How I got a book published in my eighties
Frank White tells Neil Armstrong why his third novel appeared 52 years after the last
Who wraps their book manuscript in brown paper and ties it up with string, wondered Jamie Hodder Williams, chief executive of publisher Hodder & Stoughton, opening the package that had landed on his desk.
Actually, who sends a physical manuscript at all in this digital era?
According to the title page, one Frank White. “I am a Hodder author,” the accompanying note read. “I am hoping you will consider my new novel.” Williams paused. Hodder didn’t have any authors called Frank White. But he read on: “I am 88 years old. You published my previous novel in 1965.”
Intrigued, Williams began reading the manuscript and Frank’s novel, his third, hit the shelves this summer.
A wonderful read, packed with incident, colour and detail, There Was a Time chronicles life in a fictional Lincolnshire village from June 1940 to New Year’s Eve, as the Battle of Britain raged and the Blitz began. Despite the privations and tensions it depicts, with many villagers fearing an imminent German invasion, it is gently elegiac.
Fifty-two years between books might not be a world record (Henry Roth – 60 years; Harper Lee – 55 years) but it is highly unusual. Frank, who will be 90 next week, explains the half-century gap when we meet at the Lincolnshire home he shares with his wife, June.
“I’d written two novels as a young man [in his late 30s] and as a result I was commissioned to write plays and was writer in residence at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln, for a time,” he says.
“However, writing was never my main focus. It didn’t guarantee an income. We managed to buy a vacuum cleaner with the proceeds of one of the novels. I had five children and had to make a living so I did other things.”
At various times he worked as a publican; for a trade magazine covering the textile industry; and as a publicity manager for companies in Rochdale and Bradford.
“As a writer, I thought I’d said everything I wanted to,” says Frank. “Then it dawned on me that I was probably one of the very few people left who could write about those days in 1940 after Dunkirk.”
The novel is perfect Sunday night TV material – surely an attractive proposition now, given the current success of Christopher Nolan’s Second World War blockbuster. Frank picks up in the weeks after the film ends: the nation was isolated, surrounded on three sides by the enemy, and braced for invasion any day.
“That air of confident optimism which had hung about people’s heads like a halo during the early days of the war – that conviction that it was only a matter of time before invincible Britain drove Hitler and his hordes from the face of the Earth – had been blown away by the icy wind from Dunkirk,” he writes. “In people’s eyes now you could see unmistakable signs of anxiety.” The book captures not just the alarm, but the stoicism and community spirit that marked this epoch-defining chapter in our nation’s long and colourful history.
“Those bad times were so important – ‘their finest hour’ – but they are rapidly disappearing from living memory, so I thought that while I was able to do so, I should have a go at it.”
It’s so vivid that I assumed it must have been based on Frank’s own experiences in a small village. In fact, he was born in Manchester in 1927, where as a 13-year-old, he witnessed the impact of the Blitz at close quarters, at one point getting strafed by a low-flying Heinkel.
His father Percy had fought in the First World War and his older brother William was killed in Mareth, Tunisia, in 1943. Frank joined the Royal Navy as soon as he was able to, in 1944 at the age of 17, and served in the British Pacific Fleet.
It was while in the Navy that he discovered he enjoyed writing, or “scribbling” as he puts it, sending long letters home to family and friends. He had his first short story published just after the war by a Sydney newspaper.
“I was paid the princely sum of one guinea,” he recalls. He and June, a dancer two years his junior, married in 1948 and now have 15 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
“Great-grandchildren just keep arriving,” says Frank. “We never know when another one’s going to turn up.”
Family photos battle for space with hundreds of books on the higgledypiggledy shelves of the couple’s cosy living room. Frank loves military history; June is a Dickens fan and is currently working her way through his oeuvre for the umpteenth time.
His other interests are sketching – his charming line drawings appear throughout There Was a Time – and cigarettes; half way through our interview, he asks if I mind if he temporarily retires to “the smoking room”, while June, who has been sitting with us in the living room, knitting, makes me a cup of tea strong enough to stand a spoon in. A former 30-a-day man, Frank can “get by on seven or eight Silk Cut – I’ve been smoking for so long it’d do me more harm than good to give up”. Both he and his wife are as sharp as tacks and appear to be in good physical shape.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Frank says, laughing. “I have had five heart attacks.” The most recent was five years ago.
Nevertheless, he is as sprightly an 89-year-old as I’ve met and June still has a dancer’s figure. What is their secret to enjoying life in old age?
“Optimism,” says June. “Having something to look forward to tomorrow – no matter how small.”
“It’s pressure,” says Frank. “Some small pressure on you to get up.”
“Also we eat healthily,” says June. “And we rarely drink these days.”
And they have each other. They will be celebrating their 68th wedding anniversary this year. “You have to be good friends,” says June.
“That’s the crucial thing,” agrees Frank. “We’re great pals. We do get on each other’s wick from time to time but I don’t think we’ve had any really cross words.”
Despite encouragement from June and his publisher, Frank is not working on another book. “I’ve told Hodder that it’s very unlikely,” he says. “A book has to come out of my innards. I have to feel it. I can’t just decide to write.”
His 1964 debut, A Morse Code Set, about the break-up of a marriage, was reissued as an e-book when There Was a Time came out – so he must soon be able to afford to update that vacuum cleaner?
“It is exciting,” says Frank, “but, to be honest, I see the book as a kind of farewell.” “No, Frank,” admonishes June, putting down her knitting and looking at him with concern.
“Hmm, perhaps that’s the wrong form of words,” Frank says, and thinks for a moment.
“It’s a song at twilight, that’s what it is. A song at twilight.”
‘We managed to buy a vacuum cleaner with the proceeds of one novel. It was no living’