This interview with Jim Younger was first published in
2006.
Where were you born and raised?
Elephant
and Castle, London, in a transpontine hovel in Elliot’s Row - until I was just
turned seven and my ma and pa (Jim and Mary) moved us down to Crawley in Sussex
They moved to get a decent house so they could have me sleeping in a different
room and get the chance to engage in marital relations more often. My dad was a
postman and told me that we were going to the Sussex Downs where he’d be riding
a horse to deliver the mail, and of course I believed him. I had lucid dreams
where I saw it all. But that was my dad - a real wind-up merchant. He loved to
take the piss. When we travelled to Scotland on the coach in the early to mid
50s, the coach had a badge of a Red Indian Chief on the radiator grille. I was
fascinated by this, so he told me we would be travelling through Injun country
the next morning. I woke up and looked to the hills expecting to see tomahawk
warriors riding down to scalp us. Quite a comedian, my dad. Don’t get me started on my mum.
What was it that first got
you into writing and when did you start writing?
Ah,
dear God, I think it was the Gospels - and pantomime. When I was about four, my
dad was in an outfit called The Guild of the Blessed Sacrament. We went to
Wembley Stadium, mob-handed with all the other Catholics, for the Easter show -
a commemoration of Christ’s Passion. Now, my favourite stories in the Gospel
were (and still are): first, the one where the Apostles are out fishing and
catch nothing, then Jesus appears and says ‘boys, you’re doing it wrong, cast
your net over the other side of the boat’ - and they have a fine old catch.
Then they get on the beach and cook up the fish - fresh, so fresh - on an open
fire in the early morning. Magic.
And
second, but my best favourite of all and the one that’s relevant here: the
Crucifixion. Now, when I was four, I thought Easter was like Christmas, and
just like Santa appearing year after year, so Jesus was crucified year after
year - I took it literally. So I was expecting to see three guys nailed up on
crosses in Wembley Stadium. And I remember standing on the terraces, at the end
of it all, in a welter of fag packets and other litter, so forlorn I was, and
bitterly disillusioned and disappointed that there was no Crucifixion. My dad
and his comrades were striking their banner and taking out their long-neck
bottles, ready for a spree - and I was sobbing my heart out.
And
pantomime - that’s where I first saw the “principal boy” (a woman, of course)
with those long, long legs, and that was one of the first triggers to sexual
fantasy which is a prime motive in my work. Also, I thought the sets were real,
and there was a labyrinth of tunnels and corridors behind the backdrop. So
there you have it - what with dad the piss-taker, the disillusion with religion
(but me still saturated in intense superstition which lingers and endures) and
sex and hidden corridors - there you have the makings of a comic gothic writer
- which is, broadly, what I am, although it took me years to know it. All by
the age of seven.
Which writers have influenced you the most?
See
the answer to 2 (above). My point would be that my main influences are
oral. My dad and mum told stories
(my mum was the best ghost story teller I’ve ever heard … I’ll tell you more
about her another day), I heard the Gospel in church and later at school - and
pantomime is oral, too. Then television - I saw TV properly for the first time
the Friday that ITV started up. And the cinema - my parents took me to the
Trocadero (occasionally the ABC over the road) every Saturday night from when I
was a babe in arms. The film that made the biggest impact on me was Moby Dick -
so that’s where I first encountered Melville (in attenuated form), and I would
have to cite Melville as one of my touchstones. But I’m running ahead here,
because I was 23 before I read Moby Dick. Before then I’d read all of the
Orwell I could find (1984 and Animal Farm by age 11) - a lot of Wells - Joyce: Dubliners, Portrait,
Ulysses. I could ramble on about
this. All the Doctor Doolittle
books (except for the very first, which I could never find in the library), E.
Nesbit, RLS. I read The Time Machine when I was 9 - and it was queer, I
couldn’t figure it, but I knew I had to master it, so I read it again and again
and again until it clicked. That’s what I do to this day. If I like a writer I
study really hard on that writer - I’m like a mechanic, who can strip down an
engine and put it back blindfold - and believe me, I know I’m bragging but I
aint exaggerating. But I don’t
have much time for lit crit - I did a degree in English, but it was touch and
go. Don’t get me wrong - I know what scholarship is, and I admire it, I read
the TLS every week. I studied with some real sharp commentators at York. But I’m not a scholar myself.
Now,
who else? There’s a whole autobiography to be told around books - how De
Quincey saved my life … the women writers I admire (but who, strangely, I would
not cite as direct influences) particularly Doris Lessing who is a genius … and
Edgar Poe, and Joe Orton, two big influences, for comedy. Poe is a scream, one
of the geniuses. When I was at York, there were lecturers who didn’t get Poe at
all (and there’s more than one Poe, of course) - so all honour to those French
cats who got hep to the divine Edgar early on. And Dickens for his superb
control of tone - nobody changes gear like Dickens - and on and on and on and
on. Oh yes, Erskine Caldwell - ‘Tobacco Road’ is the only one I’ve got hold of
so far - so funny, when I read it the bed was shaking.
But folk song and ballads, and
storytelling are so much a part of me, they influence me without me even
drawing breath. So, like I say, oral oral oral. The ‘hero’ of ‘High John the Conqueror’ is called
Lingus McWhinny, so draw your own conclusions. Funnily enough, I am an
intensely ‘literary’ writer. It just doesn’t show!
Where do you stand on the
nature v. nurture debate? Were you born a writer, or were there factors in your
environment that enabled you to become a writer?
See
the answer to 2 (above). To be honest, I think a lot of it - like music - is in
the genes, but how would I know? I
think an ancestor of mine was John Younger of
Kelso, Scotland, who was
a celebrated working class writer (in a minor way) back in the 19thC - he was a
shoemaker (and a postal worker!) but what he was best known for, was being an
expert on fly fishing and the making of flies. He wrote “River fishing for
Salmon and Trout” and “A Working Man’s Guide to the Sabbath”. I’ve seen the
“Salmon” but not the “Sabbath”. I suspect it’s a piss-take (it runs in the
family).
There are a lot of courses
teaching creative writing nowadays, but do you think that good writing can be
taught?
I
think some people might be able to do it. I don’t know how. There was a huge explosion in courses a
few years ago - where did all those experts suddenly come from? I reckon they
were redundant chemistry teachers. What I could do, would be to help people
analyse texts - their own and others. I don’t know about the self-expression
side of it - the imagination. So for me, it wouldn’t be much different from
teaching Language and Literature which I used to do in an FE college. A good
place to start is Shakespeare! I didn’t mention him earlier - he’s a ‘given’,
like on Desert Island Discs. You think you can write? Take a look at the
immortal bard - just don’t let any actors get in the way.
Have you entered writing
competitions? If so, have you won any prizes?
No,
and so clearly if I had won one, it would be a ******* miracle. No inclination. I don’t enter fiddle
contests either. I do the lottery - shit, I forgot the EuroLotto tonight.
Do you have any short
stories or poems published online? (If so, please provide the URLs):
No -
don’t see the point for me, because what I do is novels. I can’t write short stories, although I
have tried (but I’m not so hot) and as for poems, no. Why not though, for other
people? If it floats your boat. But I like to write on-line, posting in various
forums where I sometimes have a cyber-identity as opposed to my meat-space
persona. That’s a friendly, oral sort of thing - but to put worked fiction up,
no. Oh hang on, I did do a memoir piece for the WriteWords memoir group - called
‘Angel’ a TRUE story about a true encounter with, guess what, an Angel. I might
do some more there. I post on
WriteWords, and Zoetrope in Jai Clare’s room where I’m kindly invited, and
Elspeth Graty’s too. Those are fun places with intelligent talented company. Jai
is a very good writer indeed.
What kind of things do you write?
Novels. Orally, doggerel. I constantly make up ribald songs as I
walk the streets. Reports at work. Submissions to Govt Ministers. Long, reasoned emails teasing the ins
and outs of policy making.
What, for you, is the best piece of prose that you have ever written?
“Fair
Game for the Whole Hog”, my new book I’m working on. Whether I’ll try to
publish it, remains to be seen, it’s so ludicrous. But “High John the
Conqueror” is pretty good - and more mainstream.
What are you working on now?
“Fair
Game for the Whole Hog”. I
describe it as “H.E. Bates’s Larkin family meet the Marquis De Sade in a remake
of Carry on Sailor” - and yes, I know there never was a “Carry on Sailor” -
Carry on Jack, and Carry on Admiral, yes. But it’s pitcher’s licence.
What is your writing day like?
Sporadic - and focused. Rain with scattered showers.
Where would you like to be in 10 years time?
Still
alive and healthy with my family (Gail and Luke) and pickin’ partners around
and a fiddle on my arm and a bow in my hand playing ‘Black Sally Goodin’
(Missouri tune from Bill Katon, African-American fiddler), with a jug of punch
at my head and feet.
What’s the most exciting thing about writing for you?
Strewth,
I don’t think exciting is the word, it’s such a long slog. But I think the
moment when I know I’m about to close on something unique.
What’s the most frustrating thing about writing for you?
Writing
- and years of people saying “great, but what the **** is this?”
What’s the best piece of
feedback that you’ve had from your audience?
Still
to come. But I think when I was playing in Holland with Shirley Collins and in
the interval I told the woman behind the bar it was my birthday. And when we
opened the second set, the audience sang ‘Happy birthday’ to me.
Do you write for a particular audience, or is your
first priority to satisfy your own creativity?
I write
to entertain. H.G. Wells is my model in that. The reader comes first. Of
course, you can’t please everyone, so you have to create the ideal reader in
your head. And that’s a version of me, I suppose.
Do you have a homepage? If so, what’s the URL?
No.
Maybe one day - but what’s there to say? Except thanks for the interest, and I
hope you enjoy the book. If you do, tell others, if you don’t, for God’s sake,
keep it to yourself!
