My Happy Little Problem

...is which once next.

The Doomsday Men by PD Smith

I've probably mentioned before that my school was the progressive unconventional sort: no uniform and we were expected to call our teachers by their first names. It was a true comprehensive, had an egalitarian philosophy and one of the subjects everyone had to take was 'Community Studies'. It was combined with 'English' (which was neither literature or language but a bit of both) and took up a large portion of the week. There were about 80 of us taught together in a large room - a mixed ability class and I know of only two of the class that stayed on to the sixth form. As part of this course (after some debate and warning of its content) they showed us a public information film which I think must have been this, The War Game (WARNING: THIS FILM IS TRULY DISTURBING):



Strangely, I don't remember this film perturbing any of us much at all. I think it seemed too much like fiction.

I'm looking at it again now because I've just finished reading the Doomsday Men by P.D. Smith, and now, because of this book, I see it with an increased awareness. There are descriptions in the book about what happened in Hiroshima that resonate and then horrify: the initial flash that fries eyes and removes skin, and then shock wave and the firestorm before the fall out.

'Fall out' was a term I've thought about a lot but the concept of a 'firestorm' is new to me. I'd heard the word, but now that I've read the Doomsday Men I know what it really means to those unfortunate enough to be caught sheltering in a confined space like a cellar in the midst of a conflagration. The oxygen was catastrophically replaced by gases like carbon monoxide and methane and so tens of thousands of people died in firestorms caused by incendiary attack in Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo. After reading that I thought of the time I went to Hamburg and spoke to people there. Some of them were old enough to remember. I wonder now how we could look at each other in the eye.

The Doomsday Men is the full history of the twentieth century's obsession with weapons of mass destruction: not just the nuclear arms race but the advent of chemical warfare and biological warfare. It has impressive range and depth, but that is one part of the book. The other part is how society and media (in particular writers and film-makers) reacted, interacted and sometimes even initiated these dreams of annihilation. It includes not just the literary, highly regarded fiction and film, but the pulp. The pulp is perhaps the more important of the two in reflecting the reaction of society because this is what most people read; the concept of a man-made doomsday seemed to be preoccupying everyone. These two aspects of the book are married together very neatly by the question who were the real Doomsday Men (as typified by Peter Sellers' depiction of Dr Strangelove in Kubrick's masterpiece) - as well as a repeating motif, it makes an excellent narrative hook.


It turns out there were three Dr Strangeloves - one for each scientific discipline. For chemistry there was the German genius Fritz Haber who successfully deployed chlorine gas in the first world war trenches; for biology there was the Japanese scientist Shiro Ishii who killed tens of thousands of people in occupied China with his experiments into germ warfare ; but electing the Dr Strangelove of physics is more problematic because there are various contenders. I suppose, after reading P. D. Smith's account, if I had to chose one I would chose Edward Teller. Enrico Fermi said he was 'the only monomaniac he knew with a number of manias', and in press reports of the time he was dubbed 'Mr H-Bomb.'

I suppose the story of the Doomsday Men has been a constant background to my life. Most of the time I have successfully pushed it to the back of my mind because it seemed too frightening and too impossible to be true. But reading the Doomsday Men has forced me to confront it and understand. Recently the threat of weapons of mass destruction has been overshadowed by natural plagues, global warming and economic crisis, but it is still there. It can still happen. And in the Doomsday Men there is a gripping account of when, in 1962, it nearly did.

I was too young to be aware of the Cuban crisis but after reading about this story I remember another time, slightly later, when there was something on the car radio and my parents discussed it in worried tones. I think they thought that I hadn't heard them, but I had. We were on our way to a big department store in the middle of Leicester. It was the most solid and dependable thing in my world. Then, soon after we got there, I found myself alone.

It was not the unexpected isolation that worried me, but the realisation that the floor was shaking. Something was coming and no one could stop it. I stood still and looked around me. All this could go. The walls could fall away and it would be as though none of us had ever existed. Even this huge edifice to mammon could be vapourised - and not by an act of God, but by a human finger touching a button. For those few paralyzing seconds, before I realised that the shaking signified little more than heavy machinery, I appreciated the fragility of us all, and how dependent we are on the sanity of a few others. Even though the world has changed a lot since then we are still dependent on such restraint.

It took me close to a week to read the Doomsday Men but I am glad that I did (and glad too that I came across its author, Peter Smith, through the web - we now share an agent). It is a tremendously rich and rewarding book, a magnificent accomplishment - and, I think, an important one.

The Exquisite Corpse of Science.

My old Mac laptop (2 models ago) had a transparent cover into which you could insert the picture of your choice - and various possibilities.

The one I chose resembled the picture here called 'The Exquisite Corpse' - a collaborative surrealist technique, rather like the game of consequences I used to play as a child. Reading about it I realise I also used to use it to generate ideas when I taught creative writing. Each participant would invent a characteristic for a character - and this character, generated randomly, could be used in a piece of writing.

Tim Jones of Imperial College, London*, has used the technique to generate pictures of what science means to various individuals and has made a film of the result. Now he wants to expand the project to include other people. The instructions on how to get involved in what could be the biggest Sci-Art Project in History are here - and I definitely intend to have a go as soon as I get the chance...

It is open to anyone. All you have to do is draw what science means to you and send it in.

*Edited later from 'University of London' - see comments.

Sunday Salon: Two books

At the moment I am reading two books: The Doomsday Men by P.D. Smith and The Turing Test by Chris Beckett. The first is non-fiction, the second fiction, and I am finding that they complement each other very well.


The Doomsday Men I started reading some time ago, but then got diverted by my research, so I am pleased to have the chance to get back to it now. It is basically a search for the real Dr Strangelove - the scientist of mass destruction as conjured up by the media in the twentieth century and earlier.

It combines a history of atomic, chemical and (I suspect, though I haven't got to this yet) biological warfare with the history of how these were portrayed in books and film. I am learning about Goethe's Dr Faust, Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as various works by H G Wells. At the same time I am acquiring an excellent overview of this branch of scientific history. The two are married together surprisingly well by the motif of Strangelove. He comes in fleetingly like a Hitchcockian extra, or like a subtle symbol in a poem or piece of literature. It is foreboding.


The Turing Test was the surprising winner of the Edgehill short story competition. It was published by the now defunct Elastic Press, and it is really very good. Chris Beckett, apparently, is a quiet author who doesn't tend to shout or promote himself, but has been successfully writing science fiction for decades.

The eponymous first story is about a woman who becomes fixated with a virtual personal assistant who arrives in her computer in a viral way when another virtual PA of a (real) friend decides the woman could benefit from a PA's services. The first PA therefore reproduces herself and sends this version to the woman's computer. The PAs talk to each other and from the information they generate evolve - in order, they say, to improve what they do. But of course this could also hide a more sinister motive.

In search of the Huguenots

The Huguenots, I heard, settled just outside the London city wall.

They took up residence in streets with names that bear witness to their trade

but now gleam with the harder lustre of glass.

The museum of London is at the centre of this new development.

When I asked if they had any record of the Huguenots I was told that, for now, the history of London ended at 1666. Before the fire or the plague, and Daniel Defoe (who is buried close by)

was but a child of five, and Beech Street

another of the Huguenot streets, was yet to be lined in beech trees, or set ringing with the sound of caged birds and clattering looms.

There is nothing left now. The houses of the Huguenots long razed to the ground. Temporary tunnels

connect one busy road to the next, and one tower block to another. Few look up, or around, or wonder at what there was, and few, I suspect, notice this

a ghost cycle, one of many that are chained to posts throughout the capital: white and without pedals or chain. A memorial to a cyclist fatally caught mid-journey.

Lived in London edited by Emily Cole.

Last night I went to the English Pen summer party. It was in a lovely old house along a busy high street in Notting Hill Gate, the sort of place I don't think I'd have noticed if I'd happened to be rushing past. The door, in a porch, was grand and black with polished brass fittings. A man who had stopped there too rang the bell and we were welcomed inside. When the door closed behind us everything seemed to change; it became quieter and more peaceful, as if that couple of steps had taken us into a different time.

The rooms were tastefully arranged with musical instruments, small tables and chairs; in a dining room there was a great table laden with plates of roasted vegetables, cold meats and pieces of quiche, and next to it another stacked with bottles of wine and glasses. Then, through an open door, under a canopy of heavy wisteria blossom, was a walled garden with smoothly carved figures, fountains and benches. A small jazz band played beside some French windows, and soon the place was pleasantly full of people. I talked to several writers: Amit Sole and then Jeremy Cameron and then a man who wrote plays for disadvantaged people. I had to leave too early, but as I rushed out to catch my train, I came across this:


a blue plaque on the side of the building at the front. I had not much time to take in the name or the occupation of the man who once lived here, but thanks to this book


'Lived in London' this photo was all that I needed to discover the story.

According to the book, Muzio Clementi was (1752 - 1832) is known as the father of the pianoforte, and lived in this house from 1818 until 1823. He was born in Rome, became an organist at a young age, then came to England under a patron called Peter Beckford. He was so talented that in 1781, whilst travelling on the continent, he was drawn into a famous musical competition with Mozart - which ended with Emperor Joseph II declaring a draw. By 1817 he had turned from performance to composition, teaching and business, and it was in this house in Kensington Church Street that he presumably wrote his most famous pieces including this one:

This is Chelsea Dock, who is aged just 6, playing Muzio Clementi's Sonatina in C Major.

Of course I had no idea of all of this when I was sitting in the window seat of the window you can see above, listening to the jazz band. But maybe Muzio once sat exactly where I was sitting, vaguely aware of the oak panelling and the view to the garden, and judging from an old photograph in the book the house has changed very little since.

'Lived in London' goes on to describe two other people who lived at this address, but were not considered important enough to be honoured with a plaque; they were another musician called William Horsley (1774- 1858) and his son John Callcott, a painter. The Horsleys were visited regularly by yet another composer, Felix Mendelssohn. I find this sort of information fascinating, and it is the sort you are unlikely to find in a quick Google search.

London contains thousands of commemorative plaques, but this book concentrates on exactly 800: the blue plaques which commemorate people of note and the buildings associated with them. I've enjoyed leafing through it, looking for places that I know, and just wish I knew the various areas of London a little better. For instance it took me a little time to work out where Spitalfields would be since there is no overall map; but once I did (categorised as parts of Tower Hamlets) then I was very interested to come across the section on Anna Maria Garthwaite, a designer of silks in the eighteenth century. I had just been looking at her silk designs in the Victoria and Albert Museum,

and the day before been trying to find out where she lived. I'd wandered around the area close to the old London wall until my legs were aching - I wish now I had thought to consult this book first.

Anna Maria Garthwaite and Muzeo Clementi are two of the more obscure people in this book. There are many that are probably of more interest to more people: Charles Dickens's house down Doughty Street, for instance, which is now a museum. Doughty Street is an area that is particularly rich in blue plaques (I used to see them when I used to go and visit my former agent in John Street). The book could be used to either look up names or, and I think this is how I will tend to use it, to wander down streets and see who lived there. And of course now, thanks to Google's 'street view', it is possible to wander around London without leaving your desk. It could be a new game - strolling (virtually) around the capital looking for blue plaques. I think I might try that tomorrow. Either way would initiate discoveries of people and places and their stories.

As Stephen Fry points out in his introduction finding out where these people lived their lives is a powerful thing; somehow it makes us feel closer to them. By learning about where they walked we feel a physical familiarity with their lives. It is something I always tried to do when I started a novel. Whenever I have written about a person or a group of people I have visited their homes, and where they worked. I have stood outside where they once lived and tried to imagine how it felt like to be them. The setting is important to any story; and how it looks is only part of the experience. As a writer I have always felt that I needed to go there and listen, sniff and generally soak up the place. I also needed to know its history, and this book contains enough detail to not only satisfy the casual armchair investigator, but also makes a good starting point for those with a more intense interest.

Book sent to me for review by the publisher.

China Part 3: Towards a provisional itinerary.

Since the foreign office does not advise that females do not travel around China alone I have decided to enlist the help of a specialist Chinese tour agency. Unfortunately the situation is further complicated by ethnic unrest in one of the provinces I want to visit. I am hoping it will be more settled by the time I go. I think petty crime is my biggest danger

So far I intend to go to:

(i) Khotan: Hetian silk factory, places producing silk using more traditional methods, and the Hetian Cultural Museum.

(ii) Suzhou: Silk embroidery research centre and the silk museum.

(iii) Shanghai - silk markets and modern silk factories.

(iv) Train to Guangzhou. Try and speak to someone in the University Institute for Geography and go out to local silk farms to find places that depend on silkworm cultivation.

(v) I also hope to go and see a place that deals with silkworm research.

(vi) Maybe speak to some archeologists who can show me scraps of ancient silk.

Sunday Salon: Ox-Tales

Yesterday was the official publication date of Ox-Tales: four beautifully produced books of short stories or extracts from unpublished novels. The royalties from the sale of the books will go straight to Oxfam. The launch is to coincide with Oxfam Bookfest. From July 4th - July 18th Oxfam's 139 bookshops will have unique events with three major events in London, Oxford and Edinburgh.


Each book has a theme: Earth (Livelihoods), Air (Climate Change), Fire (Conflict) and Water. I think part of the fun of reading the books will be to see how the stories reflect the theme.


I am starting with Volume 1: Earth. Oxfam helps thousands of small-scale farmers and producers to improve their lives through increased production and marketing - from cotton in India, vegetables in Honduras and rice in Tanzania - so I expect the stories to have something to do with this. The poem by Vikram Seth (each volume starts with a poem by Vikram Seth) is pretty wonderful. He describes a pot. In the first stanza it is filled with soil, in the second with clay, in the third with ash. Each time he turns it around and makes it the source of something new. It's a really optimistic poem, I thought, quite joyful.

The first story is by Rose Tremain, 'The Jester of Astapovo'. It is about the death of Leo Tolstoy and the effect it has on the life of the stationmaster of an isolated station called Astapovo. It makes the astute observation that a sense of humour can irritate and actually drive people apart: 'A joke is a contract with another human being.'

The idea of the earth comes in very subtly: Tolstoy is a man of the people, and the people are of the earth; the stationmaster is of the earth too. He has found his destination and it is to provide gladness to the people that pass by. It's a really good story - gripping and provocative.

BAFAB Week

The inestimable Debra Hamel has an unbeatable competition on her blog this week. It is a chance to win her book TRYING NEIRA which a reviewer in the Sunday Telegraph described as '...gripping story of politics, sex and sleaze in ancient Athens......'. It is really an unexpectedly entertaining read. For instance, there is a section on radishes that I think will stay with me to the end of my days...

A Visit to Haworth and the birth place of the Brontës' novels.

From my house to Haworth Parsonage it is precisely 86 miles. Google maps calculates that if I were to walk it would take around forty hours. By the British convoluted railway system it took four and a half hours: five trains which zig-zagged across the countryside, going south in order to go north, then east to go west, culminating in this, from Keighley to Haworth:


a steam train arranged by the Society of Authors. This was yesterday's 'Authors North' summer social meeting and, following the meeting in Carnforth last year, a railway theme seems to be developing.

Haworth is something I'd never heard of before: 'an industrial village'. In the early part of the nineteenth century the industrial revolution took over the place, and turned a small agricultural settlement into a miniature version of Manchester. From the railway station


it is a short walk to the mill (photo below). According to Maurice Baren (a member who kindly provided us all with a sheet of information about Haworth) Haworth mill still does what it was built to do: house the looms that weave ribbons and braid. Inside this small block-like building various military paraphernalia is produced: officer ranking braid, sashes and chevron lace - all sorts of insignia to rank and designate, a way of establishing pecking order within the strange closed societies of the armed forces.


The Haworth Parsonage, I discovered, during the excellent talk given by the curator of the museum, was also a badge of honour. Parsonages and Vicarages are, traditionally, grand buildings - usually one of the largest in the village. It was to accord rank and respectability to the office of 'Minister' or 'Vicar' - a kind of medal from the parish. Since they tend to be built adjacent to the place of worship, which in turn tend to be built in the most prominent places possible, vicarages tend to be built on top of the local hill; and the Parsonage of Haworth was no exception.



So from the mill we had to climb a hill. Anna Ganley (from the Society of Authors) had warned us that crampons might be necessary, and I have to report she was exaggerating only very slightly. The inhabitants of Haworth much be extremely fit. From the mill we climbed one hill



and then another and then another. Half way up it was pointed out to us that during the Brontës' time these not only became a series of open sewers in times of heavy rainfall during the Brontës' time, but even worse, reportedly washed down the stinking effluent from the overcrowded Haworth graveyard.


Close to the top we passed by the 'Black Bull' pub where the Brontë brother Branwell bought his drink and cocaine


and then ducking through an alleyway past the church arrived at the Parsonage itself.


The talk was excellent and gave a surprising view of this apparently tranquil little place. The Brontës' father was a poor but outstandingly able Irishman. Although his children were brought up in style in the Parsonage the family had no money of their own which was why the girls were sent out to a boarding school for daughters of impoverished clergymen. Their only hope in life was to become governesses, and for this they needed a certain education. But they hated being away from home and the moors and did everything they could to go back there. Later, they seemed to become obsessed with finding a way of supporting themselves so they could stay there: writing novels seemed to be a possible method. Even though Haworth was a squalid dirty place with an average life expectancy of 25 there were compensations. At home they had books, and in the village there were societies which encouraged the villagers to improve themselves with classes and cultural opportunities like concerts. But, most important of all, the Brontës had each other. Together they invented their own private 'second life' complete with heroines, armies, newspapers and books. And it was out of this imaginary world came the novels of the most famous literary sisters in the world: Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.

After the talk we had a self-tour around the house which was filled with the Brontë's furniture, including, rather ghoulishly, the sofa where Emily died. It is quite a small house, the kitchen especially so.

Then, after a lunch at the nearby Baptist Chapel (chunky delicious sandwiches, warm scones and cream) we had a talk by Juliet Barker.


Juliet used to be a curator at the Brontë museum and then became a biographer. So far she has written seven books (at least) including 'The Brontës' which was a New York Times Notable book and also a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

Juliet's talk was highly entertaining - covering anecdotes about the business of writing biographies and the effect it has on her family (they become slightly unwilling experts on the subject in hand) to some of the possible pitfalls. For instance she prefers to write about people long dead because there is little risk of relatives being hurt when scandal is uncovered.

It was from Juliet that I heard about the mill employing 1500 people (which to me seemed an incredible number in so small a village), and how this was beneficial to the Brontës because it meant that with the industrialisation there came amenities such as adult learning.

I bought a book for my mother about the letters of the Brontës. The family tended to write about everything, and were careful to always add the date, and Juliet was able to uncover many discrepancies in the Elizabeth Gaitskill's account of their lives. It sounds very interesting, and I intend to take a look before passing it on to my mother.

Another interesting point Juliet made was on the longevity of the Brontës. Although each of his children died before the age of 40, Patrick Brontë lived to his eighties - as did all of his many siblings (except for one). She thought that they inherited their weakness from their mother. It is a tragic tale. After the mother and then two eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died aged 10 and 11, Branwell was the next to go at 31 from alcoholism, then Emily and Anne from TB and Charlotte from some form of sickness, either typhoid or maybe severe morning sickess.


It is the life of Branwell who strikes me as the greatest tragedy, however. As a child he was regarded as the most talented of the family, and yet he destroyed himself before he was able to produce very much. Charlotte, the eldest of his sisters was devastated, and Juliet said there was a word she stabbed out in a letter which indicated her distress: 'obscure'. Branwell was meant to be as successful as the rest of them, but whereas Charlotte left the world Jane Eyre, Emily left Wuthering Heights and Anne The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (generally underestimated, and well worth reading, according to Juliet) Branwell left behind a series of unexceptional paintings. It is a tale often repeated in families, I think - the tragedy of a life wasted by drink and there is little anyone can do to prevent it.

At the end of the talk Juliet sold her books in aid of a charity Caring For Life which supplies accommodation and support for the homeless and vulnerable; looking after some of the Branwells of today perhaps.

Then, after the talk, it was time to go - back onto the trains again. It was a treat of a day - much enjoyed by everyone, I thought. Thank you very much to Anna Ganley for organising it.