1961-04-13 — Page 6

HARGREAVES

"Hurry up, man. I'm in mortal combat at noon,"

COOMBSY

"No, that's the spray attashment, dear. This in the hair dryer.”

THE CHINA MAIL,

"BINGLEY?" said the taxi-

driver at Bradford. "It's

about six miles out. Best side of the town. That's where the better- class people live."

THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 1961.

• In a quiet Victorian house in a Yorkshire town a young man sits writing in notebooks. In a few months those notebooks will become a novel - à novel that could bring new fame to its author John Braine (left) and to Joe Lampton, the character he created in Room at the Top.

Mr Braine

brings back

Joe Lampton

This, I thought, was an oddly appropriate prelude to my mission. For I had come to see the man whose dissection of the better-class people who live on the best sides of Yorkshire towns (and of those who aspire to that status) became the pub- lishing event of a de care.

I was on my way to see John Braine, the Room at the Top

roon.

Remember Room at the Top, how it hit the book world four years ago-how in every ride way compartment

by

DAVID SANDERS

asked Joe how much he loved her, he replied: "A hundred thousand pounds' worth."

Now we are you would

that marriage worked out,

"Lots

find at least one person read fug this scorching glory of love and ambition?

MODEST

All Britals was talking about its central character, the minor town hall offeint who set his sights on the big houses at the top of the town, and whom Mr Bratne left well on the way, avith a rich industrialist as a father-it-inw.

Mr Braine lives much more modestly than the top people in Room at the Top. His house is solid, grey, Victorian, and so Inconspicuous that the taxi- driver drove past it twee before we found it.

John Drainc was ዘኒ bulkier than when I saw him Fast, a couple of years ago. He is lieting to get his weight

down.

I asked him: How was life in general and, in particular,

how in his new novel-his third

coming along?

He told me it should be out by the end of the year. Its title is not decided yet. But its main character is none other than that calculating, get-up- and-go young man Joe Lampton, whose progress was the basis of Room at the Top.

But this time Joe Lampton is married. Yes, to Susan Brown. Susan was the sleek girl who came from The Top. When she

There are difficulties in getting it out of the country. Mean while he derives satisfaction from the knowledge that it he 11. get his hands on can't neither can the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. a tuberculosis wards The Vodi (perhaps helped by lying in

of its pro- never innde the impact of the the success abroad

story of Joe decessor) has already gone into harsh, vigorous

four translations. And it And Romi at the. Tou was Braine's future boots get

a magnificent Alm. that sort of level, if he never

another

record-breaiter, No im company has tackled writes

if not one more book of is i The Vodi.

Almed, he is not worried

10 learn how Lampion.

Now Joe Lampion comes back, Does this mean that Braine is stuck with him for the rest of his carcer?

of people who had made into read the book asked me what happened to Joe next," said Braine: "I began to wonder myself. I decided to und out," Finding out was not so easy, After working for six months on the new book Braine decided ho

whole thing up. was on the wrong tack, tore the and started again. Now the first chapters are with the publishers.

CLOSE. LOOK

"It's a novel about marriage," he told me. "There's precious few novels that take a really close look at murriage."

The return of Joe Lamplon after an interval of four years and one other book inevitably ralses the question: Docs this mean that Mr Braine is plicitly admitting failure (by his own remarkable standard) when he movra qul of the Lampton context?

There are cynies who will say the answer is Yes.

They will point to the fate of Braine's second book, The Vodt, True, it sold 30,000 copies a pinnacle far beyond the reach of many authors.

But, the cynies will say, that was in part due to John Brame's name on the cover.

It is certainly true that this thought-world book of a man

Has the re-emergence of Jor been dietated by purely Anon- cial factors?

sufficient

all to

Eic is completely conndent in his ability to earn his living as a novelist without having to rely on the film-makers, "After all," he said, "it's not an overcrowded profession. Hoy of many people are there regularly turing out readable novela in Britain today? You'd have a job to think of a dozen." AFTER TEA

John Braine is

to know that these realist questions will be asked.

He has his answers ready.

k In every ease, emphalle No.

an

To stay in that select band, He was not at all disappointed John Bruine works most even- because no one wanted to film Ings until after 10 o'clock. The Vadi. He regards him fees

Ho doesn't do much writing as delectable but

uncertain in the day. "I've come to the fruits, and says that people have conclusion I'm not much of a inflated Idoon as to what pro- morning man," he said. "' portion of a book's earnings they not much of an afternoon man, represent.

either." So his day's work really The idea of writing with one starts after he has had high tea eye on the film prospects is with his wife and four-year-old nonseme." he said. "Anyone sun, Anthony, who has just who did that would end up with started ní a nursery school. something that was neither a He scribbles away in hard- alm script nor a novel,”

back notebooks. He possesses More important to him. and one of those modern writers' more soild than film riglits, are recorder, but he has not yet the earnings from foreign come to terms with it. translations,

Room at the Top has been published in pretty well every language in Europe, Including Ierlandie and Russian,

He hasn't got the money yet from The Russian translation.

THEN CAME BARBED WIRE, TRENCHES-AND EVEN AN AIR CORPS

While his book is at Its present critical phase be 14 completely off alcohol. It makes him sleepy.

His pleasant unpretentious home contains none of the success symbols so dear to Joe

Lompton, Not for him the Asian Martin which spurred Joe On John his tumultuous progress

a fully car la- Braine has

from countless distinguishable others.

"Yes," he said, "I'vo ir n twinge or two about that car. It's a bit blợ for the three of us,"

FURIOUS

Ilia whole attitude to money is that It doesn't grow on trees. It makes him furious when he Eeta letters from the editors of students' magazines suggesting that should write a bright, breezy pieco about the novellst in society today jor nothing.

of

He is quite conient to stay in Bingley on the best side Bradford, particularly if his son, in due course, gets to the local grammar school. His home is his world. His one madly gay cxcursion recently was to go to the einemu. He saw Hancock. While we talked, there was the whirr of a spin-drier from the back of the house. He wife was coping with the weekly

wash.

This formier £13-a-week library assistant keeps both feet on the ground. He is aware of the hazards of his profession, but not dismayed by them. "Security?" he said. should think I've got more security than most people.

"The chap in the factory or the office he doesn't worry, and what security has he got? A week's pay or month if he's lucky,

2

"I shan't worry while I can keep myself with a year's spending money in the bank,"

On that bists I would say that John Bralne has little to

worry about in the immediate future.

Certainly not enough to return to Joe Lampion unless

Allm-goers Lampton a remember him. Laurence Harver and Heather Sears, who played the part of Busan Brown, in a scene from Room at the Top.

he genuinely fell the urge

dio 50.

10

Look at the figures. Room at the Top is still bringing him in money. It has sold 41,000 In ita original edition. A book club print went to 220,000, 400,000.

At

the paper-back to

a very rough estimate. that puts his British royalties over four years af not less than £10,000, apart from the Alm earnings.

In addition, there are the very

sizeable sales overseas; and soon we

be seeing Inay Room at the Top as a play. A German play script has been written. Brzine is waiting to see a translation.

thot

moru Braine, arithmetic the Inlari

tp

It is true, of course, there follows the much compliented and, extremely painful undertaken Revenue.

by

REASONABLY

But, as he says, a family of three can live reasonably enough on £1,500 a year, if they own their own house and have no heavy hire-purchase commit- ments (he has none at all).

This authorship business." he said, is a bit ilke marriage."

"Of course it can go wrong. But it needn't. Not if you think what you're doing when you go into it."

I'm sure John Broine bas thought long and deeply.

And I should add that his marriage is a very happy one. -ondon Express Service).

Are generals

WAR THAT It changed warfare, too fit enough to

CHANGED THE WORLD

RICHARD JORDON GATLING seemed destined to make

the world a better place to live in.

The son of a North Carolina farmer, he was a pioneer of agricul tural machinery, badly needed by the settlers opening up the great Ameri- can West. He invented a sowing machine and a steam plough.

In his thirtles hie ludied

MUSKETS GAVE WAY

TO MACHINE-GUNS

PART TWO.

By FRANK WRIGHT

and in

It sow the start of the field telegraph, troop trains, and hos pital trains which rapidly conveyed the sleit and wounded to the rear of the contending armies.

win battles?

BY PETER FAIRLEY

RE British generals, admirals and air mar- shals fit enough to command fighting services and win battles? This question is posed by a London doctor in a startling survey of the health of senior officers.

He warns; "The health of this select group should be guarded

Sir Alan Cunningham 1941

It mado field engineering awith that almost over-anxious | Eighth Army commander ind formidable weapon of war. On care that is reserved for prime not smoked so much that he one occasion, a division of 0,050 ministers, presidents and pilots."

became ul.

the rice marshes of bore muskel in tavour of the China, And it spawned even rille. And with the rifle came a men repaired 102 miles of rail- more terrible offspring that new kind of strategy.

way and bullt 182 bridges in 40 dayn forging their own and using local resources,

mass-produced death in Flare

ders in the first world war. and

A determined body of de- on the Normandy Beaches in fenders, entrenched, and armed the second,

with rifles (which had three times the range of muskets) Richard Gatling died at the formed such a bamier that they

praclically forgotten-although enormous numerical superiority dungsters have perpetuated part the polley of "attrition" prao- Nul Gatling's gun was some-

Hin British of his name by calling their guns tited later by brief though its thing different. It was devastat- pearance was on the stage of "gats" and there is no reason generals in Paschendacie and

and could pour the

long why he should be remembered: by the Communist Chinero in ingly effelent

Civil War. I wa death Into the enemy ranks at cough to convince the military

Korca. the rate of 350 shots a minute. leaders of the world that a new So deadly was it that the North, ern had opened up in military

Gatling offered his technique.

medielne ond passed the nuvelties, far inferior, to the being caught in a withoring hail ripe old age of 65. Today ho is could be overwhelmed only by

examinations for doctor's

B degree.

But for the American traditional musket. Civil War which broke out in 1801, when he was 13. Gatling might have turned his invenitve mind to improving surgical or annesthetic techniques which were then in their infancy.

For Gatling the war dwarfed to whom all other interests, With killing Kun, hnd qualms about whether and destruction in the str, ho it should be allowed in warfare, appiled fiitmself to discover ways

toku.

destery ・ more. toond efficiently One of his inven- tions was a ram for use in naval warfare. Another

machine gum.

Walio

HISTORIC

over, before the

of machine pun bullets.

But

ap-

Within ten years, the gun report one manual blendly "was adopted by almost overy civilised nation."

TIME RIPE

It was the Civil War that gave the world the machine-gun, not Gatling. The time was ripe for is invention and no doubt there were a dozen men alive at that period who could have produced

With the frenches came sand- bags and

of entanglementa barbed wire relatively new to prevent invention designed calle straying.

PROPHETIC

The doctor is Hugh L'Etang. tools former DEA medical officer ant

And going through the records of the war one comes nerusi re- ferebees which are prophetic of terrors which mat even 20th century armies yet practise --- terrors such as germ warfare,

Hir Archibald Murray, Chiệt - of Stuff to the British Expedi- a Fellow of the Royal Society of Lonary Force at Mons in 1814, Medicine. In The Practitioner had not been unilt at the time be alleges that the course of war of the Big Retreat. might have run differently :

His C-h-C; e fotos French, Hitler had not thought he had had not held on to his command cancer of the stomach and for a year after a ficart attack. believed he had not long to live Dr L'Etang payo that the it 1939.

health of officers is a "dly neglected problem." It also

difcult oma.

"All of them would be reluctant-lis retire prynaturuly from their appointinente, secured after long yours of service and keen competition."

Sir John DI, Chief of the Imperial General Staff is 1040 of the and subsequently oue The man who goes down. In Chiefs of Slaft in Washington, history as having utiered this trad not had nevero maemia. particular call to arms WIS A Northern colonel, Thomas D. Chamberlain, He pleaded with Brain tumour General Butterfeld to put o

He adds: "outs at the desk And behind the derp dofen- badly disensed regiment, the

can a menmurer of the Admira). Sir Dudley Found, regsed that is invariably sives hid snipers "a new and 20th Maine, Into the aghi.. subtle terror," says a contem:-

Dirst Sea Lord 1939-43 had not corded to death. In bazilo. Such "If we couldn't do anything en found on death three apparently herole conduct must porary account. "A.. man. could

cine," explained

we could give the rebels the have been suffering from & train officers..

the colonel,months after tin resigned to be steraly discouraged in renfor

eriallpox,"

(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

in death ratlle became « it.. Gatling'a historle patent, familiar sound in the battlefields No. 30,036, was granted in 1802)

The Civil War came along at dio unexpectedly and for no of the world. Ju French hands The idea of a rapid-fire on the year after war broke out. It tunned out the close-packed just the right time, in just the purpose whatever," won not new. But, only the But it was in 1804, when the War Prisian infantry in the war of right noting, to provide a hug

In the North, the Civil War was early weapons," way with "wonder

1070, In Britton anda it tore laboratory for the productif ) of uned in the into the Zulus. their existence lint boen brazed Galling was Arst

In American weapons which changed the way saw the first regular air corps

two offers and: 50 men. AB largely on wishful thinking. The Seld.

lands it shattered the Spaniards, in which man made war......

experienced observer int. a, 'cap- The Southerners becaine the the stage of

It hammered out its rolendèns I say not only the birth, at tive balloon could plot. «nemy working models had short liver rat troos in the history of war mest in the fol dusty ponses the maching run, but the aber movements in open out for the South had won.

experience the terror of of -India's North-West Frontier dwing of the oft-alyte, enooth- dve miles. 09 ineficient to

few machine gun which Be- tually reached

(#24),

dismissed

TOMORROW:

tumpir,

also

-

"Illnews_may impair their Sir John Smyth, commander mental and physical' faeuitter, of the 17th Indian, Division in and

the resultant error Durma In 1941, had mot carried indecision

Or the

may prolong an in the face of a series of course of a war ink, Inorgan munoz ilinemes just befize clash, carnalţiei”.

={London Sparven #wrion};

Ling with, the Japanese..