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The Last Lap

Friday, 13th April, 2018

As anyone whose ever had to write a book to a deadline will know, the closer it gets to that deadline the more reasons you find to make coffee, check your email, catch up on the last 15 minutes of that irresistible podcast, stare out of the window, or if you’re feeling really energetic, go to sleep. I’ve been fighting these psychological battles rather a lot recently, but thanks largely to the grumpy weather, I’ve never been tempted to stray far from my desktop, and I can report that after eight months of concentration, my book is just about complete.

Erebus research trip to the North West Passage August 2017.
Left: Greenland. Taken on the flight from London to Vancouver. Right: Rock stacks on King Leopold Island. It looks silent but home to thousands of birds and one of the noisest places on Earth.

It’s to be called Erebus The Story of a Ship and it’s my first foray into historical non-fiction. I think the reason I’ve been able to complete it at all is because I have grown more and more fascinated by the story. The more detail you unearth, the more you realise what exciting times those were in the 1840’s, when crews crowded onto small ships to explore the Great Unknown.

Left: Arriving at Resolute. One of the most northerly airports in the world. Right: Remnants of the old US refueling station at Resolute. Now living sculptures.

Left: I was given the pilot’s cabin. Right: Walking in the arctic can get quite warm.

The story is about facing the unknown, and Erebus did that not once but twice. Her Antarctic journey was a triumph. Her Arctic journey was a disaster. And three and a half years ago, she turns up again, in pretty good shape, on the seabed in the Canadian Arctic. All the elements for a great tale. I cross my fingers that the eight months writing has not been wasted. I have a terrific editor who is helping me whip it into final shape, so as spring struggles through and our resident flock of house sparrows perform gymnastic mating feats outside my window, I’m feeling in upbeat mood. Watch this space!

Beechey Island. Two of the graves of the first men to die on the Franklin expedition 1846.

The Death of Stalin is out there in the wider world, except if you’re in Russia, where it remains banned. The opening figures in the USA are promising, though I felt a bit like one of Stalin’s victims when I found they’d removed my face from the US poster. Still, maybe it’ll make it easier for me to get a Russian visa!

Hope you’re all well out there. Please keep in touch.

Working with Whitehouse. Or rather not working. Waiting in the Gents Cloakroom to be called on to the Death Of Stalin set. August 2016. Nice suits. Sorry about the plastic bottle!!

Erebus Sails on into the New Year

Friday, 5th January, 2018

Shocked to see that my most recent post was in mid-October. Where has the time gone ? Well, it’s been mostly used up sitting in front of my desktop waiting for words of genius and brilliance to materialise on the screen in front of me. And waiting, and waiting. This writing books thing is unspectacular and very un-visual but, as they say, someone’s got to do it.

The good news is that I passed the halfway point on my Erebus book in early December and my editor has seen it and is still talking to me, which has spurred me on to return to the keyboard and finish the thing. I’m enjoying it. Especially the glass of wine with which I reward myself at the end of each day’s scribbling. Unlike a novel, which is all in your head, the story of the adventures of Erebus in the Polar wastes is in library archives and learned books, and digging out the facts is time-consuming, and seemingly endless. But very rewarding and often exciting.

Left: The waterfront, Porto. Right: The Cathedral at Viseu.

The exhibition Death In The Ice, just finishing at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, has remarkable video footage of marine archaeologists exploring the sunken wreck of the Erebus, discovered in 2014, 30 feet below the surface of the Arctic waters, and I was lucky enough to meet and share a lunch with Ryan Harris, the leading diver and the first man to see Erebus for 170 years. Every now and then I do have to gasp with wonder, which I hope will transfer to the page ! All being well, it’s still on course for publication in September 2018.

Top: Christmas in the Streets of Viseu. Surprised couple! Bottom: Believe it or not, this is a railway station. Sao Bento Station in Porto.

I took a few days off in early December to accept an invitation to a literary festival at Viseu in Portugal. It’s a small but attractive old town about two hours drive from Porto (now there’s a place worth visiting. Rising steeply from the river and delightful to explore). Viseu endeared itself to me for two reasons. One is that the full title of their event was the Festival of Literature and Wine, and perhaps more importantly, because its football team are called the Academicals. Hamilton Academicals – you have a Portuguese rival! If only they could be drawn together in some European competition!

Left: Fame at last! Viseu, Portugal, December 2017. Right: With Leonor and Luis, my two guardians at the Viseu Festival of Books and Wine.

I’ve one of those “Life On Screen” things coming up – on Sunday night Jan 7th, BBC2 – which reminds me of how old I am and how much I’ve done and how I would like to do it all over again. Hope you’ll enjoy it.

Now, back to the book. Happy New Year to you all.

Death of Stalin Day

North-West Passage

Following The Fleet

Monday, June 19th 2017

Whoever thought writing was a sedentary activity should have been with me these past few weeks. Since my week in the Falkland Islands in March, my researches into the saga of HMS Erebus have taken me to Pembroke Dockyard in Wales, where the ship was built 190 years ago, to the Orkney Islands, the last sight of home for the ill-fated crew of Franklin’s Arctic expedition, and just last week to Hobart, Tasmania which was the base for Erebus’s most successful voyages, into the heart of the Antarctic.

Top: The men who built HMS Erebus in 1826 would have walked through these very same gates at Pembroke Dockyard. Bottom: With my guide, historian Ted Goddard, at Pembroke Dockyard Museum.

A lot of the places where my story is set are remote corners of the world, so it takes a while to get there, but one thing they have in common is an almost unpolluted atmosphere. It’s quite a shock to look up into the heavens above Port Stanley or Western Australia (where I went to a Writers Festival on my way to Hobart) and see the sheer mass of flickering, sparkling light that fills the skies. Its a sight that takes the breath away, and one we big city dwellers never get to see.

Top left: Shop that’s changed hands. Stromness, Orkney Islands. Bottom leftt: Arctic explorer John Rae lies in St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall with his gun by his side. Right: Some of the houses at Stromness are so tightly wedged together that they have to shave a bit off the bottom of the building to let people through.

The only trouble is that I know that soon I’m going to have to stop travelling and sit down and write my book. Instead of seeing stars I’ll be seeing spellcheck. Ah, well, I’ve always enjoyed the writing process. Not that it’s always as smooth as it seems. I recently had to sort through my writings that date back more than 50 years, to try and decide which to send to the British Library archive. In the end I gave up and sent everything.

Orkney Islands. Interior of a chapel inside a Nissen Hut built and decorated by Italian prisoners in the Second World War using whatever they could find on the Islands.

So many of the best Python ideas sprang from squiggles and doodles and crossings out, that what I was giving the British Library was bound to be a bit of a mess, but a kind of productive mess, which they would sort out. And they seemed very happy to do that. The fact that all my Python material was hand-written, and then re-written, and then chopped up and inserted into someone else’s sketch didn’t seem to worry them. And it doesn’t really worry me any more. I’m an obsessively tidy person, and yet it’s the untidiness of the Python sketches that reveals the thought processes behind them.

Late afternoon on the Huon River, in Tasmania’s Deep South. The settlement by the water is called Franklin, and they build the most beautiful woooden boats there. They give lessons in boat -building. Check out The Wooden Boat Centre.

In Hobart, capital of Tasmania, even the telephone junction boxes are works of art. Come on London, catch up!

“Don’t tidy up histery’ I wrote in my notebook, and then crossed it out and wrote it again, spelling “history” right.

Hope you all have a really great summer – and for those in the southern hemisphere, a really great winter.

Spring Into Action

A Weekend In Pakistan

Saturday, February 25th, Lahore

I’m just back from the Lahore Literary Festival in Pakistan. I first visited the city in 2003 when we were filming the Himalaya series for the BBC. I fondly remember its noise and beauty and bustle and when Razi Ahmed invited me to the Literary Festival I was instantly tempted. I flew to Lahore last Thursday night. Unfortunately that morning there had been another explosion in the city and the police were worried that the big Alhamra Arts Centre might be a target, so the Festival had been transferred to a local hotel. Despite the news that the explosion was an accident, not a terrorist attack, the police were taking no risks and with only 15 hours to go to the opening event, the location had to be changed yet again and the entire three-day programme reduced to one day.

The fact that the Festival took place at all was a triumph for Razi and his team. Overnight they transformed the 135-year old Faletti’s Hotel into three auditoriums and space for a few thousand people to congregate.

At the Festival with fellow delegate Salam Kawakibi.

And it worked. I was on stage with novelist Kamila Shamsie at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning. In the audience were some of the many Monty Python fans from all over Pakistan. Despite all the security concerns I was welcomed and made to feel at home and the perfect weather and great cast of fellow writers made it a memorable day in Lahore. It ended when a PowerPoint presentation of highlights from my Himalaya series was brought to a Pythonically abrupt halt when a crouched figure emerged from the audience and handed me a piece of paper with a message that read : “Sir, Time Is Over. Please Finish. Thanks. Lahore Police” I assumed this was something John Cleese had organised and made a joke about going on for another hour. Within ten seconds my mike was unplugged and the power supply switched off. It wasn’t a joke. The Lahore Police had the last word.

By then the Festival had done its work and brought thousands of people together on a beautiful day in a fine city to hear about books and writing and to exchange ideas and meet other people with open minds. The great sadness was that many local writers had their sessions cancelled because of the shortening of the event.

I only hope that the authorities in Lahore realise what a treasure the Literary Festival is for the city and will persevere with it in the future.

Literary Festivals are ten a penny these days but the Lahore Literary Festival is something special. Long may it last.

Sightseeing in Lahore. Wazir Khan Mosque, one of the many architectural wonders of the city.

Python and Pakistan

One of the most extraordinary stories about the early life of Python is that Pakistan was one of the first countries to buy Monty Python’s Flying Circus from the BBC. After showing the first 13 episodes they complained bitterly that there were no clowns, acrobats, bareback riders or performing elephants in the Circus and demanded their money back. So it was very satisfying for me to find that nearly fifty years on there are so many Pakistanis who love the real thing and who know the Dead Parrot sketch off by heart.