Mark Hodkinson - Marianne Faithfull: As Years Go By

DEDICATION:

For my best friend Peter Read (19621988)

By the same author (selected titles)
Thank Yer, Very Glad (Omnibus Press, 1990)
Life Sentence (Parrs Wood, 2001)
Believe In The Sign (Pomona, 2007)
The Last Mad Surge Of Youth (Pomona, 2009)

www.markhodkinson.com

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EISBN: 978-0-85712-993-2

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A s Years Go By (this book) was originally titled As Tears Go By (that book). Its only a single letter changed but a world of difference. I was in my early twenties when I was first commissioned to write the life story of Marianne Faithfull, back in 1990. I was overwhelmed, both by the gravitas of the subject matter and its actual framing tasteful typesetting, hardback, top-whack price. I responded by adopting an outlandish authorial voice, one that belonged to a haughty faux-posh older gentleman. He might well have worn a cloak. And, unlike the rest of us, he didnt, for example, go upstairs, but defected to the uppermost portion of the residence.

Within a few months of publication I grew to dislike As Tears Go By and its tortuous tautology. Marianne Faithfull didnt like it either. She called it scaly. She uses this word frequently. People are scaly; ideas or plans are scaly. Its an adjective that is clearly meant to suggest unpleasantness but to meet it straight-on you have to look it up. I have. Its a slang term denoting shabby and despicable. I think we disliked the book for different reasons.

I was asked several times whether I wanted to update As Tears Go By but it didnt feel right to revisit the past. Id moved on. I was proud of the solid journalistic research I had done but embarrassed by the earnest tone and the malapropisms. In truth, I wanted the book to disappear, fade away. But nothing disappears or fades away any more, not in the age of the Internet. So, one day, it suddenly became an easy decision. I would revise and update a piece of work that had caused me so much unease over the years, and make good a bad job. Very seldom in life are we offered such an opportunity.

The commission was to undertake a six-week revision. It became six months. In that time I could not fundamentally alter the shape of the book or overlay a different narrative but it allowed me to tighten the grammar, excise the fanciful and, most importantly, chase away the condescending fool who had possessed my insecure twenty-something self. Although at first glance it may seem to follow the same outline, I doubt there are more than a handful of sentences that remain unchanged and, of course, there is a heavy poundage of new material. I was delighted when the publisher decided to change the title, for this is a richer, better book and deserves to stand alone.

I remember, back in 1990, being a little bit hurt when Mariannes long-standing friend, Christopher Gibbs, referred to me as an earnest young chap. Now, Im glad I was earnest and diligent and enthusiastic. I walked down the street where Marianne grew up. I spoke to her former neighbours. I sat on the grass in the grounds of her school, St Josephs. I stood on the car park at the Progress Theatre in Reading and imagined it was 1960 and 13-year-old Marianne might appear from among the maze of privet hedges and houses, on her way to rehearsal with the youth group. I did all this without the aid of the Internet. I had to write letters and make phone calls, knock on doors and meet people in cafes and pubs. It meant the research was pure, first-hand.

Sadly, in some cases it will no longer be possible to retrace my trail of research. A number of the people I interviewed have died. I was probably the only writer to spend time talking about Marianne with her father, Glynn Faithfull. We spent a pleasant few hours walking the grounds of Braziers College. I was pleased he had agreed to speak to me, especially when others within her circle had refused. I think he did so because he wanted to register formally his part in Mariannes life. I did not realise then the complexity of their relationship. Through the book I have tried to avoid second-rate psychoanalysis but I think it is fair to say that the father-daughter dynamic is the most important of her life. To understand this is to properly understand her story.

Another advantage of beginning the research more than two decades ago was that I got there first. Many were speaking of Marianne and the times she lived through for the first time. They were fresh and candid. The Swinging Sixties and Mariannes part in it was already a media fascination but it was nothing like today where it is raked over again and again across hundreds of television channels, radio stations and magazine articles. Barely a few months pass without another book or revelation forming an excuse to bathe deep in nostalgia.

I find it heartening when asked if Marianne co-operated with this book. It shows that even in a supposedly cynical world where we are each arch and savvy, some still believe that a well-known figure such as Marianne would give up time to support a project over which she will not have ultimate control or stand to make financial gain. These days artists offer themselves for interview only when they have a product to promote. The media understands and accepts implicitly that no one is available out of season any more. So, no, she didnt co-operate.

She was asked, of course, back in 1990 and again for this book; not to do so would have been discourteous on my part. I exchanged e-mails with her manager. At first he said he would have a chat with her but pointed out that she was really busy. He later asked to see the manuscript; clearly this was the required brokerage for her possibly agreeing to an interview. My editor, a man with great experience in such matters, envisaged a fraught exchange developing. There would be discussions, requests, compromises, complaints, tantrums and, inevitably, deadlines flouted.

His standpoint may have been coloured by how Marianne reacted to the original book. She wrote in her autobiography that I was counting on her keeling over at any moment. She also reported that I had told the British press I expected to hear that any day now she had overdosed in some street corner lavatory. Her next attack (contained in two tart paragraphs) was on the publisher. She claimed it had delayed publication in the hope of coinciding with her death. None of these statements was true and, I have to admit, it made me distrustful of an otherwise well-written and entertaining book.