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Episode image is a detail from the cover of Trouble With Lichen by John Wynham, published in 1974 by Penguin Books; cover design by Henry Willock.
It’s the week of Valentine’s Day. Leaving that to one side, then, here is the fourteenth Second Hand Book Factory with Charles Adrian and this week’s guest Will Mackenzie. They discuss the quantum of evil required for litigation, the power that some books have over the imagination and the mysterious Barbara who once owned that gateway book Trouble With Lichen.
You can hear a version of the song I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General by Gilbert and Sullivan, referenced in this episode, on YouTube here.
The Kiran who is mentioned is Kiran Chauhan. He is featured in Page One 47.
Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham is also discussed in Page One 161. Another book by John Wyndham, The Chrysalids, is discussed in Page One 68.
This episode was recorded at the Wilton Way Café for London Fields Radio.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 12th February, 2013.
Book listing:
The Magus by John Fowles
Silence In October by Jens Christian Grøhndahl (trans. Anne Born)
The Employment Law Handbook For 2010
Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham
Links:
Episode transcript:
Music
[In For The Kill (Skream's Let's Get The Gravy remix) by La Roux]
Jingle
You're listening... you're listening to London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
So. Welcome to London Fields Radio in the Wilton Way Cafe. This is the 22nd Page One, if you can believe it. This is the 14th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm here with William Mackenzie, as it says on his business card.
Will Mackenzie
Good morning.
Charles Adrian
Good morning. Do you prefer to be Will or William?
Will Mackenzie
Will will do for today, I think.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Jolly good. But professionally you'd be William.
Will Mackenzie
Yes. Professionally William.
Charles Adrian
Or even Mr Mackenzie or... or do they have a title for what you are?
Will Mackenzie
No. Other than “Oi you!” occasionally.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] What is it that you do? Wha... How would you describe your occupation?
Will Mackenzie
Well, I'm a, sort of, mercurial version of a lawyer [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay.
Will Mackenzie
And I do employment law and I'm... I base myself from a strange eyrie at the front of my house...
Charles Adrian
[interested] Aha.
Will Mackenzie
... and the people who employ me send me work and I dispatch myself to various clients' venues and courts and battle on their behalf.
Charles Adrian
I see so you're kind of... what would you call that? A... a lawyer for hire. [indistinct]
Will Mackenzie
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
Is that a good way of putting it?
Will Mackenzie
I suppose so, yes. And in the inflated ego version of myself I have a picture of myself like in all those bad spy films where the person is by a lake and...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Will Mackenzie
... and the agent comes up and says: “We've been looking for you. We have a job for you.” “No, no, I don't want it.”
Charles Adrian
[laughs] And that's you in your... in your eyrie...
Will Mackenzie
Yes that's right.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... in your head. That's... I like that idea.
Will Mackenzie
It's good, isn't it?
Charles Adrian
Someone would come and tap you on the shoulder.
Will Mackenzie
The reality is just things arrive in the post and I sit there and I talk them through with my cat and...
Charles Adrian
I see.
Will Mackenzie
It's slightly more domestic.
Charles Adrian
Do your clients know that that's how you...
Will Mackenzie
No.
Charles Adrian
... work out their cases? Okay. Cool. So. And on your card - I didn't bring it today - but on your card it says something like “William Mackenzie, consultant litigation”.
Will Mackenzie
Yes, that's right.
Charles Adrian
Which is a wonderful [indistinct].
Will Mackenzie
It is, isn't it? It's... It could cover a whole multitude of sins if you wanted it to.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Will Mackenzie
But basically companies hire me and I go and shout at people they've already sacked. Which is a bit mean but...
Charles Adrian
I think that... I think that's a great way to spend your day. I mean, not... not ethically but in terms of the enjoyment you might get from it.
Will Mackenzie
Well, you slowly realise that the further you advance into a legal career that in fact a large dose of evil in your soul...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Will Mackenzie
... is very... is very effective and necessary [indistinct].
Charles Adrian
I see. What is the... What is the book that you've brought that you like? So we've already...
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] The book I've brought that I like is John Fowles' The Magus...
Charles Adrian
Ah! Very good choice.
Will Mackenzie
... which I suspect...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] [indistinct] like that.
Will Mackenzie
...knowing you, you might have already read.
Charles Adrian
I have... I have but that's fine because you're not giving this to me.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
You're keeping this for yourself. But I have read it and I enjoyed it very much.
Will Mackenzie
It took me a long while to decide which book to bring so in the end I decided, in the spirit of the programme, to limit myself to books that I'd bought second hand...
Charles Adrian
Oh, very good. Yes.
Will Mackenzie
... and were distinctly foxed in their appearance.
Charles Adrian
Excellent.
Will Mackenzie
But this book's a great book. It's... It's one of those books that inspires a rare moment that you're reading it and you go away and you come back and you switch on the television and you try vainly to... to find the film you were just watching before your...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Will Mackenzie
... brain reminds you what you were actually doing.
Charles Adrian
That's a wonderful way of describing it. Why don't you read us the first page.
Will Mackenzie
I WAS BORN in 1927, the only child of middle-class parents, both English, and themselves born in the grotesquely elongated shadow, which they never rose sufficiently above history to leave, of that monstrous dwarf Queen Victoria. I was sent to a public school, I wasted two years doing my national service, I went to Oxford; and there I began to discover I was not the person I wanted to be.
I had long before made the discovery that I lacked the parents and ancestors I needed. My father was, through being the right age at the right time rather than through any great professional talent, a brigadier; and my mother was the very model of a would-be major-general's wife. That is, she never argued with him and always behaved as if he was [sic] listening in the next room, even when he was thousands of miles away. I saw very little of my father during the war, and in his long absences I used to build up a more or less immaculate conception of him, which he generally - a bad but appropriate pun - shattered within the first forty-eight hours of his leave.
Like all men not really up to their job, he was a stickler for externals and petty quotidian things; and in lieu of an intellect he had accumulated an armoury of capitalized key-words like Discipline and Tradition and Responsibility. If I ever dared - I seldom did - to argue with him, he would produce...
And there... that's the end of the first page.
Charles Adrian
I think that's... It's wonderfully bitchy that first page.
Will Mackenzie
It is. And I like the... I like the reference to the song A Modern Major-General, which...
Charles Adrian
Yes, that's nice, isn't it?
Will Mackenzie
It means, you read the rest of the page with that tune rattling around your head.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Very entertaining! I'm going to play... I'm going play another tune now which I like. This.... This was on your...This was on your list of possible tracks and I thought: “Yes, I'll go with this. I'm not going to... I'm not going to cast this aside.” This is Dog Days by Florence And The Machine.
Music
[Dog Days by Florence + The Machine]
Charles Adrian
So back we are, Will, to the... to the... to the programme. I'm going to... Let me find the book that I'm giving to you. I wanted... I really, really wanted to give you a Just William...
Will Mackenzie
Ah!
Charles Adrian
... story. I actually... I knew exactly which one I wanted to give you. I wanted to give you one called The Show, which is hilarious.
Will Mackenzie
Yes!
Charles Adrian
And that's... that's partly because you're called William but it's also because I know that, like me, you're 4 Extra listener...
Will Mackenzie
That's right.
Charles Adrian
... and... Have you ever... Have you heard the Martin Jarvis readings of...?
Will Mackenzie
I have... I have. Well, because I'd been called William...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Will Mackenzie
... the Just William books formed a large part of my childhood...
Charles Adrian
Ah.
Will Mackenzie
... and there was a period when we had them all.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You've got some unimaginative relatives giving you...
Will Mackenzie
Yes, but they were very good. They were, sort of, old nineteen-fifties editions I think my grandmother had bought and had made their way down to me.
Charles Adrian
Oh! Okay. No, I take it all back. That sounds beautiful.
Will Mackenzie
Yes. And... And because also our local towns were called Marlow and Henley - which are like Marley and Hurley in the books - ...
Charles Adrian
Aha!
Will Mackenzie
... I always imagined that perhaps the old barn was somewhere in the vicinity...
Charles Adrian
Oh...
Will Mackenzie
... and hours of my life were spent looking...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... you might well be right.
Will Mackenzie
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I don't know where... where the... Richmal Crompton might have come from but that's quite likely.
Will Mackenzie
Well, she taught at...
Charles Adrian
They're a very home-counties-type family.
Will Mackenzie
Yeah. She taught it my girlfriend Daphne's old school down in Kent.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Is Richmal a woman?
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] I didn't know that.
Will Mackenzie
Did you not?
Charles Adrian
I assumed it was a, sort of, weird version of Richard.
Will Mackenzie
No, no, no.
Charles Adrian
So yeah, and this is - good that you mentioned Daphne because the reason I'm giving you this... This is Silence In October by Jens Christian Grøndahl. It's a beautiful book. It is... It's a gorgeous... I loved it. But I'm giving it to you because it was given to me by Kiran...
Will Mackenzie
Oh yes.
Charles Adrian
... and Kiran is, in many senses, with James, who is a friend of Daphne's, who is, in many senses, with you.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And I also thought that, as someone who deals with litigation day... day in day out, you might find this nice and calm...
Will Mackenzie
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... perhaps. While... You know, in the... in the times when there isn't a letter coming through the door you could sit in your eyrie reading this.
Will Mackenzie
That sounds like an excellent idea.
Charles Adrian
Here's the... Here is the first page:
1
Astrid stands at the rail with her back to the town. The breeze lifts her hair in a chestnut-brown, ragged flag. She's wearing sunglasses, she's smiling. There is perfect harmony between her white teeth and the white city. The photo is seven years old, I took it in late afternoon on one of the small ferries that crossed the Tagus to Cacilhas. Only from a distance do you understand why Lisbon is called 'the white city', when the colours lose their luster and the glazed tiles of the façades melt together in the sun's afterglow. The low light falls horizontally on the distant houses rising behind each other over the Praha [sic]... Prath... over the Praça do Comércio...
I haven't looked up any Portuguese pronunciation, by the way. I have no idea how... how any of this is pronounced.
... up to the ridges of Bairro Alto and Alfama on the other side of the river. It is a month since she left. I haven't heard from her. The only trace of her is the bank statement showing the activity of our joint account. She hired a car in Paris and used her Mastercard on the route via Bordeaux, San Sebastian, Santiago de Compostela, Porto and Coimbra to Lisbon. The same route we took that autumn. She cashed a large sum in Lisbon on the 17th October. She has not used the card since then. I don't know where she is. I cannot know. I am forty-four and I know less than ever. The older I get the less I know. When I was younger I thought my knowledge would increase with the years, that it was steadily enlarging like the universe. A constantly widening area of certainty that correspondingly displaced and diminished the extent of uncertainty. I was really very optimistic. With the passage of time I must admit that I know roughly the same amount, perhaps even slightly less, and not at all with the same certainty as then. My...
So there you go. I don't know if you could hear...
Will Mackenzie
I could.
Charles Adrian
... much of that with the...
Will and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Will Mackenzie
Well thank you very much.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... the cafe noise in the background. So I hope you enjoy that. I did.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Let's have a little jingle and then we're going to hear the book that you have brought for me.
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
There we go. For anyone who wasn't concentrating at the beginning this is London Fields Radio. This is Page One. I am Charles Adrian. This is the Second Hand Book Factory. I have... I have just created our first second hand book for today and Will is going to tell me about our second second hand book.
Will Mackenzie
Well, because I'm a troublesome personality I've decided to mess with your format a little by presenting you with two books...
Charles Adrian
Oh goodness. Okay. [laughs]
Will…
So there you go. I don't know if you could hear...
Will Mackenzie
I could.
Charles Adrian
... much of that with the...
Will and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Will Mackenzie
Well thank you very much.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... the cafe noise in the background. So I hope you enjoy that. I did.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Let's have a little jingle and then we're going to hear the book that you have brought for me.
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
There we go. For anyone who wasn't concentrating at the beginning this is London Fields Radio. This is Page One. I am Charles Adrian. This is the Second Hand Book Factory. I have... I have just created our first second hand book for today and Will is going to tell me about our second second hand book.
Will Mackenzie
Well, because I'm a troublesome personality I've decided to mess with your format a little by presenting you with two books...
Charles Adrian
Oh goodness. Okay. [laughs]
Will…
So there you go. I don't know if you could hear...
Will Mackenzie
I could.
Charles Adrian
... much of that with the...
Will and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Will Mackenzie
Well thank you very much.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... the cafe noise in the background. So I hope you enjoy that. I did.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Let's have a little jingle and then we're going to hear the book that you have brought for me.
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
There we go. For anyone who wasn't concentrating at the beginning this is London Fields Radio. This is Page One. I am Charles Adrian. This is the Second Hand Book Factory. I have... I have just created our first second hand book for today and Will is going to tell me about our second second hand book.
Will Mackenzie
Well, because I'm a troublesome personality I've decided to mess with your format a little by presenting you with two books...
Charles Adrian
Oh goodness. Okay. [laughs]
Will Mackenzie
... the first one of which is purely for totemic...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Is enormous.
Will Mackenzie
It's... It's an enormous book and it's...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Will Mackenzie
... of purely totemic value because it is...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay. [indistinct]
Will Mackenzie
... probably, if you try and read it, the most tedious book you will ever read.
Charles Adrian
I've just look at the title. Tell us what it is.
Will Mackenzie
It is the Employment Law Handbook for 2010. Now...
Charles Adrian
[laughs] That's what I've always wanted.
Will Mackenzie
... for a year and a half this book was more or less my constant work companion but it represents a, sort of, transitory element in that it is now entirely superfluous and useless.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Will Mackenzie
And, worse than that, it is also wrong in that many of the rules and laws in here have since been revised and repealed.
Charles Adrian
Wow. Do you think there's some kind of... what's the word? Do you think there's a connection between the lawmakers and the publishers?
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And a... what do you... what do you call that? A cor... a cor... It starts with a ‘c’.
Will Mackenzie
Closed shop or something like that?
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Closed shop. We'll...
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] A vast conspiracy?
Charles Adrian
We'll say that: a closed shop.
Will Mackenzie
But there've been two editions since that and this one is now long since out of date and I was rustling around and I saw it on my bookshelf and I thought...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Will Mackenzie
... perhaps you can use it to prop up a damaged table.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I'm... Yes, perhaps I can. Tell us... Tell us about the other book.
Will Mackenzie
The other book, which is actually worthwhile...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Will Mackenzie
... well, it's The [sic] Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Will Mackenzie
I chose this for a number of reasons. It is, as you can see, a distinctly foxed edition.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Will Mackenzie
I bought it second hand and like all second hand books it has an intriguing name inscribed on the first page...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! Wonderful. Barbara.
Will Mackenzie
... Barbara. We'll... We will probably never know who Barbara was.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] No, we'll never know who she was. She hasn't even put her surname.
Will Mackenzie
No. But whoever Barbara was abandoned this when some... Well, I found it when I was about sixteen...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Will Mackenzie
... in an Oxfam in High Wycombe but it is... it is...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Brilliant. I think Barbara is a good name for a book that looks like it comes from the seventies.
Will Mackenzie
Yes. Indeed. You can... You can see Barbara in possibly a caftan...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Will Mackenzie
... or sitting on a coloured throw or something similar.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I can.
Will Mackenzie
But it is... it's about Francis Saxover who is a resear... a female research scientist who discovers a species of lichen that, when treated in a certain way, prevent the aging process.
Charles Adrian
Ah.
Will Mackenzie
And she begins by experimenting on herself and her children...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Will Mackenzie
... and quickly, throughout the book, a cast of very rich and powerful people who are immune to aging is established.
Charles Adrian
I see.
Will Mackenzie
And it explores that and the social impact of that.
Charles Adrian
Very nice.
Will Mackenzie
And John Wyndham was... well, like, I suspect, many adolescent males, science fiction was the gateway drug to literature...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Will Mackenzie
... and John Wyndham particularly fulfilled that function for me.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Will Mackenzie
And this, I think, is his best. I think it's better than The Day Of The Triffids, which is probably the more famous one.
Charles Adrian
It's the only one I've read by him.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Oh brilliant. Oh. Yes. I... Well I'm... Yeah, I'm still... I'm still in that gateway. I mean, I like...
Will Mackenzie
[laughs] You never really leave it, do you?
Charles Adrian
No, I think probably not. No. Read... So read us the first page. I think we can skip the first page of Employment Law.
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] Yeah, I think so.
Charles Adrian
I will happily take that - I say happily - I will take that home with me but it looks like it would take us about ten minutes just to... Oh goodness me it's got... it's got tables...
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] It's got tables...
Charles Adrian
... and charts...
Will Mackenzie
... and tiny, tiny writing...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh my. And things like “3A...”
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] And the very thin paper that you associate...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes!
Will Mackenzie
... with academic books.
Charles Adrian
Yes, with, yeah, much too much information. Okay. Go... Go... Go ahead with the John Wyndham. I think that's going to be altogether more pleasurable.
Will Mackenzie
Okay.
THE farewell was beautiful.
The small choir, all in white, with gold nets gleaming on its hair, sang with the sweet sadness of angels forlorn.
When it finished, the crowded chapel was full of absolute silence, and through the heavy air the scent of thousands of flowers rolled in slow waves.
The coffin topped a small pyramid of close-packed blooms. At the four corners, guards in classical gowns of purple silk, gold nets on their bowed heads, gold cords crossing between their breasts, each with gilded palm frond in her hand, stood as if carved.
The bishop crossed the floor soundlessly to ascend the four steps to the low pulpit. He laid his book carefully on the shelf before him [sic] and looked up.
‘...our beloved sister, Diana... her unfinished work which she now can never finish... irony of fate not a proper term to apply to the will of the Lord... He giveth; He taketh away... if He takes away the olive tree He has given before its fruit has ripened, it is for us to accept His will... Vessel of His inspiration... Devotion to her aims... Fortitude... Change in the course of human history... [sic]’
The eyes of the congregation, and [sic] several hundred women with a sprinkling of men, turned to the coffin. Slowly, it started to move. A few disturbed blossoms rolled down and spilt upon the carpet. Inexorably the coffin slid on. The organ began to play softly. The voices of the choir rose again, high and clear. The curtains dragged along the sides of the coffin, and fell to behind it.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm.
Will Mackenzie
And here you are.
Charles Adrian
It's a very complete first page, isn't it.
Will Mackenzie
It is. Someone's obviously planned that and it sets the theme and tone of the book, which is about death and aging and...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Will Mackenzie
... the consequences of those. Although it is much more [laughing] cheery than...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Will Mackenzie
... than those... those themes would imply.
Charles Adrian
This is... This is the end of the show...
Will Mackenzie
Ah.
Charles Adrian
... and I didn't say at the beginning: this is, in some ways, our Valentines edition of...
Will Mackenzie
Is it?
Charles Adrian
Page One because it's going to go up on about the 11th or 12th of February. So it goes on the week...
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] I see.
Charles Adrian
... the week of Valentine's. So I think our first... That was... That was another reason why I played the La Roux track because I think it's quite a good anti-Valentine's track. This last one is also quite good, I think. This is Batter My Heart from Doctor Atomic.
Will Mackenzie
Yes.
Charles Adrian
This is by John Adams. I don't know this at all. Tell us why... why... Why this track?
Will Mackenzie
Well, it just, sort... It's one of those songs that burst in on your life unexpectedly in that I was lying in bed listening to the radio and this came on and it had one of those 'Well, this is music I now have to own and...
Charles Adrian
[recognition] Mmm.
Will Mackenzie
... feature as part of my life'.
Charles Adrian
I've had similar experiences, although not yet with this. I do... I do like this. I'm going to listen to it, I think, many times. This... So this is a version by... it's played by the London Philharmonic conducted by Edward Gardner and sung by Gerald Finley, which is... which is what you requested. Presumably this is what you heard.
Will Mackenzie
It's the only one, I think, that exists.
Charles Adrian
Jolly good. Yeah, I think you might well be right.
Will and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
So this is... this is Batter My Heart from Doctor Atomic by John Adams. I've been Charles Adrian, you have been Will Mackenzie. Thank you so much for coming.
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] It's been a great pleasure.
Charles Adrian
This has been... This has been... [laughs] I was going to say: “This has been a pleasure for me too”.
Will Mackenzie
[speaking over] Pleasure has rendered you speechless.
Charles Adrian
It has. It has. [laughs] I've got to try and think of something... something useful to say before I... before I play the track otherwise I should feel like a fool. “This has... This has also been a pleasure,” I shall say. [laughs] That wasn't much better, was it?
Will Mackenzie
[laughs]
Music
[Batter My Heart from Doctor Atomic by John Adams]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]