Tower and Town, October 2016

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Writers, Writing and the Olympics

As mentioned, one of the pleasures of my 71st summer has been to make friends on Facebook with some very interesting and enlightened people. But please note, dear Reader, that Facebook friends are not “virtual reality” friends – they are real people, with all the trials and tribulations, joys and passions that we all have and share. Take this piece from the author Anthony McGowan, who took part in an Edinburgh Literary Festival:

A terrible, sleepless night in Edinburgh, racked by anxiety and heartburn. Managed to drift off at about 4.30, only to be wrenched out of a nightmare about being eaten alive by the raucous clamour of a lesser black-backed gull outside my window. Ate a carbonised breakfast at a table in the middle of the room, feeling exposed and raw, surrounded by elderly Americans complaining about the coffee. Have an event this morning with Patrice and Daniel, which should be OK, but then have to compose a mini, career-ending lecture to deliver tonight. I'm too tired and anxious to make it funny, so it'll just be the bitter, resentful ramblings of a disappointed man, punctuated by guttural expletives and inchoate belches of rage. Oh, not quite sure what the point of all that was, but now I feel a little better. Contemplating a second breakfast ...

Life on the road for a writer is very similar to business trips we have all made.

And Danuta Kean, a creative writing tutor and Books Editor at Mslexia, continuously regales us with her life experiences. Apart from advising us how to write a Best-Seller, and on everything to do with getting a book published, she will keep her FB friends in the picture about her recent toothache, her lovely daughter, and about the Trolls lurking in the dark spaces of Social Media. Danuta has strong and decisive views on almost any topic, and has introduced me (hitherto mainly a Times reader) to many fabulous journalists writing for the Guardian (Nick Cohen etc. ) Her latest view on Brexit: “Sadly I think we will be out and none of these people (Campaigning Brexiteers) will bear the consequences. The rest of us will though.” I love my daily exposure to Danuta’s world, and find it intellectually very salutory.

And finally to Boris! No, not that one. This Boris is a much better version. Boris Starling is a British novelist, screenwriter and newspaper journalist, who lightened up the Olympics of all his FB friends with some wonderful epic rewrites of famous and heroic Olympic stories. Lack of space allows me only one excerpt from these five sagas. This is the tale of Derek Redmond in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, after he had pulled a hamstring in the 400 metres final, and his father had forced his way onto the track to assist him. Boris’ words as he retold this amazing story were spine-tingling:

And that was when Derek finally crumpled: his face twisted in pain and tears, his head buried on his father’s shoulder. An official came near, trying to get them both off the track. Jim kept one protective arm round Derek and waved the man off with the other.

They began to walk slowly down the home straight, father and son together. The crowd cheered louder, palliative to the pain which every step was causing Derek. Another official tried to pull Jim away. Jim knew these guys were just trying to do their job, but his son was hurting and his son wanted to reach the finish line and that was all there was to it.

He span round and told the blazer to f… off. Derek had never heard his dad swear before, not once. Jim was making up for that now. He wasn’t taking any s..t and he wasn't giving a s..t.

Today, he wasn’t in the s..t business. Today, he was something great, something special, something universal. He was every parent who’d taken their child into bed after a nightmare and cuddled them back to sleep. He was every father who’d hauled himself out of bed at stupid o’clock on a winter’s morning to drive his son to training. He was every mother who’d cheered and fretted on a touchline. He was every teacher who’d seen a spark in a child and fanned it till it caught fire and spread and blossomed and consumed their lives. He was every adult who'd tried to balance in someone they loved the desire to win with the acceptance of loss, who'd talked of Kipling and his twin impostors, who'd listened to the man in the film who said that if you weren't enough without the medal then you'd never be enough with it. He was anyone who’d seen another human being in pain and gone to their aid rather than walk on by. Most of all, he was proof of perhaps humanity’s most basic truth: that the minimum unit for love and survival is not one but two.

As Habie Schwarz commented, with reference to Boris:

I love the beautiful writing of those who are generous with their skills on Facebook; posts that increase your understanding and/or are so enjoyable to savour you read them aloud to friends. Prose poetry.

Boris Starling is an award-winning author, screenwriter and journalist. His books have appeared on the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists, he created the MESSIAH series which ran for five seasons on BBC1, and he regularly writes for several national newspapers.

Andrew Unwin