Under Cover

by Jeremy Robson

  Another reason for our going to Ireland was to meet the famous Irish actor Micheál MacLiammóir, whom Wolf was encouraging us to publish. Some years earlier I had gone with Spike Milligan to see MacLiammóir’s remarkable one-man show about Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Oscar, at the Apollo Theatre in London, so was well aware of his remarkable talent. One critic called it an ‘oral biography’, for in writing the show MacLiammóir had not only presented Wilde as a great wit and man of letters but had reached beneath the surface to bring out the real tragedy of his life. As with most great comedy, there were tears amidst the laughter, and when the actor took his bow, Spike was quickly on his feet with the rest of the audience, proclaiming him ‘a genius’. The performance was so compelling it could have been Wilde himself on stage.

  The thought of meeting this legendary actor and wit was rather daunting, especially since we discovered on arriving in Dublin that he was in hospital. ‘We’ll go and visit him there,’ said Wolf, never one to be swayed from his purpose. MacLiammóir was sitting up in bed when we arrived, his silk pyjamas in striking contrast to the rather drab surroundings. He was like one of those dying monarchs one sees in historical dramas on television, except that he wasn’t dying and there wasn’t a great circle of courtiers around him, but from the way he talked there might as well have been. Fortunately, Wolf took the lead, telling him that we were just the publishers he needed to reissue his out-of-print books and commission a new one. I nodded, Carole nodded, and I’m sure I muttered something about having seen him in London, and then we left this rather surreal scene, amazed that a man who had been seriously ill could still command the stage – even if that stage were a hospital. We brought ourselves back to reality at Mankowitz’s house, where we discussed other books Wolf had in mind (he was about to write a TV series on Dickens’s London), and as before he dangled the prospect of a book of poems – not his, but Richard Burton’s love poems to Elizabeth Taylor – but although I could see the sensationalist headlines in my mind, as far as that project was concerned, that is all I did ever see, and probably just as well.

  All that was still in the future, however, and returning to Vallentine, Mitchell, where I was still employed, it was becoming clear that Frank Cass had become smitten by the general publishing bug and was eager to spread his wings. He suggested to me that I build up a less specialised list to run side by side with Vallentine, Mitchell’s Jewish one, offering me a ‘consultancy’ fee of £500 a year to bring in titles that would appear under his dormant Woburn Press imprint (in which I suspect neither the Jewish Chronicle nor anyone else had a stake at the time). I went at it like a wild horse released from a stable, with books ranging from The Poets of the Second World War by Vernon Scannell to works by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Arthur Calder-Marshall, a biography of Robert Browning, and a study of the films of Jean Renoir. All rather literary to start with, but then I came up with an idea I thought extremely commercial, and on one of our lunchtime walks around the Woburn Square block I said to Frank, ‘How about seeing if we could publish the Goon Show scripts?’ He liked the idea so much he even offered me one of his apples. More importantly, Spike Milligan, who’d written most of the shows, liked the idea too, though he was doubtful whether it would sell. After all, we were talking about old scripts for a programme that was no longer running, though there had recently been a special Goon Show to tie in with BBC’s 50th anniversary, to which I was lucky enough to be invited courtesy of my old harmonica-playing friend Max Geldray, who’d flown in from LA to take part. What an exciting night that was, with Peter, Spike and Harry relishing every moment and playing up to the audience, which included Prince Philip, Princess Anne, Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon and a galaxy of showbiz stars. It was a party nobody wanted to end, but one that the Goons’ greatest royal fan, Prince Charles, had to miss, as he was on naval duty with HMS Norfolk in the Mediterranean. However, he amused everyone with a telegram which read: ‘Last night my hair fell out and my knees dropped off with envy when I thought of my father and sister attending the show.’

  Spike agreed to let us go through the files that were carefully locked away in his office, and even to take away some of the valuable scripts – particularly valuable since a number of them had drawings and doodles on them by one or other of the Goons. Although Spike had written the scripts and they were his copyright, I thought it only courtesy to mention it to Harry Secombe, who loved the idea, and to Peter Sellers, whom I arranged to meet for lunch at Cranks, taking Frank with me. Peter, too, gave the project his blessing.

  Frank then asked me whether I’d like one of his editors, Elizabeth Rose, to work with me on the book. Editorially, that was a great suggestion, but in the light of what transpired, perhaps not so wise from Frank’s point of view. Liz was imaginative and full of original ideas as to how the book should be presented. We realised we needed an exceptional designer and brought in Felix Gluck, who by then had also left Aldus Books, and between us we decided that the text should appear just like the original scripts, with all the sound effects and other directions that were such an integral part of the show left in place. Then Felix came up with an inspired idea for the cover, which was to make the book look like a box file.

  Some of the scripts were prefaced by brief scene-setting lead-ins, and where these were missing Liz supplied similar synopses à la Milligan, and, after much chasing, Spike (who never went anywhere in a straight line) eventually provided descriptions and cod biographies of the show’s famous characters – Eccles, Bluebottle, Neddie Seagoon, Henry Crun, Minnie Bannister, Major Denis Bloodnok, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne and the rest. To our delight, Peter Sellers sent a foreword under the alias of Major Denis Bloodnok, SFI and Bar, written on specially printed stationery with the heading ‘Denis Bloodnok and Partner (Deceased)’, while Harry Secombe contributed a ‘backword’, which appeared on the last page of the book (‘Now this is where the story really starts’). Finally, all the scripts were splattered with drawings by the three of them. Thanks to Liz’s flair and Felix’s design, it all looked great fun – and was. Everyone involved was excited, and in my precious signed copy Peter wrote, ‘I think you have accomplished the impossible.’ Given my long involvement with the Goons, that was an accolade I was proud to receive and one I gladly shared with Liz and Felix.

  Now all Frank had to do was sell it. I read recently that the original printing was 25,000 copies, but I question this, given that the company had never published a book of this kind and didn’t really have the sales set-up to do so. Also, as I recall, booksellers were sceptical at first – until, that is, we managed to persuade all three Goons to appear on Michael Parkinson’s popular TV talk show. It being a BBC programme, it was strictly forbidden to display or over-promote a book on air, but nothing was going to stop the three of them from holding up copies and giving it a mighty plug – and we really didn’t know what had hit us as the orders poured in and the book went from reprint to reprint, topping all the bestseller lists. And then Frank, having introduced me to Liz, made another mistake, telling The Bookseller magazine in an interview and all and sundry that he’d always been a Goon Show fan and how he’d had this fantastic idea, etc. Vanity, perhaps, but it didn’t go down well in my household. Nevertheless, with Liz now working closely with me, we brought in more books of the same kind, and scripts of Till Death Us Do Part, Round the Horne and Hancock’s Half Hour were to follow, some published after I’d left the company. Once started, it was not a difficult line to follow, but it could be risky. I was also on the point of signing a contract with Harry Secombe for a novel he’d had lying in a drawer for some years. But before that…

  Before that, we started to get regular visits (or rather visitations) from a strange man in tattered jeans with wild hair and bulbous eyes who looked as if he hadn’t two pennies to rub together – except for the fact that he always arrived in an old Rolls-Royce driven by a similarly dressed chauffeur. It was Marty Feldman, responding to my overtures about writing a book for us. Marty was one of the m
ost way-out comic writers of the era, and a great comedian. With another esteemed writer, Barry Took, he had co-written the classic Round the Horne programmes, creating, among others, the outrageously camp characters Julian and Sandy (played respectively but not respectfully by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams). For his part, Marty was to branch out, writing and starring in a number of breakthrough TV comedy shows and going on to appear in two Mel Brooks classics, Young Frankenstein and Silent Movie, and other films. As far as books went, Marty was fizzing with ideas, none of them remotely practical as I recall, including a suggestion for producing toilet rolls with a joke on each sheet. He never did put anything on paper for us (not even on toilet paper), but several years later, via the more down-to-earth Barry Took, we did publish The Bona Book of Julian and Sandy, which they co-wrote.

  I was saddened to read about the brilliant Marty’s death aged only forty-eight while he was filming in Mexico – so much promise unfulfilled, though he did leave an autobiography which was discovered and published just a few years ago. I wish we’d been the lucky publisher. (I also wish I’d managed to persuade a beautiful young girl called Pamela to go to the school dance with me after we’d met one Sunday at the Queensway ice rink, aged around sixteen – long, friendly telephone conversations, but no dancing. I didn’t realise until many years later, long after I’d met him, that Pamela was Marty’s younger sister. Well, they certainly didn’t look alike!)

  Not long after Marty drew up in his improbable Rolls, we arranged a dinner party at home. The guests were David and Jenny Kossoff, Wolfgang and Catherine Foges, Dannie and Joan Abse and my old, very tall school friend Michael Rivkin and his wife. By then Michael had reached other heights as a property developer with ambitious schemes to develop Docklands, riding around in a chauffeur-driven Rolls (his driver dressed rather more smartly than Marty’s!) and with a large house in the country – all this without losing his modesty and charm. At the end of the dinner, when the others had left, Michael turned to me and said, ‘Why are you doing all this for other people? How much would it need to start a publishing company?’ It was completely unexpected, and before I could get my thoughts together, Michael continued, ‘Think about it and if you are interested work out some figures and give me a ring next week.’ And that, almost, is how Robson Books started.

  Of course, nothing is quite that straightforward, and before phoning Michael to test his resolve, I asked my accountant friend Jeremy Morris to help me put some figures together. He willingly came over and worked with Carole and me on the dining room table to create some kind of cash-flow forecast, giving projected sales and associated costs (printing, warehousing, reps etc.) for notional titles, along with anticipated office and staff overheads, and the rest. We reckoned we’d need £20,000 to get under way, and when I called Michael Rivkin to tell him, he said it was the kind of figure he’d expected (which is probably what he’d have said if I had come in higher!), inviting Jeremy and me to his office, where, having poured whiskies commensurate with his size, he went through the figures with us. Michael liked the idea of Jeremy being involved, knowing how good and reliable he was, and offered him a job with one of his other companies, suggesting he spend two-thirds of his week there, and a third with me, with the two companies paying his salary proportionally. He then arranged for me to go with him to Barclays in Pall Mall, where everyone said, ‘Good morning, Mr Rivkin’, ‘Good morning, Mr Rivkin’ as he marched towards the manager’s office as if he owned the place, with me following in his wake and thinking that when we were at school I was the captain of the team in which he’d played! A facility, guaranteed by Michael’s company, was quickly agreed.

  Michael Rivkin, our original backer.

  Once all this and the legal niceties were settled, I gave notice to Frank and resigned immediately from the Woburn Press consultancy. Meanwhile, Jeremy went office searching and came up with small but more than adequate premises in Poland Street, while I approached Liz and Carolyn, explained in confidence what I was up to and asked them to join me. Luckily for me, they were both brave enough to agree. Thinking then about the production side of things, I spoke to Felix Gluck and he recommended a lady he knew from Hungary he thought would fit the bill, and so Susan Schulz eventually came on board as production manager. As it happened, Felix had recently started a high-quality children’s imprint of his own, The Gluck Press, and was looking for a pied à terre in town. We therefore came to an arrangement whereby he would oversee our design in return for a small room at the back of our office. It suited us both.

  It was now May 1973, and we planned to launch our first list in September of that year. No point hanging around – but who and what would we publish? Who would promote and sell the titles, and where would we warehouse? For selling, we turned to Book Representation, run by Roger Smith, and for warehousing to Seeley, Service & Cooper, whose warehouse, run by the military publisher Leo Cooper (husband of Jilly), was just off Shaftesbury Avenue. Then, realising how important publicity would be if we were to get off the ground in a meaningful way, I approached Carmen Callil, whom I’d first met when she was working at Granada Publishing and they’d brought out the paperback edition of my Poetry and Jazz in Concert anthology. And so it was the great Carmen who helped launch both our company, Robson Books, and our first list, and certain other titles in due course.

  Now all we had to do was find the books to publish.

  17

  OVERTURE AND BEGINNERS

  The mid-1970s were probably as good a time as any to set up publishing shop, given that there seemed to be many more openings and opportunities for a small publisher to make a mark than there would appear to be today. Lively reps and good publicity could make all the difference then – provided you had the right books, that is – with reps able to call regularly on the bookshops in their area and draw on relationships they had built up over the years, and at Christmas deliver car stock galore. Now it’s nearly all central and frugal. With the Net Book Agreement still solidly in place, the smaller publishers were less easily outgunned by the big guys pushing their wares and giving crippling discounts. What’s more, there were fewer of them, with many of the mergers still way off in the future. Once the NBA was abandoned, everything changed – for the worse, in my opinion. Before, with many more bookshops and a far greater variety of titles, there was room for personality in a publishing list and for a number of vigorous independent publishers to make their mark. To an extent, things were author-led then, as they should be, rather than discount-led, so provided you were fast on your feet the world was full of exciting opportunities – or so it seemed. At Frankfurt and other book fairs there were many small companies exhibiting, some with enticing titles on their shelves to be spotted by alert eyes. Now the conglomerates are so conglomerated, and incorporate so many imprints, it’s hard to remember who is where, if indeed they are still anywhere.

  All that apart, among the larger companies there are and have been some truly great publishers, naturally. As well as Tom McCormack, I think of Sonny Mehta at Knopf; of the phenomenal Gail Rebuck, now chair of Penguin Random House, to whom I enjoyed selling paperback rights when she ran Hamlyn Paperback in the 1970s; and of Peter Mayer, the brilliant cosmopolitan publisher who ran and revived the Penguin empire for nearly twenty years, and later owned Duckworth and the Overlook Press, which he founded in 1971. Peter could be extremely charming, and occasionally he would flatter me by inviting me to lunch, leaning forward solicitously to ask me to tell him how to publish humour – as if he, of all people, needed lessons from a rookie like me!

  When Peter moved to America to take command of the struggling Penguin empire, I saw both the charm and the fire of this great publisher at work. Arriving at his office, I was shown into an unusually large room with a couch at one end, to which I was steered, while at the other end sat Peter at a round table facing a youngish woman. He seemed to be upbraiding her about something, and that something became clear as his voice rose. ‘You hired her, and you’re responsible. She�
�s upset one of our major authors, and you had better mend those fences fast!’ I imagine he was talking to one of his senior editors, and it was embarrassing to be sitting there and having to witness it all. A few minutes later, she got up and started to move away, but he called her back, saying he hadn’t finished with her, and continued his tirade. Then, walking over to me as if nothing had happened, he greeted me with his usual warmth and charm, without any reference to the scene he obviously knew I had just witnessed. When I left, nearly an hour later, I took with me a handsome offer for the US rights to Peter Heller’s forthcoming biography of Mike Tyson, then at the height of his power and fame as heavyweight champion of the world. I really couldn’t complain.

  * * *

  When we started, it was by no means as easy as I imply, and there were many traps and pitfalls to avoid, just as there are now – overprinting, when enthusiasm carried you away, and overpaying for that title you just had to have. And how did we manage without email and computers? Somehow we did. There was time to think, to reflect, even to read, without everything having to be instant, as a more civilised kind of publishing hung on. It was thrilling, too, to open the post in the morning and see a wodge of orders from reps and also direct from bookshops – branch after Waterstones branch, as I recall, giving one a real sense of when a book was in demand and starting to move. I know one can now read computer printouts, but for me it has never been quite the same thing. That was particularly apparent with titles that weren’t run-of-the-mill, or where there wasn’t a well-known author to promote it. Our Twins Handbook was one such title, published at a time when there wasn’t a similar book on the market and in virtually every post there was an order marked ‘extremely urgent’. We smiled knowingly and made sure we delivered quickly (sorry!) and kept the book in print. Another surprising title that had been recommended by the manager of a WH Smith branch in Wigan, via our rep (such things happened then), was a book on the legendary Wigan Casino all-nighter club, the hub of Northern Soul music in the 1970s. We took a deep breath and published it, hoping there would be strong local interest if nothing else. We banged on Smith’s door for a scale-out to branches nationwide, but it was only when we were able to demonstrate that we had received nearly 1,000 direct orders from branches around the country that they relented and agreed to make the book widely available. People might have moved away from their northern roots for one reason or another, but they still cherished the memory of dancing the nights away to those live bands, and they wanted a copy!