Stagy coaches
Richard Ingrams
English Journey J. B. Priestley (Heinemann £12.95) An English Journey Beryl Bainbridge (Duckworth £7.95)
Too many journeys are undertaken nowadays for purely literary motives. There ought to be a strong dose of curiosity or at least restlessness, an urge to travel and see the world rather than a cold calculation to write a travel book. As usually happens with books about trips round England, one thinks of Cobbett and Rural Rides, the pro- totype of all such works. He was a man consumed by curiosity and indignation. Just imagine him lunching with his publisher — 'I've got a great idea for my next book — riding round the country on my horse!'
Beryl Bainbridge was sent round England
last year with a BBC television crew to make a series of programmes. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the publication of J. B. Priestley's book English Journey, the idea being for Miss Bainbridge to follow in his footsteps and see how things had changed since 1934. She is a nice, unpreten- tious sort of writer with a boozy, have-a-go attitude which sometimes reminds one a lit- tle of Dorothy Parker. Even so, it is hard to see why she thought it was a good idea to traipse round England with a camera team except as a means of making money. The only advantage of the television camera is its 'Open Sesame' propensities. With a BBC crew you will be admitted to places which would bar the door to an ordinary traveller. In fact, there are times when Miss Bain- bridge becomes a bit like a member of the Royal Family going round factories asking questions like 'And how long have you worked here?' But the disadvantages are enormous. One of the reasons why televi- sion remains so bad, so limited and so in- capable of filming intimate and unrehears- ed scenes is that all producers and writers are hamstrung by the need to employ an eight-man film crew, when it could be done as well by two, or even one. This union agreement makes it fairly impossible for the traveller to follow his nose, which is what travel is all about. With the eight-man crew everything has to be planned well in ad- vance and in places where they can operate with their bulky and obsolete equipment.
Miss Bainbridge's book follows not only Priestley but her own television series. Nor is it clear how many of her digressions were her own idea. Given the ways of the BBC, I suspect that a lot of the impetus came from the producer. I doubt if she especially wanted to talk to the Rev. David Sheppard or go round the ICI factory in Stockton. Miss Bainbridge does not seem particularly interested in social issues, preferring to sit in dark old churches having a fag. By far the best thing in the book is her account of her early days in Liverpool and her memories of her father, none of which had much to do with the television series.
But what of her great precursor, J. B. Priestley OM? He journeyed round in 1934 less conspicuously, in a Daimler and by train. All the same, there is something very stagy about his progress as though he is not a traveller by necessity but a man playing a part. Certainly, he is too wrapped up in himself to be sufficiently curious about the lives of other people. And too often his sturdy, well-fashioned prose reminds one of those anonymous slabs that used to con- front one in English language exams with a list of questions underneath — 'Why does the author find Hull a "sound and sen- sible" city?' The remarkable thing about English Journey was that, when first published, it apparently inspired a number of photographers to visit industrial areas in the North of England. This new edition is illustrated with 80 of their black and white pictures. Carefully selected and positioned, I found them more illuminating and evocative than the text.
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