'You are not worthy to lace through the ribbon on Jack Kerouac's typewriter.'

 'You are not worthy to lace through the ribbon on Jack Kerouac's typewriter.'



Hey! That's pretty good! It has also triggered off a creative reverie. (This is writer territory Detterling. Something you would not understand.) It has brought back to me my Great-uncle Claude (Uncle Nancy). He bought me a Remington manual typewriter when I went up to Oxford in 1975. On this I typed my first novel, 'SOLOMON'S PORTICO'. How I regret now that I destroyed it.


 I remember my father and that mischievous twinkle in his eye as he watched my brother Paul and I setting off for Richmond: "Well boys; off to visit Uncle Nancy?"


Don't let anyone ever lay the crime of homophobia at my door. Paul and I loved that old man. I still see Uncle Claude so clearly in my mind's eye: his pink cardigans, Earl Grey tea and arrowroot biscuits... Ivor Novello playing in the background. Wonderful memories.









By the way this was one of the Ivor Novello albums Uncle Nancy loved to play: