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Authors: Winston Graham
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Portugal, Spain, Italy and now France. She was an Australian, about my age, slim, elegant and adventurous, and she spoke no single word of any language but her own. She had sufficient confidence in her own not-negligible abilities to go where and get what she wanted. Her lack of languages did not incommode her. She was pretty and she simply smiled and pointed at whatever she wanted. After the second day together she smiled and pointed at me.
Three or four years after this, an elderly retired colonel whom I knew in Cornwall, and who himself knew Paris well, quizzed me about my first visit there, and incautiously I told him of my experiences. I mentioned my Australian friend, and added: âI must remember to send her a Christmas card.â
As he looked at me, a peculiar expression crossed his face which I found impossible to interpret. He looked surprised, even slightly shocked â or perhaps disappointed. I can only surmise such a reaction might come from the fact that he took the view of a first visit to Paris in the same light as my elderly doctor: eagerness to relish the glitter, the glamour, the wickedness of the worldâs wickedest city. Of course he would have laughed had I told him of the doctorâs fiasco â and told him as if it had happened to me. I had sliced out of bounds on the first hole. Could happen to any feller. But you didnât somehow go to Paris to indulge in an affair with an Australian girl, and, what was more, keep in touch with her after . Why, that could have happened in Huddersfield.
About the time of the sixth novel, mindful of the relative success of Seven Suspected , I embarked on another play. It was called Forsaking All Others . During the late Thirties, a talented young actor called Peter Bull had brought down a company of his friends and colleagues, taken over the Perranporth Womenâs Institute for about ten weeks each summer, and put on a remarkable repertory of plays, professionally acted, directed and produced. People on holiday came from all over Cornwall to Perranporth to the plays, knowing they could rely on a quality of production rarely seen outside London. Peter Bull was a keen judge of talent, and among the people who came down with him were Frith Banbury, Pauline Letts, Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, Judith and Roger Furse, and, appearing in the occasional play as âguest artistesâ, were Hugh Sinclair, Robert Morley, Valerie Taylor and others. It was all heady and sophisticated stuff and it began to create a national name for itself.
I had come to know a few of them, though not well, and it was with awful trepidation in the late summer of 1938, happening to meet Peter Bull one day, I blurted out the fact that I had written a play and would he be very kind and read it? He said certainly he would, so I sent it to him when he returned to London. After a few weeks he wrote to invite me to supper next time I was in London. I went up the following week in high hopes but accompanying fears. The fears were realized. He saw me backstage of the Robert Morley play he was presenting in London, Goodness, How Sad! , and after a cheerful interchange and some complimentary remarks about my own play he added: âOf course, I wouldnât put it on in London.â
I have no memory of the supper we had afterwards; I hope I was a good enough loser not to show disappointment; but towards the end of the meal he gave me the name of a producer friend of his to whom I might send the play for further consideration and advice. I thanked him and left, already foreseeing that his friend would read the play and return it with an encouraging note. Which is what happened. I felt demeaned by my own incompetence.
I do not think now that Forsaking All Others was nearly as good as Seven Suspected . It was more self-conscious, more pretentious. In the first play I had written uninhibitedly, bringing in the thrills and the laughs without a second thought. Forsaking All Others was
Three or four years after this, an elderly retired colonel whom I knew in Cornwall, and who himself knew Paris well, quizzed me about my first visit there, and incautiously I told him of my experiences. I mentioned my Australian friend, and added: âI must remember to send her a Christmas card.â
As he looked at me, a peculiar expression crossed his face which I found impossible to interpret. He looked surprised, even slightly shocked â or perhaps disappointed. I can only surmise such a reaction might come from the fact that he took the view of a first visit to Paris in the same light as my elderly doctor: eagerness to relish the glitter, the glamour, the wickedness of the worldâs wickedest city. Of course he would have laughed had I told him of the doctorâs fiasco â and told him as if it had happened to me. I had sliced out of bounds on the first hole. Could happen to any feller. But you didnât somehow go to Paris to indulge in an affair with an Australian girl, and, what was more, keep in touch with her after . Why, that could have happened in Huddersfield.
About the time of the sixth novel, mindful of the relative success of Seven Suspected , I embarked on another play. It was called Forsaking All Others . During the late Thirties, a talented young actor called Peter Bull had brought down a company of his friends and colleagues, taken over the Perranporth Womenâs Institute for about ten weeks each summer, and put on a remarkable repertory of plays, professionally acted, directed and produced. People on holiday came from all over Cornwall to Perranporth to the plays, knowing they could rely on a quality of production rarely seen outside London. Peter Bull was a keen judge of talent, and among the people who came down with him were Frith Banbury, Pauline Letts, Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, Judith and Roger Furse, and, appearing in the occasional play as âguest artistesâ, were Hugh Sinclair, Robert Morley, Valerie Taylor and others. It was all heady and sophisticated stuff and it began to create a national name for itself.
I had come to know a few of them, though not well, and it was with awful trepidation in the late summer of 1938, happening to meet Peter Bull one day, I blurted out the fact that I had written a play and would he be very kind and read it? He said certainly he would, so I sent it to him when he returned to London. After a few weeks he wrote to invite me to supper next time I was in London. I went up the following week in high hopes but accompanying fears. The fears were realized. He saw me backstage of the Robert Morley play he was presenting in London, Goodness, How Sad! , and after a cheerful interchange and some complimentary remarks about my own play he added: âOf course, I wouldnât put it on in London.â
I have no memory of the supper we had afterwards; I hope I was a good enough loser not to show disappointment; but towards the end of the meal he gave me the name of a producer friend of his to whom I might send the play for further consideration and advice. I thanked him and left, already foreseeing that his friend would read the play and return it with an encouraging note. Which is what happened. I felt demeaned by my own incompetence.
I do not think now that Forsaking All Others was nearly as good as Seven Suspected . It was more self-conscious, more pretentious. In the first play I had written uninhibitedly, bringing in the thrills and the laughs without a second thought. Forsaking All Others was
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