It must have been 1984, the year after Kazuo Ishiguro published his first novel, A Pale View of Hills. Most of us hadn’t heard of him, but he came to the then Cannon HIll Arts Centre in Birmingham to run a workshop. He asked us to call him Ish.
It’s hard to imagine these days an author as eminent as Kazuo Ishiguro running a writing workshop with a set of hopefuls from the Midlands, but that is what happened. It was in the days when the only university writing course in the UK was at UEA, from which Ish had graduated a few years previously. We submitted samples of our writing and he (together with Robert McCrum) earnestly and kindly critiqued our efforts. He was generous and thoughtful; great things were expected of him in the literary world.
I bought a copy of his first book. Maybe I should have got him to sign it. It might have been worth a fortune now, especially as it has finally been turned into a film.
But I was more than delighted to come across this first edition of Philip Larkin’s HIgh Windows in Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford. It was in pride of place, in a locked cabinet of first editions and with a price tag of £82 or thereabouts. It was like coming across an old friend in an unexpected place, because I have that edition – that very one in my bookcase at home.
I would never sell it, of course.
I remember that workshop well, Jeff. He came across as a really nice guy and very encouraging to aspiring writers. I managed to embarrass him a bit by mentioning that I had read some of his early short stories, which were pretty dark. Hopefully he didn’t hold it against me though!
Hi Nick. I’d forgotten you were there too. Yes he was a good guy – very modest & thoughtful. I don’t think he’d have held that comment against you. I remember Beryl Bainbridge being there another time, but that’s another story.