Once More With Footnotes

they advised me again. Scientists with a twisted sense of humour can do wonders for your education, provided you believe only fi f ty percent of what they tell you. (Er ... perhaps thirty percent, come to think of it — I never did actually use the phrase "The amount of radiation released was so small that you could hardly see it.")
     
                  They'd produce figures to show that the Sun was an il legal emitter of laser light and under Health and Safety regulations no one should be allowed outdoors, or that the natural background radiation in granite areas meant that registered nuclear workers should only be allowed to go on holiday in Cornwall if t hey wore protective clothing. And I can no longer hear the words "three completely independent fail-safe systems" without laughing.
     
                  The job was also my introduction to the Civil Service. Yes, there really was the man who came around every six months to c heck that I still had the ancient four-function calculator that I'd signed for on joining, and was probably worth 1 Op. Yes, some of the Langfords upstairs brought in their own wordprocessors to write their reports and then, because of the regulations, sig hed, and sent the print-outs down to the typing pool to be re-typed. And then there was the guy who actually went into a nuclear reactor and ... but I'll save that one, because you'd never believe it. Or the one about the lavatory.
     
                  It's no wonder that th is clash of mind-sets produced something like The Leaky Establishment (which of course deals with an entirely different kind of nuclear establishment to the ones I worked in, where things were not actually intended to blow up). The book is practically a do cumentary. I read it in horror, in between laughing. This man had sat in at exactly the same kind of meetings! He'd dealt with the same kind of people! He'd been at the same Open Days! The sheer reality of it all leaked from every page! It was just like th e book I'd been planning to write one day! How could I ever write my book now?
     
                  And then I got to the end and ... well, Dave Langfords garden would probably bear examination by the Health and Safety Executive, that's all I'll say.
     
                  I'd rank this book alo ngside Michael Frayn's The Tin Men, another neglected classic. I've wanted for years to see it back in prim. It is one of those books you end up buying several copies of, because you just have to lend it to friends. It's very funny. It's very real.
     
                  I hop e it's as successful as hell, and will happily give up any plans to write my own nuclear book. After all, I'll always have my memories to keep me warm: And, come to think of it, the large, silvery, and curiously heavy mug they presented to me when I left ...
     

A speech as guest of honour at the Booksellers Association Conference annual dinner in Torquay in 1993. Re-printed with permission from the 11 June 1993 issue of The Bookseller.
     
     
     
     
     
L et T here B e D ragons
     
                  I have still got the first book I ever rea d. It was The Wind in the Willows. Well, it was probably not the first book I ever read — that was no doubt called something like Nursery Fun or Janet and John Book 1. But it was the first book I opened without chewing the covers or wishing I was somewhere e lse. It was the first book which, at the age of 10, I read because I was genuinely interested.
     
                  I know now, of course, that it is totally the wrong kind of book for children. There is only one female character and she's a washerwoman. No attempt is made t o explain the social conditioning and lack of proper housing that makes stoats and weasels act the way they do. Mr. Badger's house is an insult to all those children not fortunate enough to live in a Wild Wood. The Mole and the Rat's domestic arrangements are probably acceptable, but only if they come right out and talk frankly about them.
     
                  But it was pressed into my hand, and because it wasn't parents or teachers who were recommending the book I read it from end to end, all in one go. And then I started a gain from the beginning, because I had not realised that there were stories like this.
     
                  There's a feeling that I think is only possible to get when you are a child and discover books: it's