The Kington letters: Final words of a comic genius (part 2)

27 November 2007
Dear Gill,
On the Kennet and Avon Canal near where I live, at occasional intervals along the picturesque towpath, there is the odd bench to sit on. Not generally provided by British Waterways, but by relatives who wanted to provide a memorial to their late departed loved one. You know that, because they generally have engraved brass plates on them:
"TO ALAN BROWN, WHO LOVED THIS CANAL", "IN MEMORY OF ALAN BROWN, WHO LOVED THIS PARTICULAR SPOT", or even, in one uninspired case, "TO ALAN BROWN".
These benches are quite useful. I have often myself used them as a place to do up my shoes on, or to sit on and write notes of stuff going round in my head during a bike ride. I have often found that the mind goes into free wheel more easily on a bike ride than anywhere else in the world, and you get some really good thoughts up there on the saddle. Indeed, some of the ideas in these letters first saw the light of scribble on one of those benches.
So, if there is any money accruing from any of the books which I may have written as a consequence of any of these letters which I have written to you, between now and my death, I would like you to arrange for a bench to be bought and dedicated to me along the canal. And I would like the following wording to be carved on the bench, or, better, put on that small plaque: "IN FOND MEMORY OF MILES KINGTON, WHO HATED THIS SPOT, BECAUSE THERE WAS NEVER ANYWHERE TO SIT DOWN AND ENJOY IT FROM".
It doesn't matter where you put the bench, as long as there isn't one there already. I'm afraid this isn't an idea for a book, only an idea on how to spend the royalties. Oh, well.
Love, Miles
5 December 2007
Dear Gill,
When you've been diagnosed with cancer (a phrase I still can't think of a good euphemism for, even though everyone I meet can think of a bad one), one of the most annoying books in the world suddenly turns out to be 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.
Have you come across this? It's a fat American paperback which lists a thousand of the most remarkable sights in the world, natural or man-made, from canyons to cathedrals.
We have had a copy of this book knocking around our hall for a year now, on the shelves where we tend to keep the travel guides. It was certainly there before the oncologist drew on his little black cap and pronounced sentence. Until that moment I quite approved of the idea of the book. Here we all were, with twenty or thirty more years to live, and it was about time we started concentrating on using those fallow years to get to places we have been too lazy, poor or blasé to have a look at so far. 1,000 Places To See Before You Die. Ha ha. But very useful and full of ideas.
When I learnt I'd got cancer, the book suddenly looked very different. Threatening. Humourless. Grimly prescient. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. Nasty. Fun-free. Evil.
"We know you are going to die," it seemed to say, "and we know you haven't got anything like enough time to see a hundred worthwhile places, let alone a thousand, so you're up against it, aren't you, pal? A lot of drastic choosing and travelling to do, haven't you? You're going to have to decide what to see next while you're already en route to the previous place. And every time you browse through the book, trying to make up your mind, you're wasting the time and chance to see somewhere. Get a move on, because while you sit there dithering... Oops – there goes the Taj Mahal!"
It would be immensely satisfying if I could round up a few fellow sufferers to mount a lawsuit against this preposterous volume, put together by one Patricia Schulz, and dubbed a "No 1 New York Times Bestseller", on the grounds that it caused intense suffering to those who are about to die and haven't a hope in hell of seeing all those places. Luckily for her, I have many enticing things to do with my remaining time; taking money from Miss P Schulz and then handing it all straight over to my lawyers is not one of them. Are not one of them. Are not two of them.
Having browsed grimly through "A Traveller's Life List", as la Schulz subtitles her remorseless catalogue of treasures, I am relieved to find that, were I to take this over-inflated travel magazine article seriously, I could do some crossing off the list already and reduce the number from a thousand to nearer nine hundred and ninety. Yes, I have been to one or two of Schulz's Sights already. Machu Picchu. Salisbury Cathedral. Wells Cathedral. The Schwe Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon. Loch Ness. The Moscow Underground... (Starting to run out now...)
Two of these I can even bracket together. In 1980 I was lucky enough to be taken by the BBC to Peru as the presenter of "Three Miles High", one of the programmes in the "Great Railway Journeys" series. Our trip passed through Machu Picchu at one point, and allowed me to see the Lost City of the Incas and the legendary craftmanship that fitted those great massive stones together so snugly, and all without the use of any adhesive.
"Is it not remarkable," said an expert to me as we stood and surveyed the remains, "that six hundred years ago another civilisation unknown to ours could construct something so brilliant?"
If he hadn't said it, I might have agreed with him.
As it was, the spirit of rebellion suddenly moved within me.
"No," I said. "Not really. At about the same time as they were building Machu Picchu, or even earlier, we in Britain had pretty much finished Salisbury Cathedral. Give me Salisbury Cathedral any day. It makes Machu Picchu look like a child's toy."
How smug I felt. And I was right, of course. The main reason that Machu Picchu looks so good, apart from its dramatic position, is that you don't expect people in the South American jungle to be building stonework like that six hundred years ago, certainly not up a mountain, and you don't expect it to be lost for centuries until American adventurer Hiram Bingham blinks in the middle of a wood, and realises he is surrounded by some nice old remains and that from now on Yanks won't have to go to Europe for all their historical kicks any more.
It's still pretty basic stuff, Machu Picchu.
Imagine if you were stumbling through the forests of Peru and came across Salisbury Cathedral standing there, whole and entire, brightly maintained, with a notice at the door saying: "While we do not charge for admission, we hope for a contribution of at least £5 from each person", then you would be entitled to say "Holy Moley", have a small nervous breakdown, clasp cold flannels to your forehead, phone everyone at home saying: "Look at this little photo I've just taken!", or whatever is your preferred reaction to joyous shock.
Salisbury Cathedral beats a full house, four queens, five aces and Machu Picchu. (It was stressed to me in Peru that Machu Picchu was not actually the only Lost City of the Incas. I was also taken to see a place called Sachsahuaman, which is full of similarly amazing stonework and, being much less frequented by tourists, is much more tranquil and atmospheric. Oddly, it is not nearly so remote as Machu Picchu, being almost within walking distance of Cuzco. It reminds me that in Wiltshire local people will always advise you against going to the full tourist horror of Stonehenge and urge you instead to visit Avebury, which is not quite so sensational a Stone Age site but more attractive and, being enmeshed in a village, much less like a museum site, and – hey! I wonder if there's a pattern here? Do you think there are enough places throughout the world which are as good as their more famous counterparts to justify a book on them? A book called A Thousand Places To See Before You Die Which Are Pretty Much as Good as Patty Schulz's Top Thousand and Not Half As Crowded? Just a thought...)
The odd thing is that I do live in Wiltshire myself and am barely an hour from Salisbury, yet I think I have been inside Salisbury Cathedral only once in my life. I have often seen it from the distance, and occasionally from close up, if you can ever properly see a cathedral from close up, and it really is the most extraordinary, floating, extra-terrestrial, perfect, fantastical stone space ship you could want. Yet I could only be bothered to go in it once. And that was while I still lived in London, and was just passing through Wiltshire!
That's the other thing they say, of course, that people who live nearby never go. It is legendarily rare to find a Londoner who has been to the Tower of London (and then only if taking a visitor there). I have in-laws called Keith and Belinda who live less than an hour's drive from Niagara Falls, and boy, are they sick to death with taking people to Niagara Falls. They couldn't care less if they never see the Falls again. When people come to stay, they now tell them: "Go and see Niagara Falls if you like, but don't expect us to come along and see the bloody thing!" (Things? Thing?)
There might be an idea for a series of books here, introducing people who live in a place what they should go and see. London for Londoners. The Billericay That Nobody Knows. The Liverpool That Nobody Likes.
Anything in this letter appeal to you?
Love, Miles
6 December 2007
Dear Gill,
I have just had a thought about the book outlined in my previous letter.
What about a small change to the title?
Instead of calling it A Hundred Things To Do Before You Die by Miles Kington, what about it calling it A Hundred Things To Do Before I Die by Miles Kington? Thus introducing an element of blackmail into the whole business. If Patty Schulz can do it, so can I. Just a thought.
Love, Miles
10 December 2007
Dear Gill,
I now realise that there is a strong possibility that my dog and cat might outlive me.
Less likely with the cat, who is fourteen and quite an old lady, even though she still behaves like a teenager. Only this morning she climbed on my lap while I was working, which was, as it always is, a) very sweet b) a bloody nuisance. She won't be around for much longer, I fear.
But our dog, Berry, is a healthy 10-year-old springer spaniel who has got at least another five years in him, probably more. I had always put to the back of my mind the thought of his final decline and death, which was bound to come when I was about seventy, especially if we finally had to have him put down.
Now, though, I see that I might be the first one to go, which puts things in a very different light.
He might not realise that I am going to die, for a start. He doesn't know about death. As I lie expiring, surrounded by people who got tickets for the event in time, how do I know that as I open my mouth and prepare to utter my carefully prepared and rehearsed last words, he may not burst in and demand to be taken for a walk?
And that my last words, after all that, will turn out to be: "Oh, for God's sake, not now, Berry!"
I have not mentioned him anywhere in my will, and yet I suppose he is a dependent of sorts. More than most, really. Should I not cater for him as well? If only to stop him asking me if I have got all my affairs sorted out?
"... To my dog Berry, who was the only one of my close ones NOT to ask if had got my affairs sorted out, I therefore in gratitude leave... Everything." Tempting.
And people seem to do well out of pet books. What do you think, in my case, of How to say Goodbye to a Dog (And How To Leave it All Your Money, If You Have To.)
It's an idea.
Love, Miles