As it’s a blessedly quiet time in politics, I thought I’d do something completely different this week.

Some readers might remember a short story, called The Minister I published here the Easter before last. It received favourable comments so, time for another.

Most TV detectives have deep-seated character flaws. They are often hopeless alcoholics, depressive, and usually totally disorganized.

Why not a detective who is perfect in every way? A Holmes without the drug habit, a Watson with an incisive intelligence, a Rebus who is not endlessly shambolic?

You are about to meet him: Lama Gampopa.

Lama Gampopa looked around calmly, sniffing the air, finding it warm, despite the January chill. His expression was one of benign repose, and he moved with a grace that belied his middle years.

The lama checked in at a modest hotel in Sussex Gardens aware that he was the object of much curiosity. Gampopa was always aware. That was his training, to be conscious of all that was going on around him down to the smallest detail.

He had been sent to London to trace and recover some of the lost treasures that had been looted from the monasteries of Tibet and were now appearing on the art markets of the world. He possessed modest funds to buy back whatever he could, but even the Council knew that the haul would be limited.

One particular artefact was the reason for his present visit. It was a codex — an early form of book — called The Treasure of the Dharma Eye. Hand-printed from wooden blocks onto thick, leathery parchment, the manuscript was said to contain the ultimate secret of Enlightenment from one of the Buddha’s closest disciples.

His contact was Jeremy Richardson, a member of one of the many Tibetan support groups that flourish now in the West. Richardson was a former police inspector with CID and knew his way around the London art scene. He was still relatively young and possessed an affable manner, which pleased Gampopa.

“I’m told you have trained as a detective, Lama?”
“Indeed, that is why I am here.”
“With the Indian police force, no doubt?”
“Oh no, it was less formal than that.”

Richardson’s eyebrows lifted.

“Sherlock Holmes, Inspector.”

The ex-policeman’s eyes widened further.

“I have studied the works of that great detective in meticulous detail,” said the lama earnestly. “I have analyzed his distinctive principles and assimilated them thoroughly.”

Richardson held back a smile, but Gampopa spotted it at once.

“You think I am a little naive, perhaps, learning from books of fiction?”
“Oh, no, Lama. It’s just that we’re not taught that at Hendon.”
“Hendon?”
“Our training college for the Metropolitan police in England.”

“Ah!” Gampopa inclined his head in that peculiar way of his, signifying that he understood. “You will realize by now that our ways are different. We do not distinguish between genres, merely between different degrees of usefulness.”

“Yes, of course … admirable.” said Richardson, only half convinced.
“Holmes has now become part of my method.”
“Your method?”
“I follow the grain of things. Everything has a grain, Inspector: life, history, human nature. Try tearing a piece of newspaper. In one direction you can tear a straight line. In the other, you have no control. I follow the grain. I look for the flaws in the thoughts of others … and all things become apparent.”

A trawl around the auction houses produced little enlightenment. There were few Tibetan items for sale in any of them. Moreover, a threat of European taxes had frightened off many potential sellers who had decamped to New York. Some were holding fire until the financial climate was clearer. It seemed a lost cause.

Over coffee in the Strand, Richardson sounded bleak. “I hope this hasn’t been a wild goose chase for you, Lama?”

“If a goose is not wild, there is no need to chase it, Inspector.” And he sat back in his chair as if all the time ever created was at his disposal.

Richardson watched him closely. He was fascinated by this throw-back from a past age who yet seemed to have such effortless mastery of the modern world. He treats it, Richardson thought, as if it doesn’t exist. He passes through it, notes its variations, and passes on, with that invincible serenity as his trade-mark.

“What would you do, Jeremy, if you had a priceless artefact for sale and were here in London now?”

The ex-inspector noted the first name terms. “Well … it’s hard to say … go to New York … or Switzerland.”

“But would you? Would it not be easier to arrange a private sale? Say through agents. After all, these dealers know the people who would want to buy, and one Tibetan piece is very much like another.”

“You may be right. There are underground auctions, but they are fiendishly difficult to approach.”

The lama was thoughtful: “But as a bona fide buyer would I not be welcome at such gatherings?”

“You might. But I’m too well known; there’s no chance for me.”

Gampopa smiled. “Then you will give me the contacts, Jeremy, and I will do the rest.”

Richardson spent the afternoon with some old colleagues at the Met, making a list of those who might be able to help Lama Gampopa. But independent enquiries through the known sources proved fruitless. He met up with the lama at his hotel after supper.

“We’ve hit the wall, Lama,” he said wearily. “There’s nothing stirring in the undergrowth.”

The lama smiled slowly. “I think I have had better luck Jeremy, my friend.”
“Don’t tell me … you’ve been following the grain!”
“Think for a moment … who would have his ear to the ground? Why, the best known Tibetophile in the world. If the codex is up for sale in London, don’t you suppose he would be here?”

Richardson was intrigued. “Who are we talking about?”
“Hiram B. Wannamaker the Third.”
“You’re serious?”

“He is known to be a great collector of artefacts. But more than that, he has a genuine interest in our culture, which means more to him than mere objects. And being an American, if he were here in London, the Embassy would almost certainly know about it.”

“That follows. So we must go there first thing…”
“I have already been,” the lama twinkled. “He is staying at Claridges.”
“Then tomorrow…”
“I visited him at once. Luckily, I caught him at afternoon tea.”

Richardson cast a rueful glance at this surprisingly mercurial lama. “And the upshot?”

“The codex is being auctioned at a private house off Park Lane tomorrow morning. Hiram, naturally, is going. And, Jeremy, I am to go as his adviser on the Tibetan language.”

Richardson waited impatiently in the bar at Claridges for the return of the two men. It seemed an age, and he was beginning to feel distinctly left out of things. Eventually, he was asked to go up to Mr Wannamaker’s suite, where Hiram and the lama awaited him. On a small coffee table rested the precious codex. It was almost two feet in length and had an air of great age about it.

“Jeremy, we have it. Hiram has been successful in his bid. But you can’t imagine how much he had to pay.”

Wannamaker seemed overjoyed. “Worth every cent, Mr Richardson. If this document contains the secret of Enlightenment, what possible earthly price could you put on it.”

Lama Gampopa gingerly opened the codex leaf by leaf, examining the sometimes faded script in a gentle rocking movement of his head, like a speed reader.

“It is all here, gentlemen. Everything we expected.”

Richardson could contain himself no longer. “But Lama, doesn’t this mean you’ve lost the codex. Won’t it go to the States now and be buried forever in a private collection?”

“You underestimate me, Mr Richardson,” the American interjected. “Lama Gampopa and I have a deal. He will translate the document for me and tell me the secret of Enlightenment, and I’ll gladly present the codex to the Tibetan community as a gift.”

Richardson gasped. Gampopa had done it, and without even dipping into his funds.

“And now Lama,” said Hiram urgently, “as a down-payment, just read out in English the part which contains the treasure — the greatest secret of all.”

Gampopa drew in an audible breath. “Very well, Hiram, my friend. I have already found the passage. I should warn you it is very profound and may seem a trifle obscure. But I assure you it contains the very essence of life itself.”

“But what does it say?” Hiram could barely restrain himself.

“It says: ‘Thus have I heard: there is a grain in all actions and in all things. Know the grain and follow it. Enlightenment will walk with you every step of the way.”

Hiram blinked.

Gampopa smiled inscrutably.

Copyright © John Evans 2010.

John Evans is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face?

Available from Amazon and all good book sellers.

Now that the English language is said to be the world’s lingua franca — a strange term for it, I’ve always thought — we are urged to pay some attention to how we use our mother tongue.

The slightly daft way we British go about spelling our own language raises its head again. Occasionally I get taken to task by denizens of these sceptred isles for adopting the “ize” convention, as if it were an act of treason.

“Are you an American?” they cry in despairing tones. If you don’t know what the “ize” convention is, here is a clue: recognise or recognize.

The ize way is unquestionably from the land of stars and stripes, right? Non, Monsieur.

It traces its origin back to 16th-century England, and, moreover, it is recommended by Oxford University and its imprint, the OUP. If you look carefully at spellings in most books published by major British publishers, you’ll find the “ize” convention in use.

Curiously, newspapers almost always use “ise”, as do most of the population.

Those of us who don’t mind standing in the traditions of 16th-century England (remember Shakespeare?), use “ize” but also the other British conventions. For example, travelling, rather than traveling — although the latter does save on printer ink; cosy instead of cozy (why?), and got before gotten (another old English usage).

But we also prefer hooligan (Irish) to larrikin (Elizabethan, but used widely in Australia). The old Empire sometimes has the edge on us, I feel.

But, to return to the “ize” convention : why should we adopt it over the weaker “ise” form? I call to the stand our star witness: Inspector Morse.

Addressing Sergeant Lewis, who, not surprisingly, used the “s” way, he cited the Oxford English Dictionary and proclaimed that “ise” was “completely illiterate”. I rest my case.

The European Union is also dipping its oar into English usage. Have you noticed that pharmaceutical products made in Britain never contain water nowadays?

That’s not a response to a global water shortage but an attempt to smuggle French words into English. “Water” has now become “aqua”. Whatever happened to the Plain English Campaign?

Lingua franca indeed.

John Evans

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To take our collective minds off the beastly business of Brown and bung politics, here are some rambling thoughts on two obscure, but interesting, authors.

Our new website, Devon & Cornwall Online (launching on the Solstice, June 21) has provided a welcome opportunity to delve more deeply into West Country ways, especially a very special group of writers, Cornish authors.

They are surprisingly underrated, although they include such well-known bestsellers as Daphne Du Maurier and Derek Tangye, of Minack fame.

However, I want to indulge myself with two of my favourites: Denys Val Baker and Crosbie Garstin.

Denys Val Baker
Denys is rarely heard of nowadays, but if you ever come across one of his books: acquire, read, enjoy.

Denys Val Baker (1917 – 1984), owner and editor of The Cornish Review, was the author of 20 hilarious autobiographies. Titles included, The Sea’s in the Kitchen and The Petrified Mariner, which give you a flavour of them.

He wrote in the 1950s through the 70s, and was a full-time professional author, by which I mean he was always broke.

Nevertheless, he managed to buy an enormous old tramp steamer, MVS Sanu, and, with no sailing experience whatever, took his large brood of wild children and long-suffering wife, Jess, on incredibly dangerous voyages. He was on the rocks more times than Jack Daniels.

Denys lived in Penzance, Land’s End and St. Ives in Cornwall, and was usually seeking some means of financing his next outrageous project. He was an adventurer in the grand English tradition, although always amusingly shambolic.

In the old days, when libraries were libraries, you could find his books on the shelves. These days they’re not so easy to come by, although Amazon has a good listing of second-hand titles, mostly at premium prices. Denys would have been proud. If you want a really good humorous read, do seek them out.

His character never allowed a moment to pass without doing something absolutely beyond the pale. When I lived in Penzance, we occupied a house across the road from his, although he had been dead for a decade. There was no blue plaque on his house, which is a pity, although everyone remembered him in the library, where he did most of his research.

At the time I was there (late 1990s) his son still ran a print business in the town, and his wildest daughter, Demelza, lived there too.

Denys was one of the old school of writers. He spent a lot of time in London, mostly in the literary pubs around Soho where he hung out with the likes of Dylan Thomas and other luminaries of the scribbling fraternity. But his heart was in Cornwall, as was most of his written output. He will be best remembered for his 20 or so autobiographies.

Gerald Durrell is probably the nearest comparison. Let’s hope he will not be totally forgotten, especially in the county that inspired his best work.

Crosbie Garstin
Crosbie Garstin is best known for his trilogy of novels about the Penhales family, published before the last war by Heinemann.

The Owls’ House, High Noon and The West Wind are all cracking adventures set in Cornwall and on the high seas in the days of sail. China Seas, his last book, continued the genre, and was made into a Hollywood film starring, I believe, Clark Gable.

Garstin was an interesting character, a true adventurer and traveller. He served during the first world war in King Edward’s Horse and was commissioned on the battlefield in 1915.

His early years were spent working in lumber camps in Canada, as a ranger in Africa, a miner on the Pacific coast, and as an army horsemaster and intelligence officer.

He was, by all accounts, a very private man (I can’t find a photograph of him on the internet) and, at the age of 40, he bought “Rosemerryn”, a house in Cornwall, near Penzance.

The fictional home of the Penhales family, “Bosula” in The Owls’ House, is almost certainly located on the site of Rosemerryn. Set in the Keigwin Valley, six miles south-west of Penzance, the valley drains the Penwith backbone of tors into Monks Cove, the physical setting for the novels.

Just down the way, towards Penzance, is the fishing port of Newlyn, which doubled-up then as a world-famous artists’ colony, boasting its own art movement. Garstin wrote this vivid rondeau about Newlyn Hill :

On Newlyn Hill the gorse is bright;
Upon the hedgerows left and right
Song-dizzy birds the Spring-time greet;
The bluebells weave a purple sheet;
Primroses star the lanes’ green night.
Across the Bay each moorland height
Glows golden in the evening light,
And Dusk walks violet-eyed and sweet
On Newlyn Hill.

A swarm of lights, pearl-soft and white,
A fairy-lamp-land exquisite,
Opens its star-eyes at the feet
Of hills where shore and wavelets meet;
Then dreams come, mystic, infinite,
On Newlyn Hill.

Newlyn now is but a shadow of its former self thanks to the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. I don’t think he would be amused.

It’s difficult to get hold of Garstin’s books now, but I managed to entreat copies of the trilogy from Penzance library’s reference section a few years ago for a writing project, and I wasn’t disappointed. Sadly, he has rather sunk without trace in recent years. Not even the Cornish remember him, except for a few beavering upcountry literatis.

In 1930 he vanished without trace. Nobody really knows what happened to him. Some say he faked his death and went back to the East where he had spent his youth.

It seems likely though that he drowned while rowing back to a friend’s yacht after a party. The boat overturned and a woman friend survived. His body was never found although he was a strong swimmer. Presciently, the final page of his last book, China Seas, written in his study at Rosemerryn overlooking a bank of rhododendrons, has this death scene :

“Heavily he sank beside her … felt her arms go round him clinging desperately as to the last refuge in a yawning sea … A bank of rhododendrons with crimson flowers … fading fast, fading away.”

Even better, at the conclusion of his trilogy, the death of his hero, Penhales, drowning in the sea off the Twelve Apostles rocks in Cornwall, is one of the best death scenes in all literature :

“The boom of the surf was the deep roll of drums. The wind blew with the sound of trumpets, piercing, exultant. The phantom clippers dipped their gilded beaks, most stately, the ghostly soldiers tossed their lances, ‘Come on, old comrade,’ they cried. ‘Fear not! Death is but a pang and life immortal. Ride on with us, ride on forever.’”

Cornwall inspires mysticism in its writers and inhabitants. It’s a shame those upcountry folk in the London salons don’t give it more attention.

It’s better than politics.

John Evans

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