PORK BUTCHER’S SON

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

PORK BUTCHER’S SON

Mr. Leslie Halward Tells Of His Life

“Let Me Tell You,” by Leslie Halward. (London: Joseph).

In 1929, Mr. Leslie Halward was thrilled at seeing his first published short story. It was not, by any means, the first he had written, for a year or so before, while he was working as a plasterer’s assistant, to use his own words: —

Something very peculiar happened to me. It was then, for no reason at all that I can think of—that I suddenly wanted to write. Many writers have told us that they always wanted to write, have told us liow at five they composed a poem aud at seven contributed a serial to Tiny Tots, have, indeed, given us the impression that the lirst worde were not ‘‘Momma*’ and “Dadda,” but “I want to be an author.” Nothing like that happened in my ease. This sudden urge to express myself laid hold of me as unexpectedly as a fever. I do not think it astonished me at the time, but it does now. Think of it. For 22 years I had taken not the slightest interest in literature. .’ . . How, then, to explain this wholly unnatural yearning to be an author? My earlier ambition to become a world-famous boxer is easily understood. I admired boxers. But I did not admire authors. To me they were vaguely unpleasant people—flat-chested, long-haired, pimply, and be-spectacled—not at all like the magnificent specimens who fought for the honour and prestige of their country.

The fever persisted, though not in any way fanned or encouraged by his home or surroundings. Mr. Halward is the son of a pork butcher, now deceased, leaving his business in a state which necessitated the heroic efforts of his wife and sister-in-law to pull it together again, and to bring up a young family. Mr. Halward’s attitude towards his origin and his manner of expressing it, are eloquent of the real secret of his power. The actual autobiographical section of “Let Me Tell You” opens thus: —

I was born 32 years ago. over a pork butcher’s shop in what was then known as High Street, Solly Oak, Birmingham. There are three ways in which I might say that: (1) Apologetically, as if I were ashamed of It; (2) arrogantly, as If I were rather more than proud' of it; (3) naturally, as if I were making a simple statement of fact. I would like you to credit me with method (3).

This same simple “statement of fact” characterises the whole of his forceful literary style. He writes of his own people as one can never ■write from the “outside.” He tells of his excitement and pleasure when, as a child, he watched animals being killed. There is no attempt to embroider the central statement of fact with speculation or philosophy. The description of his mother's death loses nothing from its stark simplicity. Mr. Halward has been a toolmaker, a plasterer, a drummer in a jazz band, but, although he worked hard, cannot be described as a brilliant success in any of these professions. He is now considered one of the most important young writers of short stories in English. He has so far contributed to thirty-five anthologies, magazines, periodicals and newspapers.' His stories have, four times in succession, been included in “The Best Short Stories of the Year.” : He has married the girl to whom he had been engaged for many years, and lives very happily in a cottage in the country. The frontispiece of “Let Me Tell You” Is an interesting photographic study of the author. One feels that, as he has managed to survive the events so graphically recorded in the preliminary chapter of this book, there is still a great deal more to come of the life of Leslie Halward.