PORTRAIT OF AN ELDERLY TORY

Radio Record, 19 August 1938, Page 14

PORTRAIT OF AN

ELDERLY TORY

By

Wilton

Baird

His. Villains Throve On The Lovely Melbourne Cup Course

HIS is the quaint tale of how Nathaniel (‘Nat’) Gould, famous turf writer, turns cut to have been no horsey man in bright checks with a straw behind his ear, but an Englishman of the old school, faithful in every detail to the cede of an elderly Tory. Nat Gould’s first novel, "The Double Event," has been revived after a lapse of forty years, and adapted to radio. It is now being heard from the four Commercial stations in New Zealand.

$6 ERE he is," tJ said the lady who showed : me his portrait. "He is not anything like what I had imagined." 1 stared at the picture of the late Mr. Nathanie!

Gould with interest. I quite agreed. Goodness knows what one had expected. The portrait of a gentleman in corduroys, perhaps, with a straw behind his ear, sitting on a rough-hewn table writing by the light of a stable lantern. Or perhaps the portrait of a gentleman with a stout red face illuminated by a lighted cigar, with the band on it, and wearing a suit of checks visible a good four furlongs away. Jolly Vicar’s Sidesman HAT I saw instead was the portrait of a benign elderly gentleman with the air of a jolly vicai’s sidesman. Silver locks curled round in a fringe to’ the bald, high dome of the forehead. There was a flowing moustache under the ; long, well-shaped nose, dark, well-shaped’ eyebrows above the pleasant eyes. The gentleman was corpulent, but comfortably and not grossly so. He wore a butterfly collar and a smart bow tie. Well-starched cuffs gleamed from the ends of the sleeves of his coat of quiet and good cloth. 'The waistcoat and coat were amply filled by the elderly gentleman’s form, He sat at an old-fashioned writing table’ that had delicately curved and designed legs. On the third finger of the left hand he wore a ring. You felt immediately on making. the acquaintance , Of the portrait that you were in. the’ presence of a ,. gentleman, somewhat of the old school, who knew, however, precisely what was what; who was very particular about conduct and manners and the social rules of paying one’s debts, and yet had an eye to a "flutter on a horse" or to a pretty face, , f

THIS, then, was Mr. Nat. Gould. This -was the man who had taken some _ good ‘hours out of one’s life when at the age of ten the discovery had _ been made of a pile of fascinating paper-

backed novels of horse-racing, and villainy of the deepest dye and true love of the purest shade, with virtue ever triumphant in the end over the forces: of darkness. So that, for hours on end, one had sat in a locked room reading the tales as voraciously as possible before someone came in and said: "You shouldn’t read trash!" TrashP-It May: Have Been RASH? Well, from the lofty watch-tower of pure literature it may have been trash. But if there is more excitihg reading fora youngster, with heroes ever fighting more against vice and crime, I have never read it. And now, when much that was called literature forty years ago has gone to oblivion, Nat. Gould has remounted his magic steed, has entered for the Radio Stakes and, today, at all the Commercial stations in New Zealand, goes on the air as hot favourite. "Double Event," the first novel he wrote of all his 130 hooks, has been dramatised in Australia for the air in serial form. Though he wrote long before radio was thought of, his work was just made for the air. It takes a modern medium like radio to keep up with the tempo. of beating hoofs and heroes who are always just one jump: ahead of the villainous villain. ‘ HE story is just-what one expects it to be, just like all _ the, other. stories that thrilled the millions of Nat. Gould’s readers. |. ° Caloola’ is a fiery Australian colt with a temper quick as his pace. ‘The fortunes of nobly-born Jack Drayton, who has ‘mysteriously left England for Australia to safeguard the honoured family name, rest on Caloola’s ability to win the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup, the "Double Dvent." He is engaged to sweet Ruth Kingdon, an Australian

girl, daughter of a wealthy and jovial bookie. But there is dirty work afoot. Inspired by Spider Fletcher, a trainer whom Drayton has dismissed, Lil Fletcher, his wife, ensnares Pusher Wells, Drayton’s jockey. Villainy looms up! SO far, the story, but what 1 wanted was the story behind the story. What was he like, this estimable elderly gentleman with the benevolence of a vicar’s sidesman and the twinkle in his eye. What was the inner nature of the man? He was born, so the encyclopedias said, in Manchester in 1857. He lived

jn Australia from 1884-1895, working on Brisbane and Sydney newspapers. He died in 1919. HERE was not much to be learned from the encyclopedias. Then, at last, I found what I wanted in a volume "The Magic of Sport," in the rich storehouse of New Zealand’s Turnbull Library. Here was the man’s life; here was-in cold print-the man himself. Gradually one could build up the picture of him, divine his fondness for the old English virtue of "good form," discover the rigid line he drew between good and evil, and understand his love for the countryside and horses that run hard and honest. "Tt will be a bad day for England," says this elderly gentleman, in the tene of one making the port quiver as he thumps on the table, "when sports decay and maudlin sentimentality obtains the upper hand." Educated By a Lady EB was the son of a tea merchant, aud he wus educated ‘by a Miss Mellor, an estimable lady with ringlets, who wore a crinoline. "It took some time," he says, "to get round the ladies in those days." At first the young Nat. was himself apprenticed to the tea trade at 5/- a week. He soon tired of that and went

farming.in Derbyshire, at Pilsbury Grange, the home of his Uncle George. There he learned to love the open air, the green pastures, the murmuring waters of the river Dwe,the smell of earth, the cheerful neighing of horses. NE learns, too, how he came to be the man who untiringly wrote 130° novels. "I loved work," he says, telling of that time. "Sloth was not in my vocabulary. The horses. knew me and I was fond of them." . He learned to know horses on the farm and dealers at the Derbyshire Horse Fairs, when there was much shouting and bargaining, and dark-looking gipsy fellows brought in droves of horses. But farming was too slow a method of progress in tkis world for Nat. Gould. We came back to Manchester, went into the

tea-trade again, until one day he saw an advertisement. Wanted: A pupil, by the editor of an -old-estab-lished weekly paper. ~ The young Nat. dived headlong into journalism and for his first job was sent to report a Foreign Bible Society meeting. One can imagine the slow twitch of a smile under the flowing whiskers of the elderly gentleman as he solemnly records this fact, so curiously incongruous with his subsequent career. Tired of Village Journalism FTER six years he wearied of village journalism in England and sailed by the Orient Line for Australia. After a few years he joined the Sydney "Referee," was put in. charge of the Turf Department, and wrote the ‘"Referee’s" racing article under the name of "Verax." In his first article he tipped Acme, The Queen and Vespasia for the Sydney Summer Cup. ‘They finished in this order: Vespasia, The Queen, and Acme. ¥EH went to a race meeting and backed every

winner in six races. Writing of this meeting, he drops this pearl of worldly wisdom : "There is nothing like packing a winner at a good price to beat a hot favyourite to make the memory clear years afterwards." He left Sydney for Bathurst, and then the editor of the "Referee" asked him for a story of six or seven chapters. He began it under the title, "With The Tide.’ (It was iater published under the xvtame of "Double Hvent".) The editor said: "It is a good story. Make it longer." ‘When I sat down," Nat. Gould remarks, "I had no plot mapped out, no characters dotted down, no lines on which to work. After hesitating, I commenced somehow in the following strain : ‘Nobody knew exactly who or what Jack Marston was’... and I am quite sure [I did not when I made him my first hero? (Cont, on page 45.)

Elderly Tory

THE REAL NAT GOULD (Continued from page 15.) FTER .a time, as the serial went on, the proprietor. said: "How long ig this story going to run?" As Nat Gould.was paid so much a chapter he naturally wanted it to "be continued in our next" for as long as possible. "Tt is about time you wound it up, said the proprietor. "Don’t you- like it?" asked Nat Gould, "Oh, yes," said the proprietor, "it’s a good yarn, but it’s getting a bit expensive." Nat Gould says: "I did as he desired and wound up in four more chapters." SOME few months later the representative of a London publisher asked to have a.look at the manuscript of the story, Nat: Gould left it with him,. Two months later, haying lost interest in the-noyel, he met the agent again. "How much do you want for that noyel of yours?" asked the agent. "Will you take t- for it?" "The sum," says Nat Gould, "was in three figures. I almost gasped for breath." mos ’ ‘HE book was published under the ™ name of "The Double Event" in 1891 and was on the Australian market by November, It came out just at the right moment, for the Melbourne Cup meeting was the week after. Moreover the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup was the big ‘double event" of the story, The. novel, first of the long series, had an amazing run, and paved the way for all the other that. were to help fill out the coat and waistcoat. of the nice, Tory-looking elderly gentleman of the portrait. ; He stayed for eleven years in Australia and (again’one hears the de — canter of port jump as his fist hammers the table): "I look. back,’ he says, "on that time as the best for shaping and making a man of me. There is noth* ¢ like colonial experience for putting a-man on his mettle." It wus in 1895 that he decided to return to England. He sold up his home in Australia and set off. As the ship moved away from the Sydney wharf, someone called out: "Give us a tip for the next Derby, *‘Verax. 399 "Wallace," I called at the top of my voice, Sure enough at the next Vietorian Racing Club Spring meeting, Carbine’s son won. ONE thing more the elderly gentlemin of the portrait has to say, and there *' no answer to it: "Tt is rather amusing to be told I have no pretensions to style, when I don’t: profess to have any. The object of writing: a novel is to tell a story that will hold the reade. from the start to finish; a story that grips him so that-he will not put the book down until he has read the last-page, That is the object I have in view when I write, and I think I may claim to have succeeded." Does anyone dare to question that?