Auto-da-Fay

by martincwday

I was so upset to hear of the death of Fay Weldon yesterday. Ninety-one is, of course, a bloody good innings in anyone’s book – and I’d only known Fay for a little over six years – but I honestly thought she’d outlive us all, if not Methuselah. It was such a privilege to have her as a mentor and even to count her as a friend.

I was already lecturing at Bath Spa when I started my Masters in Creative Writing and if anything I knew her scripts (and the adaptations of her novels) somewhat better than her books. Seminars with her were always a delight, though they weren’t entirely without issue: once Fay got an idea into her head, it was hard to shift it. She confidently stated that my novel opened with a terrorist strike, even though it didn’t, and was convinced that I was adapting a script, even though I wasn’t. Woe betide anyone who dared use a WE Johns-ish synonym for ‘said’ (which is good advice), and on more than one occasion she advocated visiting a publisher’s office to hand deliver a manuscript, even if their policy was not to read unsolicited material (which is less so). I often joked with my fellow students that half of her advice was barmy, half was pure gold, and the trick was to try to work out which was which.

But she was dogged and dedicated in her defence of writing that she liked, would read anything and everything submitted to her, and was always more interested in building up than knocking down. (Creative Writing courses are notorious for taking the opposite approach.) Though it might be true to say that I learned more about technique and style in my other classes, the best note I received while studying for my Masters was Fay’s encouragement to stop worrying. Indeed, a few of her emailed comments were so positive and inspiring that I printed them out and made sure they were in my eye line as I finished my novel.

They’re still there.

I was delighted when she was appointed as my manuscript tutor. She got me reading The End of the Affair at just the right point in the process, but otherwise left me to get on with things. I approached over fifty agents when I’d finished my novel and most didn’t even bother replying – but Fay remained on hand to dispense positivity, or a kick up the arse, as required. I sometimes think she believed in my book more than I did – when I messaged her, after her move to a nursing home, she was overjoyed I’d finally found a publisher, and pretty much admonished me for having insufficient faith.

As she grew older, it was faith – or sheer bloodymindedness, which may sometimes be the same thing – that kept her going. Though somewhat lacking in mobility – she couldn’t use the stairs and would be driven to and from the campus at Corsham – her mind was razor-sharp. We had to keep reminding ourselves that Fay was in her mid-eighties, given that she was still lecturing, still hosting fabulous parties, still writing and publishing book after book. (Her 2018 ‘Handbook for the Rejected Writer’, Why Will No-one Publish My Novel, was Fay in a nutshell – full of wisdom, but hard-headed.) I’ve loved those novels of Fay’s that I’ve read (she wrote getting on for forty, so I think she’ll forgive me for not having tackled every single one). But I think I loved her work ethic and tenacious determination even more.

Right to the end, Fay was at least as interested in the business of writing as the art of it. (Those years in advertising, that need to write to support a young family, never really left her.) To this day, whenever I have to put on my big boy trousers and do a bit of hustling, or if I’m thinking about making an approach with zero expectation that I’ll even get a reply, I talk about channelling my inner Fay. It’s appropriate, I guess, that one of our last conversations (by email) was to agree a form of words for a cover quote for my novel. But I’m so sad that she’ll never get to hold it in her hands.

Of course, the sadness I have felt over the last 24 hours is nothing to that of her family and friends of long-standing. I send them all the love in the world (and, as per my last blog, I’d rather be accused of being over-emotional and sentimental than the opposite). I’ll miss Fay terribly but am honoured to have known her. As I said on the socials yesterday, when they made Fay, they didn’t just break the mould, they burnt down the entire factory. I just hope she knows how loved she was, by her readers, by her colleagues – and by all her students, young and old.

Talking of age, it’s worth concluding by saying that, despite her advancing years, it was unwise to take Fay for a fool. Irrespective of the twinkle in her eye, the softness of her voice, she could be cutting. One particular (anecdotal?) story about Fay at Bath Spa comes to mind. (I’m going to rewrite things, partly to obscure, in case the story is real, and partly to embellish, as I’m sure Fay would have done.) At BSU, before being accepted onto the course, it was customary to be interviewed by two of the lecturers regarding a piece of creative writing. One particular student submitted something that was, by common consensus, rather flawed. The other lecturer took the student gently through potential faults: was the dialogue dull, the prose overblown? Was some of the writing clunky, did the tense slip, were there structural issues? After listening to this lengthy dissection of the writing sample, and weighing up the options, Fay leant forward. ‘The problem is,’ she said, ‘it just isn’t very good.’