He observed, quoting but then extrapolating a common platitude, that ‘Everyone has a book inside them, which is exactly where it should, I think, in most cases, remain’, and he’s right. Everyone might well have a book in them, but whether, once written, it is at all slightly interesting to the rest of us or even well-written is another question entirely.
The observation that ‘we all have a book in us’ is even truer of hacks (or, for the sensitive among you, ‘journalists’). There will be several reasons why young men and women choose the profession (though, frankly, I think ‘trade’ is a
One of those reason will be ‘to write’ and, dear reader, at my advanced age I am now robust enough to confess that was, or was partly, also my reason for choosing to serve in His Majesty’s Press (or Her Majesty’s Press as it was at the time): I ‘wanted to be a writer’.
As confession seems to be the order of the day, I should add that another reason was that I could think of nothing else to do.
In my last year at university when everyone else seemed to be so certain of what their future would be and was busily making plans to create it, I grew ever more despondent.
In desperation, I even applied for a place on the British Army officer training course (or whatever the technical term is).
I reasoned that as someone who would have – as I expected to have – a philosophy degree, the Army might think me useful, in its Intelligence Corp or something.
I reasoned that as someone who would have – as I expected to have – a philosophy degree, the Army might think me useful, in its Intelligence Corp or something.
The Army wrote back and told me the would be pleased to have me as they always needed stout-hearted and patriotic Brits in their Catering Corp. This was not what I was expecting. As they say ‘collapse of stout party’.
I did not take it any further, although I do now realise the having an efficient catering corp in the field is very useful to a fighting army and Captain Caterer and his men (and these days women) do a sterling job: you try rustling up a roast dinner with all the trimmings for 300 while the enemy is trying to kill you. Not at all easy, I’m sure.
(As I am in confession mode, perhaps I should also come clean about my reaction to my mother’s suggestion that ‘why didn’t train in hotel management?’ I was mortified! Me, a philosophy graduate! Good God!
Of the two books I have so far reviewed – Murray Sayle’s novel A Crooked Sixpence and Michael Frayn’s novel Towards The End Of The Morning – neither struck me as completely successful, though Frayn more than edges ahead on points. As for this third, Nobody Hurt In Small Earthquake by Michael Green, I pleased to report it is, in my view, a bullseye.
Green began his career as a hack in Leicester as a 16-year-old copy boy (apparently one of the then traditional routes into hackdom), but he was soon sacked for causing chaos in the print room.
Bored one night, he and egged on by a friend he started the press rolling, a huge reel of newsprint snapped and newsprint spewed everywhere. Green, who had form, was sacked, his friend was not.
He somehow found himself another job, as a trainee reporter on the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, but his budding career there was cut short when he was conscripted to fight in World War II. Once he was demobbed, he returned to the paper for several more years, before moving on to work as a sub-editor.
Nobody Hurt In Small Earthquake is, in fact, the second volume of his autobiography. The first volume, The Boy Why Shot Down An Airship, covers he earlier life on the Leicester Mercury and his first stint on the Chronicle & Echo.
I had previously read the second volume years ago and, I think, also the first, but I could remember little about either (except a reference in the second to Rupert Murdoch turning up as a management trainee on the Birmingham Gazette where Green was subbing).
Green’s memoir will be especially entertaining to current and former hacks who, like me, have been there, done it and have the T-shirt. But it should also delight ‘civilians’.
Green’s name is perhaps better known as the author of a series of tongue-in-cheek ‘guides’ such as The Art Of Coarse Rugby and The Art Of Coarse Acting, neither of which I have so far read. Older folk in Britain might also recall his byline on The Observer for whom he worked as a respected rugby correspondent.
Green has the knack, that elusive ‘ingredient X’. It is necessary in many activities, but we don’t know what it is only. The only time we become aware of it is when it is absent.
Where other would-be ‘humorous’ writers are apt to kill an anecdote stone dead, Green, it seems almost effortlessly, teases out the humour and allows it to breathe for itself. And he does so only applying slight exaggeration. There is none of that sign-posting to ‘the funny bit’ which far too many writers indulge in to try to make sure ‘the joke’ is clear. Yes, mateys, the joke does become very clear indeed but it also becomes very unfunny if that is your approach.
The world of provincial newspapers Green describes is now, in 2024, almost 80 years ago and, pertinently was just after the war when life was still rationed and tough in Britain.
For example, no young person could ever afford to live in his or her own flat and taking girls back to your lodgings for a bit of hows-your-father was impossible. Shagging had to take place in the park or somewhere else public but discreet.
I didn’t start my ‘career’ – I always feel a fraud when I describe it like that – until 26 years after Green began his second stint on the Chronicle & Echo and life had changed a lot, and in the past fifty years has changed even more – the provincial press in Britain has been decimated. But a lot of the newspaper life Green led in those years – attending court and inquests, reporting on parish councils, dealing with sub-editors (as a reporter) – was still the same in my day.
This volume (and I have already ordered the first) is recommended: it avoids all the pitfalls others its kind are apt to trip into and will provide many a laugh. Go for it.
NB The title of Green’s book is taken from a competition that was said to have taken place on the subs’ bench of The Times. The subs tried to come up with the most boring headline they could think of. Nobody Hurt In Small Earthquake won.
I did not take it any further, although I do now realise the having an efficient catering corp in the field is very useful to a fighting army and Captain Caterer and his men (and these days women) do a sterling job: you try rustling up a roast dinner with all the trimmings for 300 while the enemy is trying to kill you. Not at all easy, I’m sure.
(As I am in confession mode, perhaps I should also come clean about my reaction to my mother’s suggestion that ‘why didn’t train in hotel management?’ I was mortified! Me, a philosophy graduate! Good God!
. . .
Of the two books I have so far reviewed – Murray Sayle’s novel A Crooked Sixpence and Michael Frayn’s novel Towards The End Of The Morning – neither struck me as completely successful, though Frayn more than edges ahead on points. As for this third, Nobody Hurt In Small Earthquake by Michael Green, I pleased to report it is, in my view, a bullseye.
Green began his career as a hack in Leicester as a 16-year-old copy boy (apparently one of the then traditional routes into hackdom), but he was soon sacked for causing chaos in the print room.
Bored one night, he and egged on by a friend he started the press rolling, a huge reel of newsprint snapped and newsprint spewed everywhere. Green, who had form, was sacked, his friend was not.
He somehow found himself another job, as a trainee reporter on the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, but his budding career there was cut short when he was conscripted to fight in World War II. Once he was demobbed, he returned to the paper for several more years, before moving on to work as a sub-editor.
Nobody Hurt In Small Earthquake is, in fact, the second volume of his autobiography. The first volume, The Boy Why Shot Down An Airship, covers he earlier life on the Leicester Mercury and his first stint on the Chronicle & Echo.
I had previously read the second volume years ago and, I think, also the first, but I could remember little about either (except a reference in the second to Rupert Murdoch turning up as a management trainee on the Birmingham Gazette where Green was subbing).
Green’s memoir will be especially entertaining to current and former hacks who, like me, have been there, done it and have the T-shirt. But it should also delight ‘civilians’.
Green’s name is perhaps better known as the author of a series of tongue-in-cheek ‘guides’ such as The Art Of Coarse Rugby and The Art Of Coarse Acting, neither of which I have so far read. Older folk in Britain might also recall his byline on The Observer for whom he worked as a respected rugby correspondent.
Green has the knack, that elusive ‘ingredient X’. It is necessary in many activities, but we don’t know what it is only. The only time we become aware of it is when it is absent.
Where other would-be ‘humorous’ writers are apt to kill an anecdote stone dead, Green, it seems almost effortlessly, teases out the humour and allows it to breathe for itself. And he does so only applying slight exaggeration. There is none of that sign-posting to ‘the funny bit’ which far too many writers indulge in to try to make sure ‘the joke’ is clear. Yes, mateys, the joke does become very clear indeed but it also becomes very unfunny if that is your approach.
The world of provincial newspapers Green describes is now, in 2024, almost 80 years ago and, pertinently was just after the war when life was still rationed and tough in Britain.
For example, no young person could ever afford to live in his or her own flat and taking girls back to your lodgings for a bit of hows-your-father was impossible. Shagging had to take place in the park or somewhere else public but discreet.
I didn’t start my ‘career’ – I always feel a fraud when I describe it like that – until 26 years after Green began his second stint on the Chronicle & Echo and life had changed a lot, and in the past fifty years has changed even more – the provincial press in Britain has been decimated. But a lot of the newspaper life Green led in those years – attending court and inquests, reporting on parish councils, dealing with sub-editors (as a reporter) – was still the same in my day.
This volume (and I have already ordered the first) is recommended: it avoids all the pitfalls others its kind are apt to trip into and will provide many a laugh. Go for it.
NB The title of Green’s book is taken from a competition that was said to have taken place on the subs’ bench of The Times. The subs tried to come up with the most boring headline they could think of. Nobody Hurt In Small Earthquake won.
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