Name: -
David Whittle
Job: -
Author
Introduction:
-
David
Whittle is the biographer of Bruce Montgomery, who is better known to detective
fiction readers (especially of the Golden Age era) as Edmund Crispin. He is a
classically trained musician but is also involved in folk and big band music.
He was the Director of Music for 32 years at Leicester Grammar School.
Current
book? (This can either be the current book that you are reading or writing or
both)
I am in
the middle of the very informative Perry: A Drinker’s Guide by Adam Wells (I
organize the cider and perry bar at my local CAMRA beer festival) and have just
finished Midsummer Murder by Cecil Wills (I review for Mystery People). Mixing
business with pleasure? No, just pleasure.
Favourite
book:
There are
too many. I have recently reminded myself how much I love The Bachelors (Les
Celibataires) by Henry de Montherlant. It follows the decline of two elderly and
impecunious members of the aristocracy who, like more or less everyone else in
the book (and certainly members of their family) are disagreeably lazy,
feckless, eccentric, mean, anxious, cantankerous, snobbish and malevolent,
amongst many other unappealing yet somehow comic traits. How can you not take
to the sort of characters who will, for instance, order a daily newspaper ‘with
the sole intention of forcing this excellent man [the local postman] to walk
sixteen kilometres daily from the post office to the château and back.’ As the
novel memorably states about one character, an ageing count: ‘It was
malevolence that kept him alive, for malevolence, like alcohol, is a
preservative.’ Another French novel, Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier,
detailing the comic repercussions from the mayor’s decision to build a public
urinal in the village square, is also much loved. Appropriately, this year, I
am a great admirer of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time (I wrote
one of my few fan letters to him about it). If all else fails it would have to
be The Code of the Wooster’s by PG Wodehouse.
Which two
musicians would you invite to dinner and why?
Just two
seems a bit mean! One would have to be Bruce Montgomery (‘Edmund Crispin’) for
the obvious reason that I’d like to see how accurate my portrait of him is in
the biography, even if presumably he’d drink me out of house and home and I
wouldn’t remember much as I’d be sloshed after half an hour. The other would-be
JS Bach. For organists like me his music is a (the?) high point of the
repertoire and I would enjoy telling him that I spent five years learning and
performing all his surviving organ works (everyone else is fed up with me going
on about it). There are one or two questions about performance practice that I
would like to ask him before Montgomery gets going with the booze.
How do
you relax?
I am a
keen birdwatcher but like to have a good walk whilst doing so (I am not one of
those who stands for hours in the same spot with a telescope), preferably near
marshes as nothing beats a good swamp - that’s what coming from the Wash does
for you. Most Saturdays in the season are taken up with football as I have a season
ticket at Boston United, and also go to Derby County sometimes. And, of course,
reading.
Which
book do you wish you had written and why?
One of
the ones I have listed above for the reason that I admire them.
What
would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.
Just get
on with it. Ideas are all very well, but you have to put in the slog.
How would
you describe your latest published book?
I have
only one published book, although I have contributed to a number of others. The
rather inelegantly titled Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music
and Books has sections examining the music which are a bit specialized, but
they can always be skipped. I hope the biographical chapters and examinations
of the novels keep the general reader entertained.
With A
Dance to the Music of Crime: the artful crime to murder being the theme at St
Hilda's this year, which are you three favourite albums?
Another
impossible question, the answer to which varies almost from hour to hour, but
here’s today’s list:
1] I am
currently enjoying the complete chamber music of Gabriel Fauré.
2] The
Atomic Mr Basie (a high point of big band jazz)
3] No
Rush by Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham (they are not all by him, but nobody can
write slow airs like Phil Cunningham).
If you
were given the ability to join a band which, would it be and why?
I have
had the fun of playing the piano with the Syd Lawrence Orchestra (only as a
guest for a couple of numbers!), but I think I’d relish playing the piano with
the wonderful Scottish group Session A9. They give traditional music a really
good modern drive and it can be very exhilarating (they play lovely slow tunes
too).
If you
were to re-attend a concert which, would it be and why.
It would
be the last UK appearance of the great Count Basie and his Orchestra at the
Royal Festival Hall in 1982 (he died two years later). I was in my first job
teaching at a boarding school on the Devon/Dorset border, so it was more or
less impossible to get out during the week, particularly as I only had a 95cc
motor bike. I managed, though, to get to it (not on the bike!) but my memory of
the evening is now rather hazy. I would love to experience it again, even if
only to take proper note of who the band members were.
What are
you looking forward to at St Hilda's?
I have a
lot to thank St Hilda’s for, as the first time I spoke about Crispin was there
in 1994 when my research was in their relative infancy. I met a lot of people
who encouraged me to keep going, so I am looking forward to meeting some of them
again as well as meeting new like-minded people and hearing the other speakers.
I am particularly looking forward to having a chat with Jake Lamar as I
relished Viper’s Dream.
Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music
and Books
by David Whittle (Taylor and Francis) Out Now
Under his real name,
Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978) wrote concert music and the scores for almost 50
feature films, including some of the most enduring British comedies of the
twentieth century, amongst them a number in the series started by Doctor in the
House and the first six Carry On films. Under the pseudonym of Edmund Crispin,
he enjoyed equal success as an author, writing nine highly acclaimed detective
novels and a number of short crime stories, as well as compiling anthologies of
science fiction which helped to increase the profile of the genre. A close
friend of both Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis, Montgomery did much to
encourage their work. In this first biography of Montgomery, David Whittle
draws on interviews with people who knew the writer and composer. These
interviews, together with in-depth research, provide great insight into the
development of Montgomery as a crime fiction writer and as a composer in the
ever-demanding world of films. During the late 1950s and early '60s these
demands were to prove too much for Montgomery. Alcoholism combined with the
onset of osteoporosis and a retreat into a semi-reclusive lifestyle resulted in
him writing and composing virtually nothing during the last 15 years of his
life.
Information
about 2024 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend and how to book online
tickets can be found here.
