come for a couple of days in the two week period beginning July 9th.

  I shall look forward to hearing from you, and I hope very much that it will be possible. Meanwhile congratulations from all of us here on ‘The Bogman’ – a very fine piece of work.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lovat Dickson

  One other letter came from Mr Dickson concerning the ballads:

  Macmillan & Co. Ltd.

  29th June 1951

  Dear Macken,

  Your letter of June 27th has crossed mine of the same date. I thought all the ballads at the head of the chapters were delightful, most evocative of the Irish scene, and most musical to the inner ear. There were one or two which I thought especially good. I think we should mention in the prelims that the ballads are your own work. I will look forward to hearing you sing them one day.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lovat Dickson

  During these summer months, my father received a series of letters from the English theatre director, Michael Powell. Michael Powell was one of the best theatre directors in Britain in the 1950s, he went on to make a number of very important films later on in his career. Obviously he had heard good reports of my father’s acting and so he invited him to star in his next production scheduled for London’s West End – Heloise And Abelard written by James Forsyth:

  Milnton House,

  Dumfriesshire.

  My dear Macken,

  I am delighted at your decision to concentrate on sea-trout: partly for selfish reasons, partly because I like to meet a man who doesn’t need Hollywood, but whom Hollywood needs. Also sea-trout are good eating and catching them is good for the soul. We must talk about the two plays. Also about your career and Siobhan’s [Siobhan McKenna], for which I feel partly responsible. Tell me your own movements during the next six weeks and I will arrange to meet you wherever you may be. I am free and of a restless disposition.

  My regards to your wife. I am looking forward to meeting her again if she is just as attractive with her hair up.

  Yours sincerely,

  Michael Powell

  A second letter from Powell arrived a short time later, where he makes fun of Jimmy Cagney’s expectations that my father would drop everything and fly to Hollywood when asked:

  Dear Mr Macken,

  This is a country of two Roberts: the Bruce and the Burns. It is a country of long glens running up into the Galloway Hills, which are full of lochs and streams. John Buchan, in ‘39 Steps’, described it well. The people are hard-working, practical, and a thought close [close-knit]. Burns with his warmth and leaping imagination would have been happier in the Highlands and Islands than he was among his own folk. Does Burns interest you?

  Jimmy Cagney ought to know better: he and his brother founded Cagney Productions: he claims to have Irish blood. The only way to answer his cable would be:

  ‘Have gone fishing, please wish me luck?’

  The ‘please’ is very important: it will appeal to them with the disarming old world flavour. I want to talk to you about both plays. Do you fly? Come and stay the week-end. Can your wife come, too? Fly to Glasgow and I will meet you at the airport. You only have to wire the flight number. I will return you to the airport on Monday when I fly to London.

  Does this savour too much of Cagney Prods?

>   Michael Powell

  I have a third letter from Michael Powell and it’s obvious he decided to visit them at their new home in Oughterard:

  Great Southern Hotel,

  Killarney.

  Dear Mr Macken,

  I hope that the play arrived and that you read it: and that if you read it, you liked it. I wrote to Mr Elliman that I would like to put a play at the Gaiety but I haven’t seen him yet. I don’t think Kerry is comparable to Galway. My regards to your wife: I hope she forgives me for calling so unceremoniously. My address in London is:

  146 Piccadilly WI.

  Yours sincerely,

  Michael Powell

  Powell wrote to him again in June:

  Somewhere in Orkney.

  22–6–51

  We saw the sun sink into the sea last night from the highest hill in Westray. It isn’t very high. Time 10.39. It was the longest day of course. This is written on a steamer, feeling our way through fog to Sunday. Do you know the Orkneys? Very Norse.

  I return to London about July 1st. It might be a good idea if you would come over to London to meet Forsyth. I would like his approval on Abelard [his choice of my father to play this role]. Then we could have a business-like talk and settle dates. If impossible for you to come I will send him over to see you. I can’t leave London that week (expenses paid by me of course) – Answer to 146 Piccadilly, please, I will get it on my return.

  I saw Siobhan in London but did not see ‘Ghosts’. What a wonderful girl she is.

  I hope by now you are a landed man.

  My regards to your wife,

  Yours sincerely,

  Michael Powell

  In July, my father went to London to see Macmillan, Michael Powell and James Forsyth. His letters were addressed to Ardpatrick Road so it seems likely that we did not move to Gort na Ganiv until either the end of July or the beginning of August. He was staying in his sister, Eileen’s house and wrote to my mother:

  18 Bourn Avenue,

  Hillingdon Heath,

  Uxbridge,

  Middlesex.

  Weds. 11 July 1951

  My darling,

  I suppose you got my wire yesterday. I can nearly feel your depression coming over here to meet me. There is only compensation as far as I can see that every time I am away from you, particularly for a long time I realise how much I really love you. What a confession from a middle-aged man. I can see no charm in woman unless you are around. This waiting around was practically unavoidable as I will tell you. The Macmillan business was all right. I can’t quite understand why they wanted to see me. Some vague talk about income tax, but nothing important enough to have brought me over.

  When I first came, I rang Michael Powell’s secretary. She asked me if I could come to lunch with himself and Forsyth on Tuesday, I said yes. Then when I got to Macmillans they wanted me to go to lunch with them on Tuesday at their office. This I gather was an honour. So I dumped Powell’s lunch. This caused confusion. Powell was a bit annoyed. Cheltenham is 90 miles from London, near Stratford-on-Avon where he’s going to the Shakespeare plays. Anyhow Monday I met Mark and Heath (at Macmillans), after that I met Forsyth and had tea with him until six. He seems to be a very nice man with a strong Scottish burr in his voice. After that I went to Dickson’s flat. His wife and son were away in a cottage he has near Isle of Wright. I had dinner with him – cold salmon – and I stayed talking with him until 10.30 when I got a bus out to Bourn Avenue (I had wired them). Got here at 11.30 and was talking to them until 1.30. I slept very little.

  I thought about my wife. I dozed for an hour or two. I got up at 6.30. I shaved and went to mass with mother. I got into town at 12.00 I signed contract, etc. [This is either the contract for the play or the contract for ‘The Bogman’.]

  I heard from Powell. He said that he had to go back immediately to Cheltenham and he had to be there at 5. I said that was too bad but I couldn’t do anything about it – that Macmillans were my bread and butter and I said if he liked we could call the whole deal off. He said could I call to his flat after the lunch for a minute. I said yes.

  So I went to lunch with Harold Macmillan [who became prime minister in 1957], his son Maurice, Lovat Dickson and a Professor of Philosophy from London University. He reads a lot of heavy stuff for Macmillans, I gather. It was a stiff enough lunch. Conservatives depress me a little. Very nice of course. The best news of all is what I’m enclosing. Dickson gave me this. He shouldn’t have given it to me or even told me about the name J.C. Squires. He is Sir John Squires and he is Macmillans’ senior reader. His report is why there are all in a flutter about ‘The Bogman’.

  Don’t show the report to Olive [Gibson, a close friend] or anybody. Dickson made me swear I’d show it to nobody but you. He would be excommunicated from the business if it was known he smuggled it out of the office. I enjoyed the evening with Dickson enormously. You’ll like him. I’ve more or less settled that he will be bringing his wife and son over to us next August 12 months.

  Anyhow I went over to Powell’s flat afterwards. James Forsyth was there, no wives around. Powell only stayed for ten minutes. He asked me if I would go to Stratford to see three plays – ‘Richard II’, ‘Henry IV’ and ‘Henry VI’. He would drive me back Saturday night after the play. I thought a while and then said ‘Yes’. It’s the only way of pinning him down and finding out what he is like. Besides I would like to go to Stratford and see a few Shakespearean plays and having seen them would be able to see what their standards are like.

  London is the same as ever – I might enjoy it a bit if you were with me, but it’s driving the lesson deeper and deeper about how right we were right to go back to Gort na Ganiv. If we do come and do a play here, I’d say it would be the very last. If it should prove unbearable to us then we would cry halt. If ‘The Bogman’ does well there won’t be any need anymore.

  You know I love you. I only know myself how really deep it is when I am away from you. I don’t know why I’m sure but there you are. I think of you a lot and I get quite excited when I think of getting back to you. Don’t be too lonely. I will write to you again and should be home on Sunday at 12.00 It’s like an evening star in the distance. Powell will be lucky if I don’t call off the plays. That’s the way I feel now. Tell Wally Óg and Chicken that I love them. I will see you on Sunday, Thank God and love you.

  Your husband,

  Wally

  Every time I read my father’s letters, I get a clearer idea of what he really believed about acting versus writing. My mother told me that when he was giving a talk in Boston or New York, he told his audience: ‘I love my writing, but I lust after the theatre.’ There is little doubt that if had a choice, he would concentrate totally on writing and would not have acted any more. Unfortunately, economic circumstances resulted in his having to work as an actor a few times during the 1950s and into the 1960s.

  Here is another letter written by my father to my mother and posted on the 15 July 1951:

  The George Hotel,

  Shipston-on-Stour,

  Warickshire.

  My darling,

  You can see the kind of country this is from the name of the town. It is some miles from Stratford-on-Avon. Everything is ‘on’, ‘over’ or ‘under’ something else. It is the Cotswold country. Small villages with houses built with black beams and small leaded windows, it’s very pretty. I got here yesterday at 5 p.m. It took three hours from London to get here. Michael Powell was to be at the station. Of course he wasn’t but I hardly expected him to be so it didn’t matter. He arrived fifteen minutes later. His wife was with him. She seems to be just like himself going into long silences. I think they are very well matched.

  We went to see ‘Richard II’ last night. We had been at the producer Anthony Quayle’s house beforehand. I will tell you about that again. Michael Redgrave was doing the part of Richard. I thought he was terrible. I didn’t think much of the whole outfit. I’ll talk about that when I get back.

  I got up ea
rly this morning and went looking for a Catholic Church – but they were all Protestant, Baptist, or Friends of Pres-byterian. I had been at mass in Brompton Oratory in London yesterday morning at 7.30 a.m. It is not far from Michael Powell’s flat. It’s in Kensington. I stayed there Wednesday night. Nobody in it except James Forsyth. James is very nice. I still like Powell. He has a wonderful library. Most of the books you would want to read. I’m not sorry I came now. It’s interesting country and so ‘English’.

  Needless to say, I am looking forward to going home, even though it is only Ardpatrick Road. I hope you haven’t missed me too much. I’m dying to see you again. Give my love to the two sons. Are they mad at me? It won’t be long now, when you get this letter, I will practically be there.

  You have all my love,

  Your husband,

  Wally

  The contract for Heloise and Abelard arrived in September. Rehearsals for the play began on 26 September. My father told me that the rehearsals were painful as the weather was hot and they were wearing heavy costumes. The tour commenced in Southsea on 22 October and then the play would open three weeks later in the West End. His salary was to be £50 a week along with expenses. The play ran for about four weeks in the Duke of York Theatre in the West End and then my father returned home. More opportunities for acting roles kept coming to his door. One company wanted him to play a part in Seán O’Casey’s play, Purple Dust, in America, then came a telegram asking him to take the part of a gentle gunman in a film due to be made at Ealing Studios, but this fell through. He also went back to the Abbey at some stage during the 1950s to play the part of Bartley in a revival of The King of Friday’s Men.