New this month at Five Leaves

Old City, New Rumours is available, Poems of C Day-Lewis and The Tolpuddle Boy will be out mid-month, Scamp and Rain on the Pavements will be available in late June. Any or all can be ordered meantime from bookshops or from http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/.

Plus ca change

Ginsberg found himself confronted with the typewriter. A story a day, that was his minimum task; two thousand words, preferably with a plot, development, a climax and a twist. After six months of this routine, he was beginning to feel an intense hatred of the short story, in fact of all writing. What an abominable occupation it was! What a struggle! For what meagre prizes! Only the middlemen, he felt, were to be envied; the publishers, editors, anthologists and functionaries who stood between the raw material and the public purse. ...the thought of writing another short story disgusted him. He had had enough of battering his head against a brick wall. In six months, three acceptances, by obscure magazines published from addresses deep in the countryside. Three stories at three or four guineas each; a little over ten pounds for six months' hard labour, exclusive of expenses or paper, postage and so on. He put the cover on the dusty typewriter...
From Scamp by Roland Camberton, republished soon by New London Editions

Spoilt for choice

This coming Saturday looks interesting. Here in Nottingham you can attend Nottingham Forest versus Leicester FC (only 1,000 tickets left) or go ice-skating in the Market Square, or pick up a present at the German Christmas Market. Cathy Grindrod is launching her excellent new Shoestring Press poetry collection, The Sky Head On at Bromley House Library. Meanwhile, elsewhere in town, the English Defence League will be showcasing the worst of England in protesting against Muslims, seig heils optional. There will of course be counter protests.

It is hard to imagine that poetry is a major debating point among the English Defence League. But on the other hand, I've only just hastily returned an unsolicited manuscript about the glories of Englishness compared to say, the beastly Scots, the unspeakable Welsh and the dreadful Europeans, which was in poetic form. It is always a good idea to look at a publisher's list before sending in material.

Not that there is anything new in groups like the English Defence League. Turning to the last posting here, Roland Camberton's Scamp, published in 1950, has a character picking up a leaflet from the fictional Association of Freemen and Yeomen of England "Britons! In times of old your forefathers knew how to draw the sword for liberty. It was they who carried the flag to the furthest corners of the globe... Alien influences dominate our native land".

No doubt there was a Pictish Defence League, demonstrating against alien Romans coming across here, stealing their woad...

John Minton

Five Leaves has got the go ahead to re-issue the two Roland Camberton books - Scamp and Rain on the Pavements in our New London Editions series. No date set yet, more details to follow etc. Camberton was one of the great mysteries of London literature, which meant of course that Iain Sinclair got on the case. Sinclair wrote a long piece on Camberton for the Guardian, which will be included in Scamp. We'll be using the original John Minton covers, which will gladden some hearts, and this led me to read Frances Spalding's Dance till the Stars Come Down (the title taken from an Auden poem), Minton's biography. Spalding's book is out of print, and not cheap on the net.

John Minton was a household name in his day, but died young, by his own hand, in 1957. He was part of that Soho set who would hang round The Colony Room and drink too much. Minton was part of the "homosexual freemasonry" (Spalding's phrase) and led a promiscuous life. He knew a sailor when he saw one, that's for sure, yet often fell in love with heterosexual men.

Minton inherited money, and was a successful artist. He supported many who needed his help and many who were spongers. He was never known to turn down a commission - it would be terrific to see an exhibition of all his book covers. As well as Camberton he produced covers for Martin Goff, Alan Ross and the cookery writer Elizabeth David, for John Lehmann and other publishers. A general retrospective would be good too.

Spalding has probably covered everything biographically, but her book is short on illustrations. An illustrated John Minton anyone? I'd buy one.