What a Carve Up! (56 page)
Authors: Jonathan Coe
THE WINSHAW LEGACY
∗
A Family Chronicle
MICHAEL OWEN
PEACOCK PRESS
Preface
by Hortensia Tonks, B.A., M.A.(Cantab.)
Signor Italo Calvino, an Italian writer held in some considerable esteem among the literary
cognoscenti,
once remarked – very beautifully, in my view – that there is nothing more poignant than a book which has been left unfinished by its author. Such fragmentary works, in the opinion of this distinguished gentleman, are like ‘the ruins of ambitious projects, that nevertheless retain traces of the splendour and meticulous care with which they were conceived’.
How appropriate, how sweetly ironic, that Sig. Calvino should have delivered himself of this lofty sentiment in the course of a series of essays which were themselves left incomplete at the time of his death! And how fitting the phrase now seems, when applied to the present volume, the truncated work of an author cut down, as it were, in his literary prime, which shows him writing at the height of his powers (and which in time, perhaps, will be recognized as his masterpiece)!
I knew Michael Owen well, and feel towards his book much as a doting parent must feel towards a favourite child, for it blossomed and took shape under my benign aegis. And so when we at the Peacock Press heard the bitter news of his death, our initial sense of shock and bereavement was succeeded by the knowledge that we could do no better justice to his memory than by sending his last work upon its way with all despatch. It is for this reason alone (despite the malicious hints which have been dropped in various quarters of the press) that we publish it so soon after the sensational events which have recently aroused keen public interest in the Winshaw family and all its doings.
One might lament the keenness of this interest; but to ignore it altogether would surely be folly. I have therefore taken the liberty of including, by way of introduction to Michael’s history, a full and detailed account of the horrific murders which took place at Winshaw Towers on the night of January 16th this year. The composition of this chapter – compiled on the basis of authentic police records and photographs (more graphic and distressing, I am told, than any previously encountered in the long career of the pathologist who supplied them) – gave me no pleasure at all; but the public has an absolute right of access to even the most disagreeable particulars of such an affair. This is a point of high principle, and one which we, as publishers, have always been proud to uphold.
It also occurred to me, in my capacity as editor, that there were certain passages in Michael’s manuscript so laudably academic in tone, so rigorous in their historical perspective, that they might have proved a trifle daunting to those readers who were drawn to the book out of little more than a natural and wholesome curiosity to know more about the January massacre. My advice to such readers, then, would be that they can safely ignore the main body of his narrative, for my intention in the remainder of this Preface is to summarize, in a few concise, vivid pages, the entire early history of the family whose very name – once a byword for all that was prestigious and influential in British life – has now become synonymous with tragedy.
∗
Tragedy had struck the Winshaws twice before, but never on such a terrible scale.
Author’s Note
I’d like to thank Monty Berman, co-producer of the film
What a Carve Up!,
for kindly allowing me to quote from the screenplay (written by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton).
Thanks also to Louis Philippe for permission to quote from his song ‘Yuri Gagarin’ (words and music by Louis Philippe, published by Complete Music, copyright © 1989); to Raymond Durgnat, whose marvellous essay on
Le Sang des Bêtes
(in
Franju,
published by Studio Vista, 1967) furnished me with a quotation in Dorothy’s chapter and eventually suggested the title of
Part Two
; and to International Music Publication Ltd for permission to reproduce ‘La Mer’ by Charles Louis Augustine Trenet, copyright © 1939 Brenton (Belgique) Editions Raou, administered by T.B. Harms Co., Warner Chappell Music Ltd, London.
My novel owes a shadowy debt to the works of Frank King, author of
The Ghoul
(1928), upon which the film
What a Carve Up!
was distantly based. Paragraph one of my chapter ‘Where There’s a Will’ is copied from the first chapter of
The Ghoul
(with one word changed), and throughout
Part Two
there are several smaller instances of what Alasdair Gray has called ‘Implags’ (imbedded plagiarisms) both from
The Ghoul
and from the equally wonderful
Terror at Staups House.
Having been unable to trace any information on Mr King, the only repayment I can offer him is to recommend that readers make every effort to seek out these and other novels
(What Price Doubloons?,
for instance, or
This Doll is Dangerous)
and campaign vigorously for their reissue.
Among the other people who helped me in various ways were Harri Jenkins and Monica Whittle, who gave generously of their time to fill me in on Health Service issues and hospital procedure; Andrew Hodgkiss and Stephanie May, who provided further medical background; Jeremy Gregg, for computer literacy; Michèle O’Leary, for legal expertise; Paul Daintry, for Findlay’s signature and general encouragement; Tim Radford, for Yuriology; plus Russell Levinson, Ralph Pite, Salli Randi, Peter Singer, Paul Hodges, Anne Grebby and Steve Hyam. I’m especially grateful to everyone at Viking Penguin who has worked so hard for the book, and to the inestimable Tony Peake, Jon Riley and Koukla MacLehose, whose efforts on its behalf have been tireless.
As for my printed sources, Mark’s chapter is based largely on information gleaned from Kenneth Timmerman’s
The Death Lobby
(Fourth Estate, 1992.) – surely the best book ever written about the arms market – which gave me the dead beagles and the apple-shooting, among other things. Details of Iraqi torture practices were obtained from publications by Amnesty International and CARDRI (the Campaign Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq); SODI is a fictitious organization. Dorothy’s chapter draws on the pioneering work of Ruth Harrison in her book
Animal Machines
(Vincent Stuart, 1964), supplemented by Mark Gold’s
Assault and Battery
(Pluto, 1983), Geoffrey Cannon’s
The Politics of Food
(Century, 1987) and Richard Body’s
Our Food, Our Land
(Rider, 1991). Of the many books consulted for Thomas’s chapter, by far the most readable and informative were two by Paul Ferris:
The City
(Gollancz, 1960) and
Gentlemen of Fortune
(Weidenfeld, 1984). NHS data was furnished by Chris Ham’s
The New National Health Service: Organization and Management
(Oxford, 1991), and I learned about wartime codenames from Sir John Cecil Masterman’s fascinating book,
The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945
(Yale, 1972).
This novel owes its existence, finally, to Janine McKeown, not least because she supported me financially while I was writing it. For this and other reasons, I dedicate it to her with love and gratitude.
1
Editor’s Note [1995]:
Henry Winshaw remained true to this resolve and has, indeed, some claim to be considered one of the country’s most prolific political diarists. The task of editing his journals – which run to some four million words in total – has proved an enormous one, but it is hoped that the first volume at least will be ready for publication early next year. In the meantime these few short extracts must serve by way of an appetizer.
2
This reticence, it seems, was later surmounted: Ms Carpenter married Henry Winshaw in the spring of 1953.
1
Social Insurance and Allied Services
by William Henry Beveridge (1879–1963) became the blueprint for Britain’s post-war welfare legislation and, in particular, laid the theoretical groundwork for the establishment of the National Health Service (see below,
passim).
2
Godfrey Winshaw (born 1909) had been shot down by the Germans over Berlin on November 30th 1942. For a thorough, if rather speculative, account of the family crisis which followed, see Michael Owen,
The Winshaw Legacy: A Family Chronicle
(Peacock Press, 1991).
1
This last couplet makes little sense, unfortunately, since Godfrey Winshaw’s body was never recovered from Germany. The impressionable young Henry’s excess of grief would seem to have blinded him to this detail.
1
Margaret Hilda Roberts (born Grantham, Lines., October 13th 1925), later Margaret Thatcher, later Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, became President of the OUCA in the autumn of 1946.
2
Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan (1897–1960), Labour MP for Ebbw Vale who in 1946 obtained passage of the National Health Service Act. Biography:
Aneurin Bevan,
by Michael Foot
(2
vols., London, 1962 and 1973).
1
There arises a regrettable lacuna in the diaries at this point. Either Winshaw kept no records at all for the years 1949–59, or – as is more likely – the relevant volumes have been irretrievably lost. Whatever the explanation, we are lacking any account of his rapid rise to industrial prominence after graduating from Oxford, his selection as a Labour candidate in 1952, his marriage the following year, or his election to Parliament in 1955 (on the occasion, ironically, of a disastrous nationwide defeat for Labour). In my trawl for any kind of documentation which would provide a flavour of the young MP’s political acumen, I have been able to unearth only the following transcript from the BBC archives.
2
Alan Beamish (1926– ): distinguished broadcaster who began his career as a BBC political correspondent, and then went on to make his name as an innovative producer throughout the Sixties and Seventies while continuing to make occasional appearances before the camera. After an unhappy period with independent television he retired abruptly in 1990.
1
Derick Heathcoat Amory (1899–1981), later first Viscount Amory, Conservative MP for Tiverton and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1958 to 1960.
1
In the early morning of July 14th, an announcement from Baghdad Radio stated that Iraq had been ‘liberated from the domination of a corrupt group installed by imperialism’. King Faisal, the Crown Prince Abdul Ilah and General Nuri es-Said had all been assassinated in the military coup, and a Republican regime was proclaimed. At the request of King Hussein, British paratroops were then sent out to Jordan to safeguard the area.
2
Harold Macmillan (1894–1984), later Earl of Stockton. Conservative MP for Bromley and Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963.
1
Margaret Roberts had married Dennis Thatcher, then Managing Director of the Atlas Preservative Co., in December 1951. Their son Mark and daughter Carol were born two years later. (Atlas itself was sold to Castrol Oil for £560,000 in 1965.)
2
On February 3rd Macmillan had proudly told the South African parliament in Cape Town that ‘a wind of change is blowing through the continent’. Certain elements within his own party considered his position on this issue to be dangerously progressive.
1
On September 16th an intruder had broken into the family residence under rather mysterious circumstances, and met his death while launching a violent attack on Lawrence Winshaw. The incident aroused little comment at the time, although a characteristically overheated version of it can be found in Owen,
op. cit.
2
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (b. 1906), MF for South Leeds and leader of the Labour Party from 1955 until his sudden death in 1963.
3
Gaitskell’s speech in Glasgow on May 6th had been disrupted by supporters of unilateralism, leading to allegations of Trotskyist infiltration of Labour’s youth section.