Tag Archives: autobiography

Sun Lounger Thoughts: Stephen Fry, Highways and that Solitaire App

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Last week I finished reading the four books I had brought with me to read here in Lanzarote and so I scoured the bookshelf in our rented villa for something else to read. I came across Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry. It’s an autobiography of his life up till the age of 20 but it’s not in any way a conventional autobiography. It’s a sort of full throttle, stream of consciousness monologue which Fry kicks off in his second year of public school and proceeds to tell us a great deal about his thoughts and feelings, making numerous right and left turns along the way to discuss various issues and subjects that he decides to talk about. It’s very like a sort of confessional and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it was taken down verbatim (or perhaps tape recorded) during a session with his psychiatrist.

Fry reveals his thoughts about homosexuality and his feelings, either obsession or lust over a boy at his school. Fry went to a public school which confusingly for our American readers is actually a private school. Actually, a private boarding school which eventually Fry was expelled from.

I’ve no idea where the title comes from although Stephen does mention various exotic authors, none of whom I’ve ever heard of so perhaps the title comes from a quotation from some esoteric book that only university bookworms are familiar with. Sprinkled throughout the book though are numerous authors I have heard of as well as many references to popular films and TV shows, all of which made the book, in my mind anyway, very relatable.

A good one comes later in the book when he is arrested for theft and declines to give his name. One of the cops calls him Stephen and he replies ‘yes’ so the cops say ahh, you’re Stephen Fry then. He compares it to a scene in The Great Escape in which Gordon Jackson as an escaped POW pretends to be a French worker and gets caught out when a gestapo man says ‘good luck’ to him in English. Jackson replies -in English- ‘thank you’ and reveals himself instantly to be an escaper. That was one of my late brother’s favourite parts of the film and one he always used to quote to me.

Anyway, Fry’s book was a real no holes barred, full throttle read.

Over the years I’ve written quite a few of these sun lounger thoughts posts which are basically the kind of thoughts that have arisen in my mind while lying on a sun lounger.

Today I found myself, after a swim and relaxing on my lounger in the sun, thinking about my old job at the Highways Agency.

When I was a child I used to have, just like Stephen Fry, lots of daydreams and fantasies. One of them was that the school would be taken over by terrorists and that they would be methodically trying to find someone who was actually a secret agent. That secret agent of course would be me and after biding my time I would, just like Bruce Willis in the Die Hard films, sort out the terrorists one by one. My daydream would usually be shattered by one of the teachers asking me a question like ‘how many degrees in a right-angled triangle?’ and I would suddenly be brought down to earth and desperately try to answer before revealing the inevitable truth that I had not been paying attention.

When I worked at the Highways Agency, no two days would ever be the same. One day would bumble along and nothing much would happen and the next there would be crash after crash after crash.

Bad weather always plays a part in motorway crashes, the main reason being that your average driver whose journey from home to work normally takes 35 minutes, expects that same journey to take 35 minutes no matter what. Come the day when the network is covered by 3 inches of snow or a major downpour with various lanes closed due to flooding then that journey will not take 35 minutes and the average driver really cannot understand why.

If there is a major downpour many drivers tend to sensibly slow down. This slows the traffic movement down as a whole making journeys longer. Mr Average gets impatient, decides to speed up to 80 mph and either realises too late he is going to miss his junction, cuts in to his left and hits another car causing a crash on the inside lane (RTC in our Highways lingo) or possibly hits a puddle in the outside lane spins and causes a crash (Road Traffic Collision to use the full title) in lane 3.

On those summer days with perfect visibility things usually go reasonably well and that’s the time when the terrorist daydream would raise its ugly head. A team of terrorists take over the RCC (Regional Control Centre) and interrogate and torture people in order to find that ex secret agent (this is a subtle twist on the earlier daydream) who has retired from MI5 and joined the Highways Agency.

If I happened to be the radio dispatcher that day my assistant would usually nudge me and say Steve-debris incident or RTC.

The thing is, that daydream could easily have been avoided. Back in the early days when the RCC was brand spanking new, many dignitaries, councillors, police officers, firemen and other emergency services staff would be invited upstairs to a viewing area to look down on what was happening. Invariably this always happened on days when the network was calm and nothing out of the ordinary was going on, save for the odd breakdown here and there. The dignitaries used to look down and senior management would be horrified to find the dispatcher and his assistant playing solitaire on the screens.

Me at work in the Highways Control Room

Now this might have seemed a bad thing but back then we could float a solitaire game right on our command-and-control screens so if a job popped up, we would see it straight away because we were already looking at the correct screen. Anyway, management decided to delete solitaire from the system so then when things were quiet, we would either stare at the ceiling, talk to each other or, well that’s where the daydream came in.

The wall of the Highways control room (RCC) has various screens where we can highlight CCTV images of the incidents we are dealing with. In the centre is the TV screen usually set to Sky or BBC News. This being an operational control room the TV has no sound and it was sometimes quite amusing to watch the subtitles appear with the wrong word or sentence. Some of the best I’ve seen include MP Ed Miliband described as the Ed Miller Band and the BBC welcoming viewers to the ‘Chinese New Year of the whores!’

Later in life the RCC became the ROC (pronounced rock) actually the Regional Operations Centre. I’m not sure why that name change took place unless some nameless senior manager had found that his solitaire app had been deleted and unable to play a card game decided that it might be a good idea to rename the control room. As it happened, the Highways Agency was renamed Highways England and later National Highways meaning a great deal of taxpayer’s money had to be spent on new signage: on our premises, on letterheads and repainting our vehicles as well as rehashing all our uniforms.

Yep, they really shouldn’t have deleted that solitaire app!

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My Early Life: The Book, the Film and the Soundtrack Album

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I first read My Early Life by Winston Churchill many years ago. I picked up a paperback copy which tied in with the release of the film version and also along the way I got hold of the soundtrack album and later a VHS copy of the film. In this week’s blog I thought I’d take a closer look at all three.

Rooting around in a secondhand shop in St Annes recently I picked up a hardback copy of Winston Churchill’s book My Early Life. It’s a thoroughly wonderful book written in Churchill’s inimitable style. He says in the introduction he has written a book about a vanished age and indeed he has. Churchill was born in 1974 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. He was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill who was in turn the son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His mother was an American, Jennie Jerome, the daughter of an American businessman. She married Lord Randolph and became Lady Churchill.

Lady Churchill was a great influence on his life although in his very early years young Winston looked to his nanny, Mrs Everest, for motherly support. His father, Lord Randolph, was someone whom Winston loved and adored but never seemed to become close to. After the birth of Winston, Randolph began to suffer a debilitating disease which could have been syphilis. Others have speculated it was a brain tumour. Either way, Randolph died in 1894.

Looking back, I must have seen the film version before I read the book. Young Winston was directed by Richard Attenborough and is a wonderful adaptation of the book. When Winston first attends school, which of course was boarding school, his headmaster was played by Robert Hardy and he directs Winston to learn some Latin. Winston doesn’t do very well and the headmaster glares down at him and informs him that if he misbehaves, he will be punished, which to a great extent was Churchill’s overall view of school. Later he comments about exams ‘they always contrived to question me about things I didn’t know. I would much rather they asked me about things I did know.

In the book Winston records his schooldays with a great deal of charm and humour. He goes on to attend Harrow and as he intends to join the army goes to special army classes.  Winston seems to have enjoyed his army training and was keen to see action. He took leave with a friend and went to observe events in Cuba where revolutionaries were fighting their Spanish colonial rulers.

Winston was a second lieutenant in the 4th Hussars and spent a long time in India. He was a great lover of polo and he and his colleagues won an inter service championship in their first year in the country, a feat never achieved before by a recently arrived regiment.

Churchill was keen, as I said before, to see action and joined Bindon Blood’s Malakand Field Force and later wrote a book about the campaign. The book was popular and Churchill even received a letter of praise from the Prince of Wales. Because of his mother and father, Churchill was well connected in both political and aristocratic circles and later used his contacts and those of his mother to attach himself to General Kitchener’s campaign in the Sudan. He was part of one of the British Army’s very last cavalry charges in the battle of Omdurman in 1898.

The charge was depicted in the film Young Winston and in his book Churchill ponders about fate and a problem with his shoulder which necessitated using his revolver rather than his sword during the charge, reflecting that if he had been using his sword he might well have been killed in the latter stages when he was surrounded by the enemy.

He ponders many times too about war in the Victorian age. How it was honourable and respectable. He mentions how officers would stop for lunch before a battle and how casualties, which were sometimes considered heavy, were nothing like the heavy casualties suffered in the later world war. If technology had taken away the honour of war in 1914, how would Churchill react to war in 2025 I wonder?

The Victorian age was an age of courtesy and respect and one of my favourite stories in the book occurs when Winston was at Sandhurst. It was the custom then, if an officer wanted leave for a few hours, to sign a book and declare himself absent. One day when visiting friends Winston passed his commanding officer Major Ball, a very strict and formal officer, on the road and realised he had forgotten to sign himself out. He cut short his visit, returned to Sandhurst hoping to add his name before the Major checked the book. Sadly, he found Major Ball’s signature at the end of the page. Would he be disciplined thought Winston? What would his punishment be? Looking further up the list Winston was surprised to find that his name had been added and countersigned by none other than Major Ball himself. Winston writes that this was a clear indication of how discipline could be maintained among officers without departing from the courteous and respectful standards of the time.

Having failed to become an MP for the Oldham constituency he went to South Africa to report on the Boer war as a correspondent. He travelled on an armoured train which was attacked by the Boers and he was captured and imprisoned in a POW camp.

One of things I particularly liked about Young Winston was the music. I bought the soundtrack album in 1985. The music for the film was in the main composed by Sir Alfred Ralston. He was brought into the film by director Attenborough as the two had worked together on a previous film, ‘Oh what a Lovely War’. The soundtrack features music by Edward Elgar, notably the Pomp and Circumstance March no 4 as well as Nimrod from the Enigma Variations.

According to the sleeve notes, the pistol used by Simon Ward who played Winston in the film was Churchill’s actual Mauser and it can be seen pretty well during a sequence when Churchill travels to south Africa to report on the Boer war as a newspaper correspondent. He travels with a unit who undertake a recce on an armoured train only to find the train attacked by the Boers on their return journey. Winston played a big part in helping remove a wrecked train from the line only for himself to not only be captured but also to lose his pistol. The pistol was returned to him in later years.

Churchill ended up in a POW camp but resolved to escape despite also claiming to the Boers that he was a correspondent and should not have been detained. With the help of a group of Lancashire miners, Winston stowed away on a goods train and made his way back to the British lines.

The incident made him famous back in the UK and when he next ran for parliament in Oldham, he was duly elected. The tone of the book becomes more serious towards the final pages but overall this is an outstanding read by one of this country’s greatest sons.

The film version was almost just as good. Simon Ward gives us an admirable picture of the young Winston with just the right hint of the great man’s later style and speaking voice.

I first saw this film at the cinema where I greatly enjoyed it and I remember it coming to television some years later. The film finishes with a poignant dream sequence which, I remember reading somewhere, was based on something Churchill either said or wrote. In the dream, a much older Winston meets his father but he is not the unwell man of his later years but restored to full health. Randolph asks Winston about great events and Churchill answers telling of the two World Wars. ‘Did Joe Chamberlain ever become Prime Minister?’ asks Randolph. ‘No’ answers Winston, ‘but one of his sons did, Neville’.

Winston mentions that he has resigned his commission in the army. Randolph looks about at the many paintings and asks Winston if this is what he does. Winston answers that painting occupies much of his time. Randolph thinks for a moment and then tells Winston to ‘do the best you can’ and we see the sleeping Churchill smile at the thought.

I’ve always liked this final sequence but when I bought my VHS copy the scene was omitted. Likewise, every time I have since seen the film on television, this scene has always been removed. I’d love to know why. Perhaps the producers thought the film too long or perhaps preferred the new ending in which Winston talks briefly in a voiceover about his marriage and living ‘happily ever after’. After a search on the internet I came across a post which claimed that Carl Foreman, who wrote and produced the film, found that US audiences occasioned so little reaction to the scene that he promptly had it cut. What reaction was he expecting to see I wonder?

Perhaps it’s time for a search on eBay. I’m sure that somewhere there must be a definitive DVD version of the film and if you ever get the chance, give the book a read, it’s one of my absolute favourites.

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Thatcher and Give Me 10 Seconds

Posted on by Steve Higgins

On holiday one of my favourite reads was an autobiography by John Sergeant who was once a political reporter for the BBC. It was called Give Me 10 Seconds. It was called this because the BBC usually had John ready to speak to the camera for perhaps two minutes. John needed to get his broadcast together in his head and would usually ask for 10 seconds for a quick mental rehearsal. The book was a particularly warm and enjoyable read and opened my eyes to the way the BBC works.The author seems to think that the BBC was built on rather military styles. Staff didn’t get holidays but instead were allocated ‘leave’. Numerous layers of management operated the BBC empire and it seemed to me to be very similar to how things operated at my old place of work, the Highways Agency.

John’s claim to fame came when he was reporting live from outside the British Embassy in Paris in November 1990. Mrs Thatcher had just heard that Michael Heseltine’s leadership challenge had garnered 152 votes in the first round of voting and while John was presenting live on television, Mrs Thatcher emerged from the embassy with her PR man Bernard Ingham by her side. Despite Mr Ingham trying to push John aside, he stood his ground and firmly held his microphone to the Prime Minister’s face while she advised everyone that her name would be going through to the second round of voting.

John’s book was a great read. He started out working with Alan Bennett as a comedy writer and performer but when he realised that he probably had no future as a tv comedian he got himself a job as a newspaper reporter in Liverpool and later moved over to the BBC as a radio reporter.

It’s actually really fascinating to hear of the rivalry between the radio news and the tv news, as back in the late 60s the radio people really didn’t have much time for their television counterparts. These days of course, television is the senior partner in news reporting and the cameras of the BBC, SKY TV and CNN take the viewer all over the world in search of news.

Even so, in recent years, people and politicians have been highly critical of the BBC not only for the way it reports but also for what it reports. I’ve seen some interviews with politicians by journalists like Jeremy Paxman which were quite frankly just disgracefully rude. Is there bias in the BBC? I personally think that the days of impartial news reporting is over but whenever something happens in the world, and I want some more information, my first thought is to go to the BBC website.

Mrs Thatcher was the first female British Prime Minister. She was born in 1925, studied chemistry at Oxford and married Denis Thatcher in 1951. She stood unsuccessfully for parliament and then settled down to have her children. Later she was finally elected in 1959 as the MP for Finchley.

Image courtesy creative commons

Mrs Thatcher was given various posts on the front bench and when the Conservatives under Edward Heath won the election in 1964, she was promoted to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science.

The Government had to deal with numerous issues such as union demands for higher wages and the three day week and they lost the election in February 1974 but Labour could only form a minority government. They then won a later election in October that same year. Mrs Thatcher then challenged Edward Heath for the party leadership and won, taking over as leader of the opposition in 1975. She finally became Prime Minister in 1979 famously quoting the prayer of St Francis on the steps of Downing St;

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony;
Where there is error, may we bring truth;
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith;
And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

Mrs Thatcher promoted the idea of people owning their homes and even introduced policies aimed at tenants buying their own council houses. She faced up to union demands most notably with Arthur Scargill and the mining unions but became hugely popular when she stood up to the Argentinians who invaded the Falkland Islands.

She led the Conservative Party to victory in three consecutive general elections, twice in a landslide, and she ranks among the most popular party leaders in British history regarding votes cast for the winning party; over 40 million ballots were cast in total for the party under her leadership. Her electoral successes were dubbed an “historic hat trick” by the British press in 1987 and her tenure as Prime Minister was the longest continuous period in office since the 19th century.

Her downfall came in 1990 which brings us back to John Sergeant’s famous moment. Michael Heseltine decided to go ahead with his leadership challenge and Mrs Thatcher burst forth from the British Embassy in Paris to make her statement that she had passed her name forward to the next round of the contest. She had been 4 votes short of victory in the first ballot and therefore a second round was required.

Thatcher seemed certain of going forward into that second ballot but after consulting with her ministers she decided to withdraw and it was John Major and not Michael Heseltine who emerged as the new Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.

Mrs Thatcher has been portrayed by numerous actresses in film and television most notably by Gillian Anderson and Meryl Streep. Streep starred as Thatcher in the film Iron Lady. She was played frequently on TV sketches and in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only by comedian and impressionist Janet Brown.  Perhaps the most famous comedy sketch about Mrs Thatcher came on the TV show Spitting Image in which she takes the cabinet for dinner. She orders steak and the waitress asks ‘what about the vegetables?’

Thatcher looks at her cabinet and replies ‘they’ll have the same as me!’

Mrs Thatcher retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election. She was a Prime Minister who was loved by some and hated by others and even when she died in 2013 at the age of 87 social media memes were declaring the wicked witch is dead!

Which side of the fence are you on?

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Charlie Chaplin: Autobiography versus Biography

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Earlier this year again, Liz and I packed up the motor and headed off to France. One of the first things I did in preparation was to sort out my holiday book bag. I usually have a stack of unread books to take along but I always like to take along a banker, yes that’s a book I can bank on, rely on to be a good read, usually one I have read before.

I was sorely tempted to bring my favourite read of all time along, Dickens’ David Copperfield or another favourite holiday read ‘A year in Provence‘, that much maligned gentle read about an Englishman living in France, however, one book I chose was so interesting I re-read a great deal of it at home before I left so I didn’t bother to bring it. The book in question was My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin, Charlie, to you and me.

My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin.

Charlie was born in 1889 in Walworth, London and spent his early life in the London suburb of Kennington. His parents were both music hall performers but separated when Charlie was about two years old. His mother was poor and the small family, Charlie, his mother and older brother Sydney, were admitted to the workhouse on two separate occasions.

In 1903, Charlie’s mother was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum and Charlie lived on the streets alone until his brother Sydney, who had joined the navy, returned from sea.

With his father’s connections Charlie secured a place in a clog dancing troupe called the Eight Lancashire Lads and so began his career as a performer. After appearing in some minor roles in the theatre he developed a comic routine and, with help from Sydney, was signed by Fred Karno, the famous music hall impresario, for his comedy company in 1908.

Chaplin became one of Fred Karno’s top comedians and Karno sent him with a troupe of other comedians on a tour of vaudeville theatres in the USA. One of the others was Stan Laurel, later to find fame with the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.

By  far the most interesting part of Charlie’s autobiography is where he talks about the beginning of his movie career. On a second tour of America in 1913, Chaplin was asked to join the Mack Sennett studios as a performer in silent films for the fee of $150 per week. He wasn’t initially keen but liked the idea of starting something new.

His first film for Sennett was called Making a Living, released in 1914. Chaplin himself wasn’t so keen on the film and for his second appearance selected a new costume. After searching through the costume department Chaplin chose a bowler hat, a jacket that was too small, baggy trousers, shoes that were too large and a cane. It almost seems as though the clothes made him become the character of the tramp which was to make him famous. The film was Mabel’s Strange Predicament although another tramp film made afterwards, Kid Auto races at Venice, was released to the public first.

Chaplin clashed frequently with his directors when his ideas or suggestions were dismissed but after exhibitors asked Sennett for more Chaplin films he was allowed to direct his own. When his contract expired in 1914 Chaplin asked for 1000 dollars per week. Mack Sennett complained that that figure was more than he was getting and refused. Another film company Essanay, offered him $1200 per week and a signing fee and Chaplin signed. He wasn’t initially happy with Essanay and didn’t like their studios in Chicago, preferring to work in California.

Chaplin was also unhappy after he finished his contract at Essaney because they continued to make lucrative Chaplin comedies by utilising his out-takes. Chaplin was however an astute businessman. In his new contracts the negative and film rights reverted to Chaplin after a certain amount of time. This was in the days when a movie had a life of months, if not weeks.

Chaplin seems strangely perturbed by his fame and fortune. He writes about an incident between contracts where he takes the train to meet his brother in, I think, New York but word has got out to the public he is travelling and everywhere the train stops, masses of people were waiting. Eventually it dawns on him that it is he they were waiting for. Many times the narrative describes meals and walks taken alone giving the impression of a solitary, lonely man.

The thing to remember about reading this book is that Chaplin tells the reader only what he wants them to know, nothing more. His various marriages are only skimmed over although when he is making the Kid, probably his most important picture, he explains how he thought the negative may have be taken by lawyers acting for his estranged wife so he takes the film and edits it while almost ‘on the run’ in various hideaways and hotel rooms.

Chaplin was known for being attracted to young girls and one of his conquests, a girl called Joan Barry was arrested twice for her obsessive behaviour after he ended their relationship. She became pregnant and claimed he was the father and began a paternity suit against him. J Edgar Hoover who believed Chaplin to be a communist, engineered negative publicity against him and public opinion began to turn against Charlie. He was ordered to pay child support to Barry’s baby despite blood test evidence which showed he could not be the father. The blood test evidence was ruled inadmissible.

The earlier part of the book is by far the most interesting but the later part, where Chaplin is famous the world over, it becomes an excuse for name dropping, despite there being a clear absence of any notable anecdotes involving the famous names. Even his best friend Douglas Fairbanks, makes few appearances within the pages.

A fascinating read none the less.

Charlie Chaplin by Peter Ackroyd.

Peter wrote an excellent book about one of my writing heroes, Charles Dickens and I felt that this book was going to be in the same sort of mould. Long, intense and full of detail. Actually it’s a pretty slim volume and not the intense scrutiny of Chaplin that I was expecting. However, on the credit side, it’s a thoughtful and detailed look at Chaplin, his movies and his personal life and a cracking read it is too.

One hundred years ago Chaplin was the most famous man in the world. I’m not sure who would qualify for that title today as despite global communications and the Internet age, the world is separated by many different languages and cultures. A hundred years ago there was no language barrier for Chaplin, and his silent films with their universal language of comedy, went all the way round the globe and he was as famous in countries such as Russia or Africa as he was in Europe or the USA.

Hollywood in the early part of the twentieth century must have been a fascinating place and this book is a great starting point to find out about Chaplin and his work and the beginning of the film industry. Definitely a book well worth reading.

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Second Hand Books and The World of Movie Making

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Million Dollar Movie by Michael Powell.

poweelbookI really do love books, especially second hand books. I think that what is so wonderful about a second hand book is that the book has told its story before to someone else, and now if you have just bought it, its going to tell it’s story to you. I spend a lot of time browsing in book shops, both physically in actual shops or on-line in virtual book stores. The thing about on-line book stores is that you have to have a starting point, it’s no fun browsing through lists of books so I tend to browse on-line only when there is a particular book I want. In an actual book store I scan through the various sections and although I tend to linger on biographies and books about film, anything can catch my eye. A while ago I was reading a book by movie director Michael Powell called ‘A Life in Movies.’ It was a pretty thick book and took a fair old while to read and when I got the end there didn’t seem to be any indication there was another volume.

Of course, Powell was quite old when he wrote his autobiography, perhaps he thought that there wouldn’t be time for another book. Well, I’m happy to say he did write another volume and this is it, Million Dollar Movie. Powell continues the story of his life in his usual random fashion, jumping to things out of context and out of sequence. Just because he happens to visiting Hollywood for instance, he will go on to talk about Hollywood and movie people he knows there and so on. Powell made some great movies alongside collaborator Emeric Pressburger but his career stalled when he made a shocking film called Peeping Tom about a disturbed cameraman who murders his subjects and films them as he does so. Audiences were shocked and Powell’s directing career ended, although in later years fellow directors like Martin Scorcese praised the film as a classic. Liz bought me this book as a gift and the copy she tracked down comes from Austin Public library in Texas in the United States. Provenance is a word they use in the antiques business; It’s to do with the background of an item, and that is what makes this copy so wonderful; How it has come so far, from the USA to England, just so I can sit back and enjoy it.

Bring on the Empty Horses by David Niven.

bringontheYou might be thinking, looking at the picture here: Couldn’t the author have found a better picture? Looking at the picture again I suppose that particular copy is just a little tatty. That’s because it’s my travel copy. I’ve got another copy, a much nicer version that resides in my bookcase that I browse through now and again. The reason I’ve got two versions is because my travel copy goes all over the place with me. If I’m travelling somewhere on the bus or train, that slightly tatty copy goes easily into my pocket or my bag because I can read it time and time again. Not only is it the best ever book written about the golden age of Hollywood, it’s also by far the most accessible and readable book on the subject ever.

Niven’s first book was his autobiography; ‘The Moon’s a Balloon’. In it Niven told how he came over to Hollywood from the UK and made the incredible leap from movie extra to movie star. The title of this book comes from Hungarian director Michael Curtiz. When filming ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ Curtiz wanted a hundred riderless horses to come into shot so he boomed on his megaphone ‘Bring on the Empty Horses!’ Niven and fellow actor Errol Flynn collapsed into laughter and Niven filed away the phrase for later use. The book covers the Hollywood years from 1935 to 1960 and Niven paints vivid portraits of Hollywood itself and long vanished watering holes like the Brown Derby and Romanoffs. He looks at some of the stars he has known like Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Ronald Colman, and Constance Bennett. Other chapters profile producers like Sam Goldwyn and many other famous Hollywood personalities of the time. All his stories are told with great affection and I particularly liked the portrait of Mike Romanoff, the restaurateur who tried to pass himself off, in a slightly tongue in cheek way, as a member of the Russian Romanov family. If ever I’m travelling and need something to read on the journey I’ll always have this copy on hand. It’s like an old wine that improves with age!

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Why I wrote a Novel and 10 Reasons Why You Should Buy It!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Why write a book? Why indeed. Why would anyone want to spend months, or in my case years, writing a book? There is so much to it, and so much involved. It’s so difficult and once done writers are instantly faced with another question; why would anyone want to spend a lot of their hard earned money buying it?

Screenshot 2015-02-08 15.55blog title ed2Well, to start with the writing part first. Why write? The answer is easy for me because I’ve always wanted to be a writer, I write for me, for my own personal pleasure and enjoyment and if anyone reads my work, well that’s just a bonus!

I love reading and I love movies and TV, and remember; before a word can be filmed on a movie, we need a script, and scripts need writers! As long as I can remember I’ve always had ideas forming in my head: Scenarios and stories, and I’ve always written them down. My home is full of old notebooks and computer files littered with half started stories and story ideas. When I was a school boy I used to write scripts and always noted down who would play the character on screen but looking back at one of them in particular, I think my producers would have been hard pushed to attract Steve McQueen to play a secret agent based in Manchester!

So there it is; I write because I want to, and because my imagination is at work churning out ideas randomly. Some time ago though, I looked at the things I was writing and felt that in order to be saying something worthwhile I had to turn away from sci fi and espionage and write about the life that was right in front of me, working class life in Manchester and the North West of England. I’ve spun a story in my book ‘Floating In Space’ that was more observation than anything; a northern world from the late seventies recreated not necessarily with accuracy but pretty much how I remember it. Buses with bus conductors, pubs and barmaids, music and beer, and men and women and their attraction to each other. I suppose it’s a bit of a flashback to fiction from an earlier generation. Remember those working class ‘kitchen sink dramas’ from the late fifties and early sixties, things like ‘A Kind Of loving’ and ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’? Floating In Space is similar to those works but set in the late seventies and I’ve tried to recreate the atmosphere of the pubs and bars of those times, especially the busman’s working men’s club, as well as I can.

The answer then is that I like to write, in fact I love writing and as I have said so often before, my blog gives me a taste, be it ever so small, of being a real writer and putting something together every week for my deadline, my one weekly deadline of Saturday morning.
Next question: So why should you buy it? Why should you shell out your hard earned cash to read my book when you can go out and buy the two classics mentioned above straight away for a guaranteed wonderful read?
Well, here are a few reasons:

1. Support new writers! If we don’t support new and up and coming writers then the publishing industry will die on its feet and what are we hungry readers going to read then?
2. The Kindle version is just over a pound so surely it’s worth taking a chance for a measly one pound ten pence!
3. You might just enjoy it!
4. Think about me up there in the rainy north of England! Who is going to support me if you don’t buy my book?
5. Still unsure? Why not go to the Floating In Space page here and check out some more information?
6. Even better, check out this video of me talking about my book!
7. For two unbiased, impartial reviews go to my amazon page here! (No they absolutely were not written by two of my mates who had been plied with alcohol!)
8. For a little taster have a look at this excerpt when two of the characters visit an Oxford Road pub!
9. I’ll be upset if you don’t buy it!
10. After all the months and years of writing, editing and re-editing, would you really deny a new writer the chance to be heard?

Anyway, that’s your ten reasons, so why not buy the book: Click the links at the top of the page for more information!