A long way from Verona, by Jane Gardam

This was another book I sneaked in while I was simultaneously reading Ken Livingstone’s memoirs. Although a very different read, it was chosen for the same reason as Goodbye Mr. Chips, in that it is fairly short and relatively undemanding.  I have always enjoyed Jane Gardam’s books, and a longer-term project is to read her “Old Filth” trilogy again; I read the final book quite recently, but it was too long after I read the other two and I couldn’t pick up all the threads as I would have liked to do.

A long way from Verona is an early book. It is too simple to say that it treats of a schoolgirl’s life during the Second World War – that makes it sound very straightforward and a period piece, whereas it is much more penetrating – and much funnier – than that. I suppose that Jane Gardam is often thought is as a women’s writer, which is as unfair as such a label usually is, but I would be interested to hear a man’s view of the book. My schooldays came a while after those of the book’s protagonist, but some of the pleasure was in the depiction of school life, the sudden friendships and fallings-out, the pang of recognition of the stifling atmosphere of a single-sex school and the spinster teachers.

Perhaps I should be comparing it to Goodbye Mr. Chips... It is only now that I realise I had chosen two school-based books to read successively. But Jane Gardam is infinitely more to my taste than James Hilton and much more complex; it is dated in that it is set in a time that most of us do not remember, but it certainly isn't out-of-date.

Goodbye Mr. Chips, by James Hilton

When I was growing up, I was always aware of the books in the (very small) bookcase in our sitting room. They were the books that my parents enjoyed reading, rather than being books chosen to display what might have been considered a “proper” taste in literature. I do not mean to imply criticism when I say this, only to explain that those books represented an honest choice, instead of being put there to impress. Most of the authors are long-forgotten. My mother’s shelf was full of Jeffery Farnol; my father inclined to Dornford Yates and Ernest Raymond, but his selection also included James Hilton. The Jeffery Farnol titles were discarded before I got my hands on them, but many of the books have ended up in my own bookcase, often remaining unread by me. 

I should have been finishing Ken’s biography, but it is a very big fat book, and I only had two chapters left to read, and for that reason didn’t want to take it away on holiday. So I cast around for something short, light to carry and, not wanting to end up with two unfinished books, easy to read at speed. Goodbye Mr. Chips certainly filled the bill in all three respects. 

It is almost unimaginable that any modern author would write such a short book, only 128 pages, small thick pages of big type. I read it easily in two sessions before bed. It is the sentimental story of an elderly schoolmaster in an English public school, full of the ideals of duty, honour, sportsmanship and decency which are only trotted out nowadays as the butt of satirical humour. The world has moved on, and properly so, and the book is a period piece. My father was the contemporary of the boys in the book and the product of that world. The book was first published in 1934, referring often to the sacrifice made by former schoolboys killed in the First World War and with no knowledge of events to come; my father bought it in 1948 (he signed and dated his books) when he was fresh out of the chaos of the Second. I wonder whether he read it with nostalgia, knowing as we do that it described a society and culture lost for ever; or whether he read it in the hope and expectation that once a settled peace had been restored the clock could and would be turned back to those golden days?

You can’t say that, by Ken Livingstone

These are Ken’s memoirs and, like several other books I have read recently, was a recommendation from a friend. My heart sank slightly at the size of it – 710 pages in the paperback edition – and it has taken me months to finish it. The weight of it was a disincentive to carrying it to read on the train, and it is a relatively serious read, which meant it was not always something I felt up to tackling at bedtime. However, the recommendation was entirely justified.

If you lived in or near London during the period covered – from the late Sixties right up to 2011 – you will recall at least some, if not all, of the events covered. And it is an entertaining read – Ken has quite a wit and although there are endless details of political in-fighting, some of which I will admit to gliding over, it was always interesting and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. I suspect that every reader will take something different from it, to support their own beliefs and prejudices, but what I think I had not realised before was for how long political discussion and disagreement has been overshadowed by personal viciousness and muck-spreading. The book largely succeeds in redressing the balance for those who only remember “Red Ken and the scandals at County Hall” rather than what actually happened. 

Ken is no saint but his book reveals him as a careful thinker and a conscientious worker, in striking contrast to his successor as Mayor. I know which I would rather have on my side.