Chief Book Reviewer joins Nation.Cymru team

We are delighted to announce the strengthening of Nation.Cymru’s cultural provision with the appointment of Desmond Clifford as our Chief Book Reviewer, joining Books Editor Jon Gower as well as our talented staff and gifted stable of regular contributors.

Jon has been finding out more about Desmond’s long relationship with reading.

Can you tell us a little bit about your working life?

I was a journalist at the BBC for about a decade…I moved to what was then the Welsh Office just before devolution began because I wanted to play a part in it.  If the referendum of 1997 had gone the other way I’d have left again….as things turned out, I was in the Chamber standing next to Charlotte Church on the first day of devolution in 1999 and retired a couple of months ago…

What are your first memories of reading?

Actually I was very slow to become literate…for some reason my reading age at school was very low; I think I was around 11 before it caught up with my actual age…when I eventually did start reading it felt like a kind of magic, a sensation which has never gone away and I don’t take it for granted…

Which were your favourite childhood books?

I wasn’t an early reader and my parents never read to me, so I mostly just didn’t read many of the famous children’s books…I’m always a little jealous when I hear people recounting their memories of Treasure Island or Narnia or whatever…we read penguin books at school – everyone seemed to be called Peter or Jane…left to myself I read comics, Beano, Dandy, Whizzer & Chips, Hornet, comics of WW2 heroism (for you Tommy, ze war is over!); I even stole Bunty off my sisters; later I moved on to Marvel comics – the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk – for some reason we couldn’t get hold of DC comics.

I also read hundreds of football programmes: Wolves, West Brom, Newcastle and Sunderland.  I sometimes read newspapers lying around; I remember the assassination of Robert Kennedy…I didn’t read many books but my favourites were Biggles, Billy Bunter and Just William…I was a creature of time and place.

One summer holiday I decided to read War & Peace, a bit like a sloth deciding to run a marathon…I read it night and day and was mesmerised…

You started to keep a log of all the books you read at quite an early age…

When I was 16 I decided I needed to move away from comics and read proper books so I started writing down a list of all the books I read, just as a motivation really….ridiculously I’m still doing that nearly 50 years later.

In theory I have lists of everything I’ve read over that time though I’ve never collated them…I see that in the summer of 1978 I read Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, To Kill A Mocking Bird, Silas Marner, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Chatham and the British Empire and Inflation can be Cured by J.R. Kirwan…my tastes have broadened out but haven’t really changed that much – I’d read any of those today.

Do you still record what you read?

My reading speeded up over the years, I should think I’ve read around 5,000 books over 50 years…but I really don’t recommend counting books as a means of engaging with reading – it’s just a little personal oddity of mine!

What sort of books do you most enjoy?

When I was working in a full-time job I found it hard to read fiction because you need mental energy to follow a plot, so I’m catching up on lots of fiction now.  Among contemporary writers I like Paul Murray, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, John Banville, Edna O’Brien and Bernice Rubens.

I’ve spoken Welsh since my late teens and am trying to read more….I enjoyed Catrin Gerallt’s novel and am enjoying Alun Ffred’s Gwynt Y Dwyrain; John Alwyn Griffiths is a reliable favourite.  I read tons of non-fiction – history, politics, biog, essays.  I like Joan Didion, Olivia Laing, Michael Lewis, George Orwell (except, oddly, Animal Farm and 1984, his two most popular works).

For classics I like Shakespeare (Henry IV pt 2 is my favourite), Dostoyevsky, Nancy Mitford, Dickens, Joyce; Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite ever novels, along with Ulysses and Crime and Punishment.  For poetry, John Keats, WB Yeats, RS Thomas and Waldo Williams; I am obsessed by Waldo’s “Mewn Dau Gau,” my favourite poem.

Which book (s) do you take to your desert island?

For my desert island I’d take Ulysses…it’d take years to yield everything it has inside…

A testing question next…which is the best book about or from Wales?

Ned Thomas’ The Welsh Extremist is an amazing book and had a great impact on me.  It was written 50 years ago now and quite a lot has changed, but I’m not sure anyone has written anything more penetrating about Wales.

In a different vein, Dail Pren by Waldo Williams is magnificent.  Bernice Rubens is Wales’ best novelist in my opinion.