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*

Wry, ironic and subversive, why Len Deighton is my second favourite writer after Hemingway 

The Literary Editor of the Sunday Express sidled over to my desk and, in a conspiratorial stage-whisper, asked: “How would you like to interview Len Deighton?”


Oh, boy, would I? Deighton, creator of Harry Palmer, the character Michael Caine made his own in films starting with The Ipcress File, would have been about 80 at the time (he’s 95 now). He has given few interviews, so this was manna from heaven for a Sunday paper.


In the end, it never happened. Deighton was taken ill and could not fly over from his home in California. Shame, I had so many questions I wanted to ask him.


After Hemingway, he is probably my favourite writer and certainly the best writer of spy fiction who ever lived. Yes, better than le Carré, better than Fleming – the daddy of them all.


His writing is wry, ironic, subversive. His characters, especially Palmer, were working-class heroes constantly battling the Establishment. Early in Ipcress, we meet his boss, Ross.


“Ross and I had come to an arrangement of some years’ standing – we had decided to hate each other. Being English, this vitriolic relationship manifested itself in oriental politeness.”


Ross, we learn, is a regular officer – “that is to say he didn’t drink gin after 7.30pm or hit ladies without first removing his hat.”


The Harry Palmer novels and his friendship with Caine – which pre-dated the films – made Deighton famous and for a while he partied with the stars. But he soon realised where this was leading; he stopped giving interviews and sobered up.


“Two things destroy writers: Praise and alcohol,” he said.


Deighton’s books were deeply researched, complex and byzantine in their plotting. So much so that a man called Edward Milward-Oliver wrote a book called The Len Deighton Companion, detailing every character in Deighton’s novels, all the settings, even the acronyms used in the War Office.


Deighton provided a sly puff which is quoted on the cover: “Whenever I need to know something about my books, I call him. His detailed knowledge is extraordinary.”


Deighton was born in Marylebone, London, in 1929, the son of a chauffeur and a cook who worked for Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. They lived above the garage in a mews behind Dodgson’s grand house in Montagu Square.


After National Service, Deighton worked as a railway clerk, a BOAC steward and a Press photographer. Then he studied at the Royal College of Art and became a successful illustrator. He started writing The Ipcress File while on holiday and sold it to Hodder and Stoughton just as Fleming’s James Bond was changing the literary landscape.


He went on to produce 27 novels, including three trilogies starring a spy called Bernard Samson and a prequel to these, Winter, which knitted together the backgrounds of the protagonists. An absolutely extraordinary maze. No wonder we needed a reference book.


Deighton never saw his Harry Palmer character as an anti-hero. He told the Daily Telegraph that he thought of him as “a romantic, incorruptible figure in the mould of Philip Marlowe”.


Michael Caine was brilliant in the role in the 1965 film. But did you know that the part was going to go to Harry H Corbett? That’s right, Harold Steptoe in Steptoe and Son.


As well as a novelist, Deighton was a military historian and his non-fiction works included Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain. His love of historical research also informed his novels Bomber and SS-GB.


Taught culinary skills by his mother, he wrote a cookery strip for The Observer, which he illustrated himself, and later turned it into Len Deighton’s Action Cookbook.


He also produced and wrote the script for Dickie Attenborough’s Oh! What a Lovely War but fell out with the film crowd and asked that his name be taken off the credits.


What a career, what a writer. I guess I’ll never meet him now and I shall die regretting it.


*****


There is a fine line between Christian sentiment and political evangelising – and Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, keeps on crossing it.


In his latest sally into the moral maze, Welby attacks the child benefit cap, which limits it to two children. It is cruel, he says, neither moral nor necessary and falls short of the values of our society.


Welby told the Observer: “It denies the truth that all children are of equal and immeasurable worth, and will have an impact on their long-term health, wellbeing and educational outcomes.


“Children should grow up in families and households where they can flourish and be supported to find their place in the world. Yet the two-child limit prevents many from accessing the resources they need.”


He went on: “As a meaningful step towards ending poverty, and recognising the growing concern across the political spectrum, I urge all parties to commit to abolishing the two-child limit.”


Welby added that “shamefully, children from ethnic minorities and homes where someone is disabled are most affected”.


Does it really fall short of our values? And why is it cruel? Our society is mostly kind and benevolent; there are few more so. But it is not the job of society to bring up everyone’s children. That’s the job of parents.


People here are entitled, of course, to have as many children as they wish, which is not the case everywhere. (Remember the one-child policy imposed by the Chinese government?)


And they receive a generous benefit to help them to raise the first two. But if they cannot afford to have more then they should count their blessings and stop at two.


We did. It was a deliberate decision – taken, I admit, mostly by my wife, even though I think she would have liked a girl to bring up. But more children would have stretched us financially at the time, so we called it a day.


Welby won praise from Labour’s Wes Streeting for his socialist blethering: “It is literally his job, he is the one person in the country whose job it is to signal virtue. If the mission of the Church is not to alleviate poverty and suffering, I don't know what is.”


Fair enough – but define poverty and suffering. And don’t forget personal responsibility.


Welby’s liberal views have got him into trouble more than once. He tweeted support for Black Lives Matter even as black priests were allegedly being blocked from posts in the Church of England.


And most recently, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused churches of facilitating “industrial-scale bogus asylum claims” by helping illegal immigrants to “convert” to Christianity. Her claim followed the case of Abdul Ezedi, the Afghan convert who attacked a woman and two children with chemicals in South London.


Welby, who has five children – a sixth died in a car crash – should stop spouting sanctimonious sound bites and rejoice that our society is as caring and compassionate as it is.


*****


Happy people don’t get rich. You need a spur – a dirt-poor childhood, an overbearing father, an ambitious wife – to make you chase the money.


Which is why, every year, I read the Rich List in the Sunday Times with a mix of envy and sympathy. What hardships have these mega-rich individuals been through that drove them to accumulate so much moolah?


Richard Desmond, formerly of this parish, alas, would accompany his deaf father to business meetings to act as his ears. The old man, who was managing director of cinema advertisers Pearl and Dean, eventually gambled away the family’s cash, which might have something to do with the fact that Desmond is No.129 on the Rich List, though his fortune has shrunk again to a paltry £1.311 billion.


And my old friend Alan Frame’s story of rugby legend Tony O’Reilly’s attempts to take over the Express group reminded me of another potential saviour.


At the top of the Rich List are the Hinduja brothers – Gopi and Srichand – with a family fortune of £37.196 billion, and rising. When Clive Hollick was seeking to offload the paper, they were said to be potential buyers. Desmond got it instead. And the worker bees toiled on.


RICHARD DISMORE


21 May 2024