Under Cover

by Jeremy Robson

  I believe it was at one of the Bartovs’ parties that we met the novelist Alan Sillitoe and his wife, the poet Ruth Fainlight, or perhaps it was at one of the Writers for Israel meetings, but we certainly became friendly with them both at around this period. The war had brought its terrors, but it had also cemented a number of valued friendships, as war so often does. Later, we were lucky enough to publish several of Alan’s books, including a delightful children’s series about a marmalade cat that led a gang of felines in the back streets of London. We also reissued his Collected Stories and published a book about his travels in Russia. Alan was such a quiet, unassuming man – always with a pipe, and usually wearing a waistcoat – but also a man of great strength of character with firm views and principles who went his own way with unwavering determination, sure of his own exceptional abilities, and rightly so.

  * * *

  In 1969, I found myself drawn into another of Foges’s ambitious projects, a six-volume history of Western literature which I was to steer and oversee. The general editors of the books were to be David Daiches, the highly respected dean of the School of English and American studies at Sussex University, and Anthony Thorlby, professor of comparative literature at Sussex, and under their direction the many and varied chapters would be written by internationally distinguished scholars to produce what was described as ‘a new sociological approach to the whole literature of the Western world from antiquity to the present time’. For me, having never even been to a university, editing this vast enterprise was an alarming prospect, but I attended various meetings with the eminent professors at which Foges shouted and cajoled, finally telling them that I would be writing a report on the detailed outlines and sample texts they had produced. There was really nowhere to hide!

  If I felt I was having to punch way above my weight then, an encounter I had in the George, the famous literary watering hole in Mortimer Street, made me feel just as inadequate. I had wandered in one lunchtime to see if anyone I knew was there, and a tall, imposing man with white hair started talking to me at the bar. The name Goronwy Rees didn’t mean much to me then, but I soon discovered that he was an eminent political journalist and writer, and that among other things he was an editorial adviser to Encounter. After we had chatted for a while, he surprised me by asking if I would like to review for the magazine, saying he would suggest it to the literary editor, Nigel Dennis (he seemed to know I’d recently had a poem published there). Some days later, I received a short letter from Rees, in which he enclosed a note from Dennis saying:

  Wouldn’t Robson be just the fellow to do a sizing up of Auden’s Longer Poems – how they have worn, how they look to the present-day poet, their influence, etc. We would commission the essay if you agree – or any other that you and he agree on, of course.

  Well, if reworking Professor Daiches’s scholarly proposal was daunting, this seemed to me even more so. But it was a challenge I felt I had to accept and somehow I wrote and delivered the required 2,000 words, though I was ill-equipped and readily admit that I struggled to come to grips with Auden’s often complex poems – and even to understand some of them. I expected an immediate rejection, so was amazed to get a letter from the demanding Dennis saying, ‘We were all very pleased with your Auden piece and would, of course, like you to do another.’ He said he would leave it to me to suggest to Goronwy Rees what I’d like to do, something of ‘special interest’ to me. It was some while later, when it made headlines, that I discovered the charming man I’d met at the bar of the George had been befriended by Guy Burgess while at Oxford, having been introduced by him to the Cambridge Five spy ring, though there seemed to be much confusion as to whether Rees had any links to either MI6 or the KGB.

  After such exacting involvements it was something of a relief to get a commission from Aldus to write a small book in their Adventure Library called Destination the Poles, a promotional book for young adults – probably given away in packets of cornflakes. Extra money towards our mortgage was welcome at the time, and so I found myself writing of an evening about four famous Arctic explorers: Fridtjof Nansen, Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott and Vivian Fuchs. Although there was only a chapter on each, they had to be researched and written in a vivid and dramatic way, so it entailed quite a bit of work, especially as it was not the kind of writing I was used to. I can’t pretend it had great literary merit, but with nice line drawings throughout it made for an attractive little package and I was relieved that I’d actually managed to get through it. I also got a very different kind of commission from Marshall Cavendish, who were running a part series on the Bible and wanted me to write two historical essays for inclusion – one on Jerusalem and one on the creation of modern Israel. It seems I’d become an expert! Be that as it may, much research was required, but the money was reasonable and welcome.

  The summer of 1969 was to be a significant period as far as both poetry and publishing were concerned. As the 250th poetry and jazz concert approached, I felt we should mark the occasion with a special event, and Harley Usill, the valiant MD of Argo, came up with the exciting idea of arranging and recording an anniversary concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with a view to issuing another two-LP boxed set. At the same time, Ernest Hecht, the maverick publisher of the Souvenir Press, agreed to bring out an anthology of Poems from Poetry and Jazz in Concert – a collection of ninety-two poems by twenty-four of the poets who’d participated, accompanied by an attractive poster to display at readings. As well as his publishing and his passion for Arsenal, Ernest was involved with a number of theatrical productions over the years, and it was perhaps his interest in the theatre that attracted him to our poetry and jazz venture. Whatever the reason, he made a success of it, with an unusual cover designed by Felix Gluck, and following the Souvenir hardback edition, he arranged for Panther (then the paperback imprint of Granada Publishing) to bring out a mass-market edition of the anthology. Looking at it now, I must say I’m still proud of the quality of the poets and poems represented.

  The book was launched at the Queen Elizabeth Hall concert, which took place on 22 June, a rather more disciplined affair than our first, somewhat anarchic, appearance on the South Bank, and it was nice to welcome Spike Milligan back for this special occasion (he hadn’t taken part for several years). Laurie Lee replied to my invitation saying he’d been ‘quite ill for the past six months’ but that ‘if I am back in full-throttled health by May–June, you can count on me… I’m glad you are doing this.’ He was indeed back to good health and there on the day, along with Dannie Abse, Thomas Blackburn, Douglas Hill, Vernon Scannell, John Smith and me. As always, of course, Michael Garrick directed the music, but there was now a new look to his quintet. Shake Keane had gone to Germany and been replaced by Ian Carr, while Don Rendell had taken the place of Joe Harriott, with whom Michael had finally had a clash. Completing the line-up were Dave Green on bass and Trevor Tomkins on drums, both regulars. To add extra lustre to the occasion, Michael had added the wonderful Art Themen – saxophonist and doctor – to the group. It was always reassuring when Art was playing to know that one had an orthopaedic surgeon at one’s back.

  Rehearsing with Joe Harriott and Shake Keane.

  Don Rendell, a Jehovah’s Witness, played tenor saxophone with great attack as well as the flute. Because one of the poems I sometimes read in those days had a biblical context, I sensed Don felt a kind of kinship, and whenever I drove him to a concert he’d bring out his pamphlets and try to draw me in. He must have been disappointed to find himself knocking at the wrong door, but that never affected our warm relationship over a long period. In contrast, Ian Carr was literary and intellectual as well as being a dazzling and assertive trumpet and flugelhorn player, and he wrote several books, including a biography of Miles Davis. He went on to form the ground-breaking jazz-rock group Nucleus, winning first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I should also mention here two other fine bassists who, along with Dave Green, played at a number of concerts: Jeff Clyne (who always seemed to be read
ing weighty paperbacks as he waited to go on stage) and the veteran Coleridge Goode, who’d played with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli and other jazz legends. I recall Vernon Scannell being particularly amused when he heard Garrick announcing, ‘And on bass – Coleridge.’

  Saxophonist Don Rendell in full flight.

  John Smith, who had read that exciting day at the QEH, was also a literary agent with his own company, Christy & Moore, and it was he who had floated my idea for a poetry and jazz anthology to Ernest Hecht. Now John felt it was time I had a new book of my own poems and he approached another lively independent publisher, Allison & Busby. As well as Faber, most of the main companies published poetry in those days, though few do now and it is largely left to small but excellent companies like Carcanet, Bloodaxe and Smokestack to carry the flag – and Faber too, of course. The iconic photo of T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and a young Ted Hughes at a Faber party speaks well for the wisdom of those who signed them up: proof enough that quality will out in the end – though who could have anticipated what the musical Cats would do for the Faber coffers at a time when, reportedly, the company was struggling. Allison & Busby had been started by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby, both young, and had an attractive poetry list. They sat on the manuscript for quite some time, as publishers invariably do, while making encouraging noises, and whenever John ventured to prod Clive, he’d say he had the manuscript spread out on the floor beside him along with other collections they were considering. Naturally, I wanted it off that floor and between covers. Then one bright day, I received a note from John saying a miracle had happened: he’d actually had a letter of acceptance and a contract from Clive for my book (In Focus). I was thrilled to be with a lively publisher committed to poetry and so in tune with the current mood – publishing not only poetry but also classy contemporary fiction and non-fiction, with a string of big-name authors on their list. Eventually – I suppose inevitably – after twenty years, the company was sold. Clive died in 2011 at far too young an age, but I was delighted to run into the wonderful Margaret Busby recently at a launch in Finsbury Park. Margaret had been editorial director of the company throughout its twenty years and was the UK’s youngest and first black woman publisher. Now a much-lauded writer herself, she has worked assiduously for more black representation in British publishing and has received many awards, including an OBE. When I recalled my manuscript lying at Clive’s feet, she laughed, saying it would have been one of many, given his chaotic way of doing things – she’d had to struggle to keep everything in order. I sensed that without her the company would not have lasted as long as it did, despite Clive’s flair. A few days later she emailed me an unexpected photo of the three of us celebrating my book in the George, which was near their office. It was wonderful to meet up with her after all those years, for the publication of that book, which they brought out simultaneously in hardback and paperback and with a signed limited edition, was an important moment for me, and it was good to be able to tell her so. It was also a privilege to attend a celebration at Goldsmiths College in November 2017 to mark her fifty years in publishing.

  In the George, celebrating the publication of In Focus with my publishers, Clive Allison and Margaret Busby.

  Things were about to change, for shortly after the QEH concert David Kessler invited me to lunch and, over steak and chips and a glass of lemonade shandy (his favourite tipple), offered me a job as editor of Vallentine, Mitchell. He wanted to grow the company, he told me, and not just with books of Jewish interest, to which VM had hitherto confined itself. This would be my first chance to acquire books as opposed to editing them, and I nervously accepted. Giving notice at Aldus was not an easy thing – Foges liked to sack people, not have them give him notice – but he and his colleagues realised it was an opportunity for me and accepted with good grace. Indeed, Foges continued to invite us to his parties and, as I have already recounted, persuaded me a few years later to pick up my Ben-Gurion pen again. I had to give three months’ notice, and he was anxious to have my report on his Great Western Literature project, for which he now had several more sample chapters and a fuller outline. And so I found myself pontificating about the ‘lack of any apparent sense of purpose’, calling one chapter (on Latin literature) ‘a total failure’, and asking, ‘Why is the literature of Russia considered more worthy of inclusion than the modern writing of Spain, Germany and Italy, and why, for that matter, is the whole of modern poetry from 1930 overlooked when the novel is covered so fully?’

  Amazingly, Professor Daiches and his colleagues seemed to have taken it on the chin, for a week before I left, Foges gave me a revised outline and a number of new chapters to read (my leaving present?), and I was able to report that the editors had reshaped everything very considerably; they had dropped certain authors and brought in others, finally realising that simply allowing a long list of distinguished academics to do their own thing in the abstract didn’t make for a strong, unified book.

  Thus was Western Literature saved.

  14

  MOVING TIMES

  Vallentine, Mitchell, where I started in September 1969, had its offices in the same building in Furnival Street as the Jewish Chronicle, just around the corner from Chancery Lane Station, and far enough from the Law Courts not to give me daily reminders of my unhappy days as an embryonic lawyer. We had just two small rooms, and apart from me there was a secretary, Lesley, and David Kessler’s son-in-law, Guy Meyers. Guy was an accountant and he had been looking after the publishing company for several years. He was extremely friendly and seemed to welcome any potential input I might have. He was a great one for phoning people for information, and when faced with the question ‘Can I help you?’ would invariably reply, ‘We live in hope.’ I soon discovered that as far as the paper was concerned, David Kessler (aka ‘K’) liked to surround himself with the great and the good, and his board included at least one top lawyer, several historians and distinguished others, as well as the editor William Frankel, a barrister and a man of considerable authority, widely respected in the community.

  Vallentine, Mitchell had its own directors, several of whom came fairly regularly to our weekly meetings in K’s office. One was John Gross, an eminent man of letters whom The Spectator called ‘the best-read man in Britain’. John held various important literary posts and was to become editor of the Times Literary Supplement, a position he held for seven years. Some while after I’d left VM and had started Robson Books, John, who lived around the corner from us, dropped in for coffee and asked me what books we had coming up. When I told him there was a collection of Vernon Scannell’s poems and (coyly) The Max Miller Blue Book, he amazed me by reciting two of Vernon’s poems, and then singing one of Max’s saucy songs: such was the range of his interests and knowledge. He was also reputed to be an expert on the East End. Another frequent attendee at our meetings was Chaim Bermant, novelist and the JC’s popular columnist. Chaim, who spoke impossibly quickly with a strong Scottish accent, combined wit and erudition and would often take a provocative position on matters Jewish, which readers loved but sometimes took exception to. In due course, Robson Books published a collection of his columns called On the Other Hand, a novel, and the first in a planned five-volume autobiography. Shockingly, Chaim died shortly before the publication of that first volume, a wonderfully evocative account of his Lithuanian childhood which we launched posthumously with his wife Judy’s help. Chaim had called it Genesis. It was perhaps the emotional strain of returning to Lithuania to research his book that caused his fatal heart attack.

  There was thus lively and formidable company on the Kessler couch, and I did my best to come up with ideas and proposals they might find appealing. I soon realised that for all his expressed intentions, K was reluctant to take on anything that wandered too far off his normal path or appeared to him risky. Fair enough, but one thing I did get off the ground was a series of Modern Jewish Classics, reprints of novels and autobiographies in an attractive format with a matchi
ng look to the jackets. It was wide-ranging within its obvious limits and included Elie Wiesel’s The Jews of Silence, Isaac Babel’s Benya Krik the Gangster, Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Sholom Aleichem’s Tevye’s Daughters, as well as fine books by Saul Bellow, Bernice Rubens, Bernard Kops, Dannie Abse, Dan Jacobson and Frederic Raphael. It seemed a good way to get some big names on the list quickly and raise our profile.