The Sunday Telegraph - 01.09.2019

4 ***^ Sunday 1 September 2019 The Sunday Telegraph

SOPHIA MONEY-COUTTS

MODERN MANNERS

T

here’s always that

small disclaimer in

minuscule print on

an opening page.

“This novel is entirely

a work of fiction. The

names, characters

and incidents

portrayed in it are the work of the

author’s imagination. Any

resemblance to actual persons, events

or localities is entirely coincidental.”

Well, quite. And yet many novelists

(most?) would be fibbing if they

claimed one or two of characters

didn’t contain at least an echo of

somebody they’ve happened across in

real life. I say this nervously as one

whose new novel is just out. Obviously

all my characters are fictional beings

who resemble none of my friends,

family or, er, ex-boyfriends.

But as loyal friends currently

churn through their copies, I can’t

help worrying. What if, for

Why bringing

an old flame

to book might

not be the write

thing to do

David

‘Two Huts’

Cameron

throws

down a

marker for

the middle

class

I thought

cricket was

a dull waste

of time

until super

Stokes’s

heroics hit

me for six

instance, my friend who obsessed for

months – MONTHS – over the colour

of the napkin rings at her wedding

assumes she’s the basis for the

nightmarish bride? What if someone

recognises themselves in the sexy

bits? And, to be fair, my heroines are

often slightly bumbling women

in their 30s who always forget

to hang up their laundry and

fear they’re going to die

alone, only found when a

neighbour reports “a

funny smell”. Can I sue

myself for literary

defamation? Is there a

lawyer reading this who

might advise me?

There are notable cases

when writers have been

caught out. In 1970, the late

Sunday Telegraph critic

Francis King saw his

novel

pulped

shortly

before

publication because the Labour MP

Tom Skeffington-Lodge spotted

himself and beetled to his lawyer. It

also cost Francis his house in

Brighton. In 2014, Scarlett Johansson

sued a French writer for his novel that

included a Johansson lookalike who

was keen on affairs yet

simultaneously grumbled that

men only saw her as an

object of lust. “The good

thing is people are

notoriously bad at

recognising themselves,”

says a writer friend.

“Although one does have

to be a bit careful because

a friend from college put

one of her pals in a book as a

sort of pedantic, annoying

d---head, and it caused a major

rift with the real-life pedantic,

annoying, d---head.”

I remember listening to

Desert Island Discs with

Colm Toíbín while

I was writing my

first book and

feeling emboldened. “Is it true that

you once told a creative-writing class

that you have to be a monster to

write?” Kirsty Young asked him. “I

meant stop worrying about your

grandmother’s feelings or your own

feelings,” Colm replied, briskly.

“Your job is to get the thing down.

Don’t be saying, ‘Oh, when my

Auntie Mary finally dies I’ll be able to

write the most wonderful story’ –

write it now.” Publishers, of course,

might wish their writers to be more

careful, but perhaps that depends

how litigious Auntie Mary is.

On the other hand, in the first few

weeks of a novel being released, one

can face quite the opposite from

family members and mates. “Am I in

it?” some ask hopefully. “Course

you’re not,” I reply, mindful of that

little disclaimer. (I’ve long loved the

story that Richard Curtis always

includes a chump character called

Bernard in his films on the basis his

university girlfriend left

him for Tory MP

Bernard Jenkin.)

Only the author knows

where a character might have

come from. Although if you

do borrow heavily from real life,

for heaven’s sake make sure you

leaf back through the pages

before publication and change

their name.

‘O

h, look, a

shepherd’s hut,” I

said to a friend I

was staying with

in Cornwall as we walked to

the beach last week. “It’s

David Cameron’s,” replied

the friend, waving a hand at

the neighbouring garden.

But hang on, isn’t Cameron’s

£25,000 wooden bunker at

his house in the Cotswolds,

where he was photographed

perching on the steps in the

manner of Little Bo Peep? I

google to check and it is

indeed. But turns out he’s

bought two of the things.

One for Chipping Norton,

one for Cornwall. So that’s

the new middle-class

yardstick: how many Farrow

& Ball-coloured shepherd’s

huts you own. I intend to

refer to him as David “Two

Huts” Cameron from now

on. He can’t be offended

because he’s been called

much worse this week.

I

was made to watch

the final 20 minutes

of the Cricket World

Cup last month at a

friend’s house and the end

of the third

Test last

Sunday in

Cornwall.

People have

often given me

the impression

that cricket’s a

dull game in which

players jog stiffly up

and down a narrow

strip of grass over a

matter of days, but I

now know it’s

electrifying. Why

have you all been

lying to me? It also

reminded me how unifying

moments of live sport can

be in this on-demand age.

You can’t recreate that

tension, that

excitement. You

need to be watching

it there and then. The

only trouble was we

shouted so loudly

that the one-year-old

cried. “He’ll

understand

when he’s

older,” said his

dad, crying

himself as he

watched Ben

Stokes (left)

pump his fist.

Type-casting: it’s tempting to use your

pals for real-life authorly inspiration

MODERN STEREOTYPES

The end of summer

H

arriet is sad.

Summer’s lease hath

all too short a date

and now she is left in

an unnaturally silent house

with an unfinished jigsaw

puzzle and piles of dirty

washing. The children have

merrily left for school, eager

to compare holiday notes

with their friends. Polzeath

trumps Portofino by a

country mile. Showy-offy

Jason Ramsbottom was taken

to Orlando, but not even

Hagrid’s Magical Creatures

Motorbike Adventure at

Universal Studios can

compare to the thrill of being

busted drinking in the sand

dunes by furious fathers.

The detritus of the hols

surrounds Harriet like an

archaeological dig. She hasn’t

the heart to start tidying the

railway set (there’s always a bit

of track missing) or chucking

the broken toys. One smelly

trainer appears to have no

mate and she will have to

interrogate Pickle, the spaniel,

as to its whereabouts. Usually

the compost heap. A

comforting displacement

activity is the daily afternoon

dose of Downton Abbey where

Lady Edith is dripping about

like a wet weekend, much as

Harriet feels. Watching ITV3

really is a sign of unique

desperation, but what can she

do when all that stretches

ahead is darkening evenings

and Christmas fairs? Or, more

likely, fayres, where mango-

scented candles go to die.

Harriet’s Chipping

Somborne neighbours regard

autumn through mists of

mellow frightfulness: “Best

barley we have ever grown,”

although, being farmers,

there’s a general moan about

wheat prices drifting due to a

glut. Leaf blowers will soon

shatter the pretence of the

country being a place of peace

and quiet. Lady Trenchard has

sent her apples to be pressed

into juice for the Harvest

Festival supper in the village

hall. Harriet, lowly on the

village totem pole, will be

commanded to make tomato

salad for 90. And God help her,

ghastly Hallowe’en looms

when little Tilly will demand a

witch’s costume in dodgy

fabric shining like atomic

waste. Pickle is dreading

firework night, which seems

to go on for weeks. Poldark is

over, Sanditon is bonnets ’n’

bonking and it seems eternity

until The Crown returns

in November.

Really, Harriet must buck

up and do a coloured wash

before it is half term.

Victoria Mather

There’ll Always Be An

England: Social Stereotypes

by Victoria Mather and

Sue Macartney-Snape

(Constable, £12.99).

Facebook/Instagram:

@social_stereotypes

Watching ITV3

really is a sign of

unique desperation

ILLUSTRATION: ADAM LARKUM FOR THE TELEGRAPH GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY

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