16 The Sunday Times May 22, 2022
MONEY
G
erald Seymour has written
38 thrillers since quitting
television journalism for the
literary world nearly 50
years ago. He is best known
for Harry’s Game, his 1975
page-turner set against the
backdrop of the Troubles in
Northern Ireland. It has
been translated into more
than a dozen languages and was an
acclaimed Yorkshire TV miniseries.
Other books that have been televised
include The Glory Boys, The Contract,
Red Fox and The Informant.
Seymour is now 80 and has two
grown-up boys, Nicholas and James. He
and his wife, Gillian, live in south
Oxfordshire with their black labrador,
Poppy, and Maine coon cat, Midge.How much money is in your wallet?
Hold on, I’ll have a look — two £10 notes.
In the good old days I was a cash person,
but it’s not really possible anymore, is it?What credit cards do you use?
I have a couple of debit cards, because
that’s what the bank send me.Are you a saver or a spender?
A saver. I don’t tend to blow money
except if it’s on something big —
because as the prime minister Harold
Macmillan once said when asked what
he was most afraid of: “Events, dear
boy, events.” You never know what
might come at you out of a clear blue
sky, so I like to have some money set
aside for a rainy day. My last big-ticket
spend was the four-figure sum — just
south of £5,000 — that I spent on aContact us Money,
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London SE1 9GFPhone waiting times were
back below pre-pandemic
levels at only four broadband
firms last year, while most
mobile phone companies left
customers waiting for longer
than in 2020.
The telecoms regulator,
Ofcom, said one in five
broadband customers and
one in ten mobile customers
had reason to complain last
year, but found it difficult to
get through. The average timeApple Google Amazon Facebook Net lixShare price growth20%0-20-40-60Jan Feb Mar Apr May-80Source: FE fundinfoBillions of dollars has
been wiped off the
value of the “Faangs”
(Facebook, Apple,
Amazon, Netflix and
Google) this year with
share price drops of
between 18 per cent
and 70 per cent. The
streaming website
Netflix was the worst
performer, down 69 per
cent after losing
subscribers. Facebook
(now Meta Platforms)
fell 40.5 per cent due to
lower ad revenue.CHART OF THE WEEK FAANG TECH STOCKS LOSE THEIR BITE
Phone customers left hanging on the line
mobile phone customers
were kept waiting rose from
2 minutes 7 seconds in 2020
to 2 minutes 15 seconds last
year, with increased waits at
BT, EE, ID Mobile, O2 and
Vodafone. O2 was the worst,
with an average wait time of
3 minutes 59 seconds.
While average waiting
times to speak to broadband
companies fell from just over
4 minutes to 2 minutes 16
seconds last year, only
Plusnet, Sky, Virgin Media
and Vodafone, reduced themto pre-pandemic levels.
The worst was the Hull-
based Kcom with an average
of 8 minutes 53 seconds. Ian
Macrae from Ofcom said:
“Some firms need to up their
game when it comes to
resolving problems.”
Tesco Mobile and BT
broadband scored the highest
for customer satisfaction.
Tesco Mobile is one of the few
phone firms, along with Sky,
GiffGaff and Virgin Mobile,
not to put inflation-linked
price rises into contracts.George NixonFamilies are reevaluating
their inheritance plans amid
the cost of living crisis.
The over-50s financial firm
Saga said that about 10 per
cent of parents aged over 50
with adult children were now
planning to give away money
earlier than they had
thought. Of 2,000 people
polled, 15 per cent said they
expected to pass on someEarly opening for the bank of Mum and Dad
money at some point during
the cost of living crisis — and
the amount worked out at an
average of 9 per cent of their
estate.
“The last two years have
been unparalleled in terms of
the impact on our finances,
with further challenges on
the horizon,” said Alex
Edmans from Saga Personal
Finance. “The Bank of Mum
and Dad was a critical lifeline
for many people during thepandemic and there is a
growing dependence on
family support as inflation
continues.” A quarter of
parents had changed how
they plan to share their estate
with their family. Two-thirds
expected the cost of living
crisis to have a greater impact
on their adult children’s
finances than the pandemic
because of rising bills, a lack
of savings and higher rent or
mortgage payments.Imogen TewThe proportion of stocks
on the US S&P 500 that fell
in value on Wednesday98%
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or call him on 07917 598422The thriller writer, best known for Harry’s Game,
says his biggest extravagance is four seats to watch
England at Twickenham, he tells York Membery
appearances they still had to be careful.
Yes, Dad found the money to send me
to a “minor” independent boarding
school, Kelly College [now known as
Mount Kelly], in Tavistock, Devon, but
there were no extravagances.How much did you earn last year?
A high five-figure sum. I’m amazingly
lucky still to have an audience out there,
but I don’t think I’ll ever have my picture
in the Underground again; I’ve been
around too long for that now.What was your first job?
I’ve only ever had one job, if you call
journalism a proper job, joining ITN as
a trainee reporter at 21. I got the job,
in part I think, because I had a good
speaking voice and was tall. The starting
salary was £875 a year, and I got to work
as a correspondent in Belfast during the
Troubles, and the Middle East among
other places — I seemed to get hooked
into covering terror stories. But then in
1978 I took a big breath and, after 15
years at ITN, left to become a full-time
author.When did you first feel wealthy?
I was comfortably off after the success of
Harry’s Game — the bulk of which I wrote
during three weeks off work in 1973 —
but it wasn’t until the early 1990s, by
which time I was living in a lovely house
in Somerset, that I first felt wealthy.forthcoming holiday in the north
Italian lakes. I’m looking forward to
having some lovely coffees and sitting
in the sunshine while my wife browses
in chic boutiques.Do you own a property?
My first property was a three-bedroom
terraced house that my wife and I
bought in Hampton Wick, near
Kingston upon Thames, for £4,000 in- A couple of years later we bought
our next home, a semi-detached house
in Teddington, southwest London, for
£6,600. But the success of Harry’s
Game changed everything — I suddenly
had a big chunk of money in the bank.
So in 1984, after a period living in
Rome and Ireland, we bought a
six-bedroom stone house in Somerset,
set in 50 acres, for £200,000, and
lived there very happily for 23 years.
But in 2007, after deciding that it was
too big for us, we downsized to our
present home, a three-bedroom cottage
in south Oxfordshire, dating back to
the 1860s, which we bought for a high
six-figure sum.
Are you better off than your parents?
I think so. I was one of two boys and
grew up in Ewhurst, Surrey. My father,
William — who was called up in the
First World War and was in his fifties
when I was born — had been a manager
of the Midland Bank in Kings Road,
Chelsea, quite an exotic little address.
But in the years after the Second
World War most people, my father and
mother, Rosalind, included, just did not
have money to flash around, so while
they maintained what we would calldifference to me workwise; I wrote my
latest novel during the lockdowns.Do you invest in shares?
Yes, but only via a fund manager.What’s best for retirement- property or pension?
I don’t regard property as an investment,
I regard it as my home and somewhere
to work. I’ve got both a state and private
pension, but at the moment I’m lucky
enough to be able to live off what I earn.
What was your best business decision?
First, deciding to become a full-time
author, because it hasn’t just changed
my life but it’s been such an adrenaline-
pumper. Second, taking a deep breath
and buying the houses, even if they were
often just out of reach financially.And your best investment?
My various homes.What about your worst investment?
A Range Rover I got my wife some years
ago that broke down time and again,
once after a funeral at a crematorium.
I finally got rid of it, incurring a
substantial loss.What’s your money weakness?
I must have spent thousands of pounds
on cigarettes and miniature cigars over
the years. I started smoking in my mid-
teens, was a pack-a-day man for a long
time and didn’t give up until my mid-
sixties. I don’t know how people can
afford to smoke any more, given the
price of a packet of fags now.Your most extravagant purchase?
The four debentures I bought for the
rugby internationals at Twickenham. It
was a bit of a scam because I paid £4,000
a seat for the first ten years — and more
for the subsequent ten years — and then
you still had to pay for the tickets on top
of that. I had them for about 30 years, so
they cost me a pretty penny, but brought
my family, friends and me a lot of
pleasure; we got to see just about every
England home game during the Will
Carling years and beyond. But there’s no
doubt that the RFU has done very well
out of us debenture holders!What’s your financial priority
for the years ahead?
I’ve got enough money to see me out, but
so long as new story ideas keep charging
at me when I’m out walking the dog, I’ll
keep tapping away at my keyboard.What if you won the lottery?
I won’t, because I don’t like gambling
or betting — I’m fearful of it becoming
an addiction.What is the most important lesson
you’ve learnt about money?
That it tells us very little about the value
of those we meet. To only spend time
with people who are wealthy would be
so tedious, so one should never judge
someone by their bank balance.The Foot Soldiers by Gerald Seymour is
published by Hodder & Stoughton at £20‘I bought my
first house in
1966 for £4k’
Every hack in
Fleet Street
was trying to
emulate the
success of
The Day of
the Jackal
FAME AND FORTUNE GERALD SEYMOUR
Some authors have one big book and
then fade from sight; I was always
conscious of that danger.Did you ever worry about
making ends meet?
In my twenties, yes. After getting married
in 1964, my wife, a secretary, and I could
only afford a second-hand gas cooker in
our rented flat in Wimbledon. We were
happy to accept some carpets that
someone gave us too. After being paid
there was nothing left over — we lived
month to month, like all our friends.What’s been your most lucrative work?
The books I wrote in the mid-1990s, like
Killing Ground, which netted me a six-
figure advance. Publishers at the time
were looking for bigger names to boost
their lists and there was money sloshing
around. In contrast, the UK and
Commonwealth advance for Harry was
just £4,000. Every hack in Fleet Street
was tapping away at the time I wrote
Harry, usually with two fingers, in the
hope of emulating the success of Freddie
Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, which
had been a worldwide bestseller.How has the virus affected you?
I was fortunate in that it made very littlePAKO MERA/ALAMY