Alan Watkins
When the literary editor asked me to participate in the same exercise last year, I forgot to mention one of the books I had most enjoyed: Patrick Devlin, Easing the Passing (Bodley Head). I can now remedy the omission both because I reread the work after seeing Timothy West's masterly impersonation of Dr Bodkin Adams on television and also because it is reissued in paperback. I see no reason why a presiding judge should not tell tales when he is retired from the bench and the leading characters are safely dead — though the latter consideration goes more to libel than to principle. One of the most interesting things is his account of how he and Lord Chief Justice Goddard discussed the hand- ling of the case beforehand. I never thought I should feel any sympathy for R. Manningham-Buller but Devlin manages to secure it: perhaps a defect in his approach. Reggie, unlike Devlin, ended his days as a conscientious, industrious Lord of Appeal when there was no need for him to do so. Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils (Hutchinson) I liked and admired but found diffculty in getting through. Partly, I suppose, this was because I thought I might end up in a similar state to his subjects' in ten years; partly too be- cause I found the various wives confusing and had to keep turning back to verify who was married to whom. Still, I can think of no one who has such a good ear for Welsh graduate English — or, for that matter, any other kind of English — as Amis. Jock Bruce-Gardyne's, Ministers and Mandarins (Sidgwick and Jackson) is a contribution to the understanding of government which has been under-reviewed, as was the excel- lent book he wrote with Nigel Lawson ten years ago, The Power Game. Bruce- Gardyne should think up, or persuade his publishers to think up, less catchpenny titles.
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