Longhurst 'My Life and Soft Times'

[Mark_Rowlinson]

There are various anthologies of the golf writings of Henry Longhurst, most of which can be found second hand cheaply on the internet. However, the one Longhurst book everyone should read is his autobiography, My Life and Soft Times. We've mentioned it before on here, but I'm effectively bumping it up. Yes, there is some golf, including his winning the German Amateur. But it is his descriptions of all sorts of bizarre events such as Blondin at Niagara, Castlerea at Ballybunion, the fire watcher after his London flat was bombed, and so on. It is story telling of a high order and the humour (very English) is of the sort that makes you laugh out loud, even on a train journey! His use of English is immaculate and you savour all the nuances of a skilled writer.

I once asked Peter Alliss if he might read it for broadcast on the BBC. He jumped at the chance (no mean wordsmith himself). Sadly the BBC wouldn't commission it - probably because it was written by an author who was neither black, lesbian nor disabled.

[RJ_Daley]

Why not a "book on tape"?  I don't know what the copyright law and such is, but I'll bet there would be a market for a CD or tape of PA reading anything by Longhurst.  I can't believe production of such would nearly approach the publishing process of book.  It sounds like a no-brainer to me.  Isn't PA something of a known entreprenuer, having tried many investment adventures to widely varying results.  Doesn't he live up in the hills of Piedmont somewhere these days?  All he has to do is sit on the porch and read into a mic and send it along to some mass CD house, and run it by an attorney for copywrite compliance.  He could distribute it over the internet like some of our obscure golf book friends do, and voila, he is in business.... 

[RJ_Daley]

Hopefully Flemma will see this since he is one of the resident GCA.com lawyers who practices in this copywrite entertainment area. 

Mark, you have ignited a brainstorm or fart.  If this is as easy as it seems (read into a recording machine and make multiple copies and distribute them) we have a number of suspects that could do the reading with their pleasingly cultured accents.  Sir Boab comes to mind!

Or, Ran could put on the smoking jacket and ascot, fire up the pipe, sit by the fire and employ his best anglophile accent and record a masterpiece. He has a built in market of 1500 right here on GCA.... Who wouldn't buy that for five bucks!? 

[Mark_Rowlinson]

RJD,

If we could find the right sponsors this is a goer. But you cannot sell tapes/CDs or the like. You can only sell on line these days. I don't think the copyright is a problem. You pay what is legally required. The trouble is - were I to try to set it up - I would have to put up thousands of pounds with no certainty of getting it back.

I have a whole raft of early golf songs from St Andrews etc that I should love to record - a whole CD's worth. But I could not afford to take the gamble of ca £20,000 to produce it, let alone market it.

Mark.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mark,

Is that the book where Longhurst writes about idly daydreaming about golf during the war, musing as he looks out a window on some sort of scene (or something like that), and writes along the lines of, "Turnberry, it must be reckoned, is a total loss"?

[RJ_Daley]

Mark, pardon me because I somehow overlooked the fact of your lifelong body of work in music.  What a stupid I am...  

But just wondering, wouldn't the recording of the spoken word be far less expensive to produce, with no musical accompaniment and so forth?

I'll bet your baritone voice would lend plenty to the reading!  

Could you legally Youtube a passage and post it without incurring any liability?  Just wondering, and hoping for a taste!  

[RJ_Daley]

Mark B, geez, I can just see it now.  Sit Mark down in a rocker by a window that clearly looks out over an obviously English course.  Light him up with a pipe in hand, feature a smoking jacket and ascot, make sure the course is seen through the elaborate window (perhaps of a famous club house lounge that has such a scene) and video him reading the selection.  If it isn't illegal, just throw it up on Youtube! We can get Gib to direct and produce it!  Maybe we can use Kickstarter. 

Seriously Mark R., have you seen that fund raiser vehicle Gib used to garner some production cost for his upcoming film release, "Writer's Cramp".  You could attempt to raise the cost of your songs of St Andrew project like that. 

http://www.kickstarter.com/

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/93600237/writers-cramp-feature-film/posts/387534?ref=email&show_token=b3a2159f611fba2b

[Mark Bourgeois]

RJ, your enthusiasm sent me to find that Longhurst quote. I still don't know where Longhurst wrote it but where I came across it was in Michael Corcoran's underrated book on the 1977 Open, "Duel in the Sun." Here's the Longhurst quote as written in that book:

"In those long periods inseparable from wartime service when there is nothing to do but sit and think, I used to often find myself sitting and thinking of the time when we once again might be playing golf at Turnberry. Then came the news that the two great courses, the Arran and the Ailsa, had been turned into an airfield. While it was easy to imagine turning a golf course into an airfield, it was difficult for the layman to see how you could ever turn an airfield back into a golf course.

"Turnberry, it seemed, must be reckoned a casualty."

[RJ_Daley]

So, I googled up any Youtube style reflections, by or about Longhurst's writing.  All I found on Longhurst was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxA-bgg3vGY

But, then under various reflections I found these two gems, and thought perhaps Sir Boab may have known these chaps! 

The first one has a neatly staged scene at about 50 seconds with pipe smoke wafting, and similar to what I imagine could be the staging of a reading of Dickinson's or Longhurst's writing.

The second is just remarkable as well, IMO, worth a few minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7qLKqCuUr4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WyF8KaVyt8

I guess I really don't have much to do today... 

[Adam Lawrence]

Wonderful book. There's a lot of other interesting Longhurst snippets around, but I agree My Life and Soft Times is the essential read.

[Bob_Huntley]

Mark,

It's funny but I just finished reading 'The Best of Henry Longhurst' for the umpteenth time. It is some of his writings on Golf and Life and it is tough to put down.

I think it was in 1972 when I met Henry at the bar at Royal Salisbury enjoying his first gin of the day. He was an  incredible golf historian with a mordant wit and best of all, he loved Rhodesia.


Bob

[Mark_Rowlinson]

I have a suggestion. Make it a habit to have a pink gin topped up with champagne every Sunday lunchtime. It was Longhurst's favourite drink. In fact we could Christen it a Longhurst.

Ray Lakeland was the television sports producer who worked for many years with Longhurst and introduced him to American TV. I used to know Ray, and I gather he is still alive. A mutual friend could put us in touch. I think we need a Ran interview here on GCA. Leave it with me....

[David_Tepper]

Mark R. -

Thanks for the recommendation. I just found a used copy of My Life & Soft Times at amazon.com for $1.50!

DT

[Adam Lawrence]

On an architecture angle, the pen portrait of John Morrison in 'My Life and Soft Times' is really lovely.

[John Butler]

My Life & Soft Times was first published in 1971.  It Was Good While It Lasted was published in 1941 and is autobiographical; I'm reading it again now and especially like a chapter entitled The Old School Tie (HL went to Charterhouse public school).

[Mark_Rowlinson]

There are two suggestions here about getting some of this - Dickinson and Longhurst - on TV, CD, DVD, You-tube or whatever. I am not an entrepreneur - I can't start a project off, other than having ideas. It needs someone who can search out a market to drive such a project. Dickinson's A Round of Golf Courses needs the sort of treatment that I think is proposed for the televised Darwin Golf Courses of the British Isles. They haven't got all the funding in place and I think it would be much harder to sell Patric of whom only a few have heard. It would be quite expensive to film Dickinson's courses but the narrative would be inexpensive (you would need a 'host' who sets up each one and comments on the few changes to the courses since Patric wrote the book plus a reader.) I don't think we'd have any problems with copyright - as long as we paid it.

I'm not sure how televisual My Life and Soft Times is. It's an audio book, I suspect. How I would love to read it! But that's not the point. Alliss is Longhurst's television successor and he has a voice that is recognised on both sides of the Atlantic. He now has the legendary status that Longhurst once had. In practical terms people might buy it if Alliss read it.

[Tony_Muldoon]

There are two suggestions here about getting some of this - Dickinson and Longhurst - on TV, CD, DVD, You-tube or whatever. I am not an entrepreneur - I can't start a project off, other than having ideas. It needs someone who can search out a market to drive such a project. Dickinson's A Round of Golf Courses needs the sort of treatment that I think is proposed for the televised Darwin Golf Courses of the British Isles. They haven't got all the funding in place and I think it would be much harder to sell Patric of whom only a few have heard. It would be quite expensive to film Dickinson's courses but the narrative would be inexpensive (you would need a 'host' who sets up each one and comments on the few changes to the courses since Patric wrote the book plus a reader.) I don't think we'd have any problems with copyright - as long as we paid it.

I'm not sure how televisual My Life and Soft Times is. It's an audio book, I suspect. How I would love to read it! But that's not the point. Alliss is Longhurst's television successor and he has a voice that is recognised on both sides of the Atlantic. He now has the legendary status that Longhurst once had. In practical terms people might buy it if Alliss read it.

I picked up Alliss reading his own memoir in a bargain bin in a motorway service station.  He does a good job but if his memoirs end up there I wouldn't want to invest in a Longhurst Audiobook.