Author Alan Sillitoe died in London today aged 82. He’s one of the few famous writers I’ve met; and came across as a man with few pretensions. I can’t be certain if the man who entertained a small audience at the London Bookshop Foyles was acting for the crowd. But then wouldn’t I, if such books as Saturday Night Sunday Morning or The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner had come from me.
Alan Sillitoe sat in a chair, with a glass of wine in one hand and a copy of a Morse Code book in the other. I remember his leather waistcoat, which gave him the look of an old man from his most famous novel. And I imagined him keeping a stash of tobacco in one of the pockets.
Ostensibly he was reading from his 1970 book A Start in Life, which had just been republished. The books main character, Michael Cullen, is described as a bastard, by birth and by nature. He’s supposed to be the inspiration for the 70s TV character Budgie, but I’ve also heard he inspired the incarnation of Mick Travis in O Lucky Man.
Before giving his reading, Sillitoe buzzed out some Morse and asked the audience to guess what its meaning, nobody did. He took questions later, and I remember someone asking the most common question an author gets – is your writing autobiographical. I can’t remember his reply, although it did include something about his bike factory job.
There’s was not much of Arthur Seaton in the Eighty year old Sillitoe, but I’m sure his essence was there. The impression I got was of a man happy with his life, who was not especially northern and not especially matter-of-fact. He carried himself like someone who’d reached a point were everything is stable and calm; where he could just enjoy himself and look back at a novel written forty years ago.
The bastards did not succeed in grinding him down. Cheers Alan, and thanks for all your great writing. Long may you stay in print.
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