On January 14, 2016, the then 81-year-old Alan Bennett attended a retirement party at Broadcasting House, in London, in honour of the presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, James Naughtie. As recounted in his book Enough Said, the writer’s enjoyment of the event was tempered by the homely welcome given to a pair of leading Conservative MPs.
“I’m afraid I think Jeremy Hunt is a cunt and Cameron too, and however cosy and gentlemanly the circumstances, these days we cannot afford not to be aware of it,” he writes.
If, as its poignant title at least suggests, Enough Said is to be the final instalment in Alan Bennett’s towering canon, its author can at least be assured of one thing. A national treasure he may be, but 66 years after opening his account as a member of the satirical quartet Beyond the Fringe, the appetite for resistance, and sometimes anger, remains intact.
Comprised of nine years’ worth of diaries (2016-2024) and a concise array of essays, here, Bennett has put on his slippers. In prose that is at times scratchy – only a Real Artist would resist the urge to smarten up private thoughts before ushering them into public view – and originally written, sometimes, on scraps of paper, its eclectic entries reveal a mind that remains inquiring deep into the brambles of old age. Whether writing about hymns or the comedy of Stewart Lee, the judgments are dependably sharp.
As befits a man who seems to visit the dentist about four times a week, when required, his teeth are like scimitars designed to tear chunks out of a maleficent political scene. Donald Trump, Bennett writes, “is a liar [who] has made lying commonplace in public life. It’s what links him to [Boris] Johnson, Fox News, to Putin and the rest of the world.”
Elsewhere, a Brexit debate in the House of Commons, in 2019, is described as “nauseating and offensive. This is not a government,” he writes, “this is a gang.”
Alas, while the mind remains keen, the body is an unwilling accomplice. In a book in which funeral services are as common as trips to the lavatory, signs of decline abound.
A tumble near Regent’s Park spells the end of his days as a cyclist. A walking cane is replaced by a four-stoppered handstaff. Journeys to Bennett’s second home in his native West Yorkshire see him ushered on to the train in a wheelchair by helpful staff at King’s Cross station.
But in a book in which death casts a minatory shadow, life itself continues to be a source of curious wonder. Impeded by hearing aids that seem always to be on the fritz, the author’s social diary resembles that of a monarch. Outward and onward he goes.
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Notwithstanding modest mentions of astounding achievements – The Madness of George III, Talking Heads, The History Boys – the past is a book long since read. Loving accounts of contemporary life in a home shared with partner Rupert Thomas sparkle on the page.
Fortified by contentment, between them, the pair endured the pandemic with enviable equanimity. Rather than fretting about an airborne threat to the health of an elderly man, in the clement spring of 2020, they take the air on walks around the streets near their house in Primrose Hill.
Perched on a bench amid the elegant splendour of Chalcot Square, the author passes the time chatting to whomever passes by. With an increasingly arthritic hand, he even signs books for callers at his front door.
Here, I suppose I should admit to a measure of jealousy. As a (much) lesser-known Yorkshire-born author who also lives in Camden, I seem to be the only person on the manor who has yet to make conversation with Alan Bennett. Despite knowing where he lives – we even share a barber, for God’s sake – I’ve yet to brighten his life with the news of my admiration, not only for his work (of course) but for his outlook on the life he’s chosen to live.
Decades after first chipping away at previously unmolested notions of social hierarchy and deference, today, it seems as if class and coterie are matters to which he is wholly blind. Far beyond a refusal to accept the titles and gongs with which the British state neuters its subjects, his art helped clear the path for voices as talented and resonant as Sue Townsend, Victoria Wood, Simon Armitage and Andrew McMillan.
My favourite sentence in Enough Said is one that only Alan Bennett could have written. He might even have composed it at a time before his life became studded with famous friends, literary stardom, and the kind of fripperies by which other artists’ heads are too often turned.
“I’ve known some of the Camden binmen all the time I’ve lived here, particularly the big blond one, Lou, and Curly who has now retired to Cleethorpes,” he writes.
Enough Said by Alan Bennett is published by Faber & Faber/Profile.
Ian Winwood is the bestselling author of Bodies: Life and Death in Music
