Thank you, ‘Jock’ Anderson

JOHN BRADLEY (1950 - 1957)

I have always admired the writing of writer, diplomat and politician Harold Nicolson - and for this I have to thank English master ‘Jock’ Anderson

In the fourth and fifth forms at Almondbury Grammar School I was undecided whether to move into the sixth form in the science stream or the arts stream.

I was fortunate in having a wonderful English teacher, Frank Anderson, always called ‘Jock’ on account of his Scottish origins (and perhaps because ‘Jock Anderson’ was a character in the daily radio serial Dick Barton – Special Agent that was hugely popular in the 1950s).

I was having great difficulty at the time in comprehending the concept of the essay, once defined by Samuel Johnson as ‘a loose sally of the mind’. Jock Anderson also took this as his definition.

I am told by my wife, an English teacher and poet of long and varied experience that in educational circles the essay can now be any short, written work in any format: descriptive, demonstrative, explanatory, didactic, expository, discursive etc. Johnson’s succinct definition has been lost to the current educational establishment, ‘discursive’ being the only category that agrees with ‘a loose sally of the mind’.

Jock saw me as a potential member of the arts stream. Under his outwardly stern exterior he was a sensitive and supportive man. He worked very hard to show me what an essay should consist of, in the tradition of Samuel Johnson.

One day he made a brilliant suggestion. He said, “Go to the public library and read Harold Nicolson’s column in The Observer.” This was in 1954.

I followed this instruction and was inspired by Nicolson’s breadth of knowl- edge, erudition and style, and have since read everything I could find of his writings.

Here I digress. I love making connections. Stimulated by the ex tract from Gorden Kaye’s ‘sort of autobi ography’ René and Me in the July issue of Almondburian, I took out my own copy to refresh my memory of René Artois and there, in chapter 6, Gorden is explaining that he was lazy at school and in later life read all the wrong books. “I feel I should be reading Macaulay and Harold Nicolson and those kinds of people, but I don’t”.

I should like to think that Jock Ander son had made the same suggestion to Gorden as he had to me: Gorden was two years behind me at school.

Harold Nicolson’s son Nigel edited many of his father’s diaries and letters. According to Nigel, his father was a most sympathetic person. He was generous, affable to the young and shy, with a capacity for pity. But he was not always charitable. He knew that he belonged to an élite – an élite more of intelligence and achievement than of birth. He tended to feel that people outside that élite had something wrong with them: businessmen for example, the humbler type of schoolmaster or clergyman, most women, actors, most Americans, Jews, all coloured people and the great mass of the middle and working classes. But with people whose tastes he shared and who stimulated him, he was ‘the most entrancing companion’. who would aerate the conversation by the quickness and unexpectedness of his turns of phrase.

When, for example, an earnest American reporter asked him whether he and Vita Sackville-West had ever collaborated on anything he replied pokerfaced “Yes, we have two sons.” So here are a few examples of Nicolson’s writings which I hope fellow readers might enjoy. Some may, indeed, still have particular relevance today.

The Conservative Party (February 17th1939)

It seems astonishing to me that something so venerable, so stolid in its way, so large, should display such apt dexterity. There are moments when I hold my breath in amazement, as when one watches a huge sea-lion catch (without the slightest change of expression) a ping-pong ball upon its nose. It is only when the sea-lion misses the ball that they allow themselves a soft click of irritation.

The strength of the expert Conservative is that he is always right. Had Central Office existed in 1530 (and I expect it did) it would have affirmed that the sun went round the earth, and that Copernicus and Galileo were irresponsible and ignorant hotheads; and withal unpatriotic, effeminate, highbrow and blinded by the scientific point of view. Galileo’s recantation would have been printed on the front page of The Times accompanied by a leading article in which triumph and forgiveness would have been inextricably combined. His ‘eppur si muove’would have appeared, three days later, in a short paragraph inserted below the auctioneers’ announcements.

The fall of Mussolini (August 13th1943)

The other day, in a garden near my home, we held the village fête. Notices in red and blue chalk indicating with crude arrows where one should go.

As I strolled from booth to booth, I came upon three targets, bearing in black charcoal the semblances of Hitler, Mus- solini and Tojo sketched upon large sheets of paper pinned to boards. For the sum of 2d one could hire six darts wherewith to assail the enemies of mankind.

Hitler and Tojo, when I got there, were already riddled by the pinholes of expended darts. The Duce was practically untouched.

“You have not” I remarked to the man who ran the show, “done well with Mussolini.” “No” he answered, “they prefer Hitler and the Jap. Now that Musso’s down and out they say, “It hardly seems fair somehow.”

Once again, I stood amazed by the unerring instinct of the British people.

Transport Command (November 16th1945)

Passengers by RAF Transport Command are provided in advance with an illustrated booklet couched in endearing terms. This slim little volume is designed to prepare the traveller for the cruelties and humiliations which are about to be imposed upon him. He is reminded that the days of luxury are still far distant, and he must brace himself to what, with outrageous euphemism, is described as ‘austerity travel’; and he is exhorted in unctuous terms to regard Transport Command not as his persecutor, but as his loving friend.

It is evident that this pamphlet is designed to create among the passengers a boy-scout feeling and to inspire them with that team spirit which can alone enable them to face the ardours upon which they are engaged. The convivial tone of this exhortation does in fact create a community spirit which carries the pas- sengers through the first three or four days of frustration.

But as fruitless dawn succeeds to fruitless dawn the team spirit wears thinner and thinner, and the passengers come to realize that they are regarded by their tormentors, not as a team, but as a chain gang. The plaint rises to heaven from the aerodromes and the intendant internment camps of Europe, Asia and Africa that: ‘Never in the long history of human transport has so much unnecessary suffering been imposed upon so many by so few.’

The English Sense of Humour and other essays. (1968)

‘The value of every story’, remarked Dr. Johnson,‘depends on its being true. A story is a picture, either of an individual, or of life in general. If it be false, it is a picture of nothing.’

This precept should, I feel, be inscribed in lapidary letters on the flyleaf of every biographer’s notebook. A pure biography should furnish its readers with information, encouragement, and comfort, if I may again quote Dr Johnson, ‘the parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds’.

It should remind the reader that great men and women also have passed through phases of doubt, discouragement and self- abasement; that, perhaps on the very eve of their noblest achievements, they have been assailed with diffidence, or have resigned themselves to the fact that their vitality is ebbing, their zest has gone, their memory has become unreliable, and their willpower decayed.

But I am convinced that a pure biography can only be written about a person whom the writer and the reader can fundamentally respect. Does this imply a return to hagiography? No it implies only that the intending biographer should be as cautious in his choice of subject as in the method he pursues’

So, that is Harold Nicolson: diplomat, parliamentarian, biographer, historian, novelist, lecturer and educator, Governor of the BBC, radio broadcaster, journalist and columnist, confidante of the great and powerful, gardener and joint creator of Sissinghurst, husband and father. But above all he was a supremely civilized man.

I shall be forever indebted to Jock Anderson for introducing him to me. n

Badminton/Tennis

ANDREW HAIGH andrew.haigh@oas.org.uk

THE Old Almondburians were once again grateful for the use of the facilities of Longley Tennis Club on a Thursday evening during the summerand what a splendid summer it was. We started to play tennis on Thursday, 5th May and did so every Thursday thereafter, with the exception of two weeks when most people were away on holiday. In all that time, there was only one week when we were forced onto the indoor court by inclement weather.

We usually return to playing badminton at School during the first week in September. However, this year the changing rooms in the sports hall were being extended and refurbished to accommodate the increased numbers on roll at the School and the work wasn’t due to be completed until week commencing 26th September. As a result, our tennis season was extended by three weeks this year, necessitating the use of floodlights.

Those who have played tennis this summer are: David Parry, Andrew Haigh, Neil

Gledhill, Robin Merchant, Sally Starbuck, Mark Sykes, Eleanor Haigh, Charlotte Haigh and Mike Bamford.

The badminton season started belatedly on Thursday, 29th September and we were delighted to find that the newly extended and refurbished changing rooms attracted no fewer than eleven people to play. From 6th October, Kirkburton Badminton Club have returned after a number of years away to share the sports hall and play matches on two of the courts.We play on the other two courts every Thursday during term time from 7:30 p.m. – 9: 30 p.m. Do come along and join us, try out the newly refurbished changing rooms, showers and toilets and afterwards join us in the Conservative Club for refreshments.

Those who have played badminton so far this season are: David Parry, Andrew Haigh, Ian Daffern, Robin Merchant, Catherine Livesey, Emily Murphy, Nicky Murphy, Matthew Booth, Tom Gledhill, Florrie Gledhill and Eleanor Haigh. n