THE BEANO IN CHANCERY brought realization: that I must keep things.
Here, from random memory, are some things that I didn’t keep, and that I should have.
Circa 1963, when I was organizer of Dundee CND, I had a letter from Compton Mackenzie, distilled from the finest malt wit, in spirited support of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Beyond the immediate campaigning use made of his writing, I didn’t keep the letter.
I received a letter, written in French, in dark blue ink on pale blue paper, from Albert Schweitzer at Lambarene, passionately advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament. Again, beyond the immediate use I made of it, I didn’t keep the letter.
When I started publishing the Strategic Commentaries by Terence Heelas, and because I was sending these to subscribers around the world, I began to receive material sent to me unbidden. Among these, was a monthly glossy magazine posted from Prague.
Magnificently photographed and printed, it was published by the Czechoslovak glassmaking union, and was evidently a display window both for the union, and for the Czech glassmaking industry.
On 22nd. August 1968, Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia. A few days later, I heard the customary heavy ‘FLUMF’ as the large brown envelope fell through the letterbox. Opening the package, I saw, in stark and grubby contrast with the opulent full-colour periodical, a single sheet of smudgy, inky paper that had been run off on some ancient Gestetner.
The words (recalled here from distant memory) were sparse:
‘ Dear Comrade. This is the last issue of our journal that you will receive. Russian tanks are in the streets. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us.’
The spartan document wrote of tragedy; but at the very moment that I was reading the words, tragedy was infiltrated by black comedy: pictures spooled through my mind of shadowy figures moving about the streets of Prague, dodging the Russian tanks, to shove piles of brown envelopes into pillar boxes. (Years later, I found out that the shadowy figures had communicated with each other by using parabolic radios – their transmissions couldn’t be traced.)
Beyond the immediate use I made of the smudgy cyclostyled document, I didn’t think to keep it.
With the beginning of my High Court action, I started to keep files of correspondence to and from my solicitor; of copies of memoranda written by me for my barrister; of documents produced by the defendants under Order 24 Rule 10, and under Discovery; of the barrister’s Opinions; of Pleadings; of Defence and Counterclaim; of Rejoinder; of Further and Better Particulars; of Amended Defence; of Amended Rejoinder and Reply to Defence to Counterclaim; of my Draft Proof of Evidence; and other such arcana.
When the High Court action was concluded after seven years, I carried on keeping things. Now the attic joists groan under the weight.