Escape to an Autumn Pavement and Jamaica by Andrew Salkey

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Books, Arts, Leisure, Hobbies

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2022

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our guests are both new to Backlisted: the legendary publisher, editor, writer Margaret Busby and the award-winning poet, Raymond Antrobus. They join us to discuss the work of the Caribbean writer, Andrew Salkey, in particular his 1960 Hampstead ‘bedsit novel’, Escape to An Autumn Pavement, and his epic poem Jamaica, which explores the historical foundations of Jamaican society and was first published in 1973 by the pioneering press, Bogle L’Ouverture. As you will discover, Salkey was a consummate live performer - as are both our guests – and the episode make a strong case for his work to be revisited. It also features Andy enjoying the graphic novel and memoir, All the Sad Songs by Summer Pierre, while John is blown away by Aftermath, Preti Taneja’s brave and uncompromising account of recovering from a public tragedy. Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length) 09:44 - All The Sad Songs by Summer Pierre. 15:36 - Aftermath by Preti Taneja. 22:16 - Escape to An Autumn Pavement & Jamaica by Andrew Salkey * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, here we are, Margaret. I've got a question. I know you have an illustrious career important
0:29.4	publisher dealt with many fascinating and culturally vital people, but what I would like to ask you about
0:36.5	is Bex Hill on C. Because you went to school in Bex Hill, didn't you? I did. I went to a very
0:43.6	interesting international school called Charter's Towers School for Girls. But didn't have the
0:48.5	full girls, but it was Charter's Towers. Well, I hate Stings Road. I hate Stings Road. Admittedly,
0:55.3	now listeners regularly says we know we normally talk about Croydon, but I'm trying to annex Bex Hill
1:00.3	now into the backlisted canon, because my family comes from that part of the world. And so,
1:06.0	when I saw that you've been to school there, so it was in Hastings Road, and would you go on
1:13.6	outings to the Delawar Pavilion? We certainly did go there. I think we had our
1:20.0	speech day there, and did our school plays there? Did you do the school plays there?
1:24.4	Had lectures from eminent people who went to there? Brunowski, did you say Brunowski?
1:30.8	Joseph Brunowski, I think, people like that. Played the Delawar Pavilion. There's a
1:36.0	thoughts. And did you, and was there a good library in Bex Hill then, or was there a good
1:42.6	school library? I can't remember too much about libraries, but I can remember we certainly were
1:48.6	provided with daily newspapers. I remember when it changed from the daily telegraphs to the
1:53.9	garden, but I also had a way of discovering things in the local news agents. And I found
2:00.5	us wonderful literary magazine, literary journal called John London's Weekly, nice to write them
2:07.5	letters about all sorts of things. They didn't know they'd be dealing with a schoolgirl, but I also
2:11.8	saw them. I won one week. I got an issue of it on which there was a picture on the front cover
2:21.1	of Noneja Barford, a South African writer who was having her book reviewed in it. I think she
2:27.9	also went on to be an editor of journals like The Strand, but it was that image of an African
2:36.0	woman on the front of a literary magazine that gave me inspiration that I could be part of the
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