A few years ago, a colleague’s daughter who had just completed a degree in Italian and Arabic, was given a four-month internship in a large London publishing house.

She understood that it was a business and so of course sales and numbers of books sold were a critical issue for them. She was though disappointed – if not shocked – that the staff had absolutely zero interest in the contents of their books. They had extravagant or hyperbole- stuffed blurbs to trot out when required, but these were either wholly insincere or at any rate, much overblown. 

With her boss out at lunch, she took a call from an agent who represented various celebrities. He said that the television presenter they had cited was willing for them to put ‘Hilarious’ followed by his name on the front cover of a certain new novel, for £20,000. 

And book rankings, a position in the ‘highly recommended’ or ‘top ten’? Again, money will fix it.

‘Disenchanted’ is perhaps the word best used to describe her experience. Afterwards she went to work at a bird sanctuary on Ascension Island.

On my bookshelf are two old books, one on the old gas-lit theatre in North Shields – where I once lived – and another by a retired policeman whose career spanned the years 1929 to 1955. Neither are written very fluently, yet their deep authenticity is so engaging.   You really do want to know about the characters in the stories . They are untainted by current fashion or any need to conform and this originality makes it all worth unpicking.

A psychologist showed me the ‘profound’ new novel he is reading, where it seems the heroine’s complex mental health issues are being glamorised. The authoress’s picture on the back cover looks like a drag queen in a blonde wig who might have grown stubble by the morning. No thanks.

Why is anything not arty, looked down upon? There is a place for simple entertainment, although we can easily grow bored with the ‘sameness’ of much of the trend- compliant fiction on offer, as too with many television productions. 

A bricklayer in the fifties, who enjoyed reading cowboy stories, decided to write one himself. The publisher whom he sent it to, said that it was too bland and lacked sufficient action. His second attempt began, ‘Bang bang bang. Three bodies slumped to the floor of the saloon.’ He went on to write sixty-three Westerns. 

The ‘cultured’ types would certainly sniff at such simplistic ‘Boy’s Own’ or ‘heroes and villains’ stuff, yet it is somehow less pretentious, less inverted than much modern output and usually a lot more fun … something we seem to be losing sight of. 

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