Good News on Sales - Sad News from Devon
I’ve just had a sales update on The Nostradamus Prophecies, and it appears that we have already breeched the 100,000 sales mark worldwide. Frankly, I’m delighted, as most of my foreign publishers [including the US] have yet to bring out their versions of my book, and this will no doubt serve as welcome encouragement! Buoyed up by the good sales - in what has surely been a very difficult period for publishers - my UK publisher, Atlantic, has just bought number two in the trilogy, and, in consequence, I’m really looking forward to working with the same team that has made such a signal success of the first novel. As far as my writing goes, I’m just putting the finishing touches to two non-fiction books, and then I shall be starting the third novel in my trilogy in the New Year. Trepidation mixed with excitement - the usual authorial equation, in other words.
Sad news on another front, with the death of my great friend, Tom Baring. I met Tommy in 1976, when he was running Stourhead Polo club, and, despite an age difference of 26 years, we soon became firm friends. Tommy had a wonderful eye for both a painting and a horse, and he was also deeply fascinated by the Cathars and their odd footnote in history. I remember numerous trips to Montsegur, 3000 foot high up in the Pyrenees, with Tommy standing below the famous pog, contentedly pointing out the spot from which some of the Perfects were forced to jump, and also the place where 220 of their remaining companions were burned en masse for refusing to renounce their faith. Another of Tommy’s passions was 1930s and 1940s jazz and musicals. It took very little effort indeed to encourage him to play his choice collection of 78 rpm records on his vintage player. I remember one particular evening, many years ago, in which with John Fowles and his wife Elizabeth, Tommy and I, capered maniacally around his drawing room carpet to the Boswell Sisters’ 1932 version of Sammy Fain and Joe Young’s ‘Was that the human thing to do‘. Tommy had had an American mother, Virginia Ryan, and he must have derived his instinctive knowledge of Transatlantic mores from her, because he was always very much at home on both sides of the Ocean. In many ways Tommy twinned an old world elegance and sophistication with a very up to date wit - it was an endearing equation. So this is by way of being a far too short appreciation and a far too truncated tribute to a very special man, whose friendship I valued, whose companionship I cherished, and who always made me laugh. Friendship is a precious thing, and I shall miss him.