Lights out for Uppingham

Called in at Uppingham on our way back from visiting Gran in Peterborough. Do you remember the bookshop where they serve you small mugs of coffee? Sadly there was a notice announcing its closure, as from February this year. However, the gallery next door was open so we went in, to be immediately offered - mugs of coffee. We had only been there a couple of minutes when this rotund wackily dressed bloke came up to us to apologise for the state of the gallery and we had a little chat. Assuming it was Goldmark I referred to Lights out for the Territory as being one of our reasons for wanting to revisit as we were in the area.

This was clearly the right thing to have said and started off an interesting dialogue. Just a few key points:

He confirmed what a generous and sympathetic character Sinclair is; apparently Goldmark has in his time walked lots of “the walks” with Sinclair. He reckons that Sinclair literally means what he writes - for example in White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, Sinclair talks about seeing the Elephant man in the London Hospital and becoming him. Goldmark went there with Sinclair and apparently, as you approach the case in which Merrick’s remains are preserved, the light is such that when you reach a certain point you are reflected in the glass case so that your image is superimposed on to his remains.

Goldmark said that he and Sinclair get on very well together and that he has only once really wound up Sinclair. They had gone to Venice together and went to the Island of the Dead. Sinclair got Goldmark to stand on Stravinsky’s grave and took his photograph. (Apparently Sinclair has photographed him on innumerable graves.) Goldmark complained about feeling exhausted. Sinclair expounded his theory that usually when you stand on a grave the life forces from the dead pass up into you giving you their energy, but in Venice because of the sinking land and the thinness of the graveyard the forces work the other way. Crap - responded Goldmark - I’m feeling like this because of the heavy breakfast we’ve had and the pace that you have made me walk at. - Sinclair’s normal walking speed is little short of a run and Goldmark staggers to keep up with him. Sinclair got very upset with the cynical approach to his theories.

I mentioned that Sinclair seemed to be generally pretty generous to others, but that I had a friend (Richard) who had told me how awful Driffield was (do you remember me mentioning Driffield - amongst other things he wrote a guide to secondhand bookshops. Richard helped him by giving him lifts, but got ripped off by him) and so I was interested in the rough treatment that Sinclair gives him in Downriver. Goldmark thinks that Driffield is a complete shit. He has apparently libelled and slandered Goldmark in the vilest way - to such an extent that he thought of taking him to court, but Driffield taunted him by saying that as he had no money he couldn’t be sued, and he would get a lawyer through legal aid, whereas Goldmark would use up lots of money hiring a lawyer. Eventually Goldmark stopped WH Smiths from supporting the book by threatening them with legal action.

I mentioned Ackroyd using Sinclair’s ideas, apparently with his approval. He said that they get on very well and that Sinclair doesn’t say anything when A. rips off an idea, but that it all gets jotted down in Sinclair’s notebook. He also said that it was funny when Sinclair, Moorcock and Ackroyd got together. In spite of claiming that he has given up drinking Ackroyd gets spectacularly drunk, so that he has to be carried off home by his minders, Moorcock inhales large amounts of substances, while Sinclair sits by and writes it all down.

So, an interesting visit which raised my spirits after the depression of hospital visiting. By the way Iain Sinclair is listed in the telephone directory so if you fancy giving him a call any time . . .