Doing Things for Nothing
IDON'T know who it was who said that "the best things in life are free " ; but I remember that my grandfather used to say that to me, when his reply to a request for money to go to the pictures or to buy sweets would be a suggestion that a glass of water and a good country walk would be very much better for me.
There are many rewards for being well known in such a medium as the wireless. That it would be idle to deny. But there are penalties as well. No one, I hope, would contradict that. It vq.s someone else, and again I cannot remember who it was, who said the time to worry about autograph-seekers would come when there were none. There is, however, a tremendous and inevitable exasperation in being asked, by people whom one has never met and will never see again, to scribble one's name on bits of paper and in books. But that costs one nothing. What does cost a lot is to answer innumerable letters and to acknow- ledge the receipt of suggestions from people who seem to have unlimited leisure at their disposal and a curious disregard for other people's patience and pockets. I am still hoping to find the courage to refuse to answer any letter which asks for informa- tion, for photographs and for tickets for radio shows, unless the writer sends a stamped and addressed envelope. Why should one add to the expense and irritation of one's life ? Why does one go on doing it ? , In the answering of casual letters, in the attempt to give mani- festly useless information, there lies little reward except the same negative satisfaction of feeling that at least one has taken the trouble to write to people who have taken the trouble to write to one. It is quite different when one is asked to effect an introduction ; to make use of one's "contacts," or to give advice about things which one really understands. Then there is a• feeling of real contribution to someone else's happiness (and sometimes success as well) ; and then it really is worth while. It is useful to know the habits and idiosyncrasies of B.B.C. pro- ducers and executives. Some detest approaches by telephone ; others insist on it. There are those who abominate introductions or requests made at a bar over a glass of beer ; others are responsive to no other means of approach. Some of them answer all their letters ; others answer none.
Then there is the "public appearance," or the answering of questions or the giving of information about oneself to people who want to write articles about "personalities." I now find that what someone told me two or three years ago is true—that the things one doesn't-get paid for are Infinitely more exasperating and annoying, more irritating and pnrewarding than the " engage- ments " which carry a fee—however small. I am not ,induly modest, but I always have an uncomfortable feeling that when I am asked to open a Methodist bazaar in the Midlands or an Episcopalian fête in Argyllshire, the organisers are indeed scrap- ing the very bottom of the barrel. I have also found that when one gets to these places (and sometimes one does) one's arrival and presence are all that matters. Responsibility for one's con- venience or entertainment is in no one's hands. One just makes a dreary round of the stalls, buying unwanted things for more than one can really afford to pay—then the limp handshake, "How good of you to come—you can find your way to the station, can't you ? "
The other day I was asked to go to take part in some function to do with child guidance and happy marriage. When I wrote (at my own expense) to say that, being unmarried and childless, I felt that my views would be worthless, the organiser telephoned to me early the following morning to denounce me for my unmarried and childless state, and to tell me that my letter "just didn't make sense." Am Ito be exposed to this kind of rudeness because the B.B.C. asks me, perhaps far too often, to broad- cast ?
A woman rang me up to ask me to " christen " a monkey. I said I would do nothing of the kind—and I said so with some acerbity. Christen, indeed! What next ? But there came a sharp note of rebuke to me for my insolence and ill-temper, for which, since the rebuke was well-founded, I felt I had to apologise. More time wasted, more money (however little) spent, in bearing the burden of notoriety.
If only one had been born in a "dark, unfathomed cave of ocean" ! Oh for the desert air on which to waste one's sweetness!
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