I must confess that I picked up this book fully expecting not to like it at all. It's a collection of Peter Mortimer's weekly columns for the News Guardian which is basically old news stories from a paper that I do not read and mostly set in North Tyneside where I do not reside. Well, it is a testimony to Mr Mortimer's gentle and easy going writing style that I quickly began to warm to him as we follow our intrepid hero lampooning his way through life. Anyone or anything is a fair target for him from Nexus to reality TV to plastic wrapped cucumbers. All of this is done with his tongue placed firmly in cheek as he branches out into his own unique brand of surrealist imaginative journalism (including finding weapons of mass destruction in Cullercoats). The columns are less news but more of a muse column in that they are his personal reflections, observations and anecdotes culled from his life. Whether he is dressed as a pirate in a cave or the touching description of the decline of his mother in an old people's home, he is an engaging and witty writer.

SM

For almost five years wordsmith Peter Mortimer has been penning a weekly column in the News Guardian. Now, after a delve through the archives, he has produced a book of around 140 articles, approximately half of those published in the newspaper. The selected works carry a varied outlook on the changing face of North Tyneside and the world in general, with a tone ranging from the philosophical to the amusing while remaining a perspective which makes the reader investigate their own thoughts on the subject being considered.
The celebrated author and playwright has a wry sense of humour which he portrays in a colourful prose similar to that of his appearance – a man in his 60s who clearly enjoyed the period he spent as a burgeoning young man taking his early steps in the cut-throat world of journalism. Ever wary of press deadlines, the author’s columns have winged their way to the newsroom from destinations as far flung as the northern US city of Minneapolis, the mountains of Yemen in the Middle East and the isolation of the Island of Jura – “the land that time forgot” as he so eloquently commented in his piece penned while staying in the cottage where George Orwell wrote 1984.
While lavished with humour, sprinkled with anecdotes and adorned with character, Mortimer’s columns can also carry an edge which questions the reasoning of major establishments. The wisdom of North Tyneside Council and the management of Metro operator Nexus are just two of those to feel the force of the writer’s arguments. But possibly the most touching piece in the book is that datelined April 12, 2007 — ‘A society in denial, a shame it’s convenient to forget’. In it he questions how we treat our elderly citizens as many find themselves in care, seeing out the end of their days. The article revolves around visits to see his own mother and how he witnesses her deteriorating state of mind in unfamiliar surroundings. A moving perspective, which rightly raised serious questions on the attitude of modern society to such an emotive subject.
In summary the book offers a fascinating insight into the mind of an artist, highlighting his literary talents on a platform which is rare for an author and playwright.

Ian Arkle

The Whitley Bay News Guardian, memory murmurs, used beneath the masthead to bear the sub-title “and Seaside Chronicle”. It was jolly, breezy, almost kiss-me-quick. Since 2003, it’s carried a weekly column by Peter Mortimer, an old and formerly pony-tailed acquaintance whose house overlooks Cullercoats Bay and who writes wonderfully well.
“Twenty of his books and around ten plays have appeared, usually to a respectful silence,” says the potted biography which prefaces a new collection of those coruscating columns.
Peter kindly sent me a copy, which I began to read on the train. Jolly, breezy, if not necessarily kiss-me-quick, the columns seldom stray far from North Tyneside – whimsically crafted little musings on the Hoppings, on cricket at Chester-le-Street, on 250 pollisses beating down his front door, on the mixed blessings of a travel pass, on Pirate Pete and on how he’d always wanted to be one of those ballerinas in blue jeans who’d dance around on the super waltzer, collecting sixpences.
Amid it all, as uncomfortable as it is incongruous, are 1,000 of the most unforgettable words imaginable headed “A society in denial, the shame it’s convenient to forget.” Published last April, it’s about a visit to his demented old mum in an old folks home.
“In the lounge, the old people sit round the perimeter, some silently staring into the room’s empty centre, some mumbling, some sleeping with slumped heads. They are positioned in a way that makes human interaction as difficult as possible. In one corner, a TV set is blaring out the inanities of daytime telly. No-one is watching. The television, in true Orwellian fashion, is always on. No matter what day or time of day I visit, the scene is identical. These people have been dumped. And we have dumped them.” Politicians, he goes on, forget them. “There’s no mileage in them. They are the huge silent scandal deep within our society. Probably millions are living like this. They are invisible.”
“If I stay too long in the home, I suffocate. The suffocation is partly my own guilt, that I have helped bring things to this. We spend billions on immoral wars, on futile macho weapon systems, while we allow our old people to rot. Why are we not more ashamed?”
That column becomes all the more poignant for those of us who have endured identical institutions, who at least have been able to walk out and again to breathe God’s good air, who beg loved ones never, ever, to let it happen to us and who try to hide the fear that, maybe quite soon, it will.
Goodness knows the answer, but for all with real responsibility for reform, the first step should be to read Peter Mortimer. His mum died in January.

Mike Amos

The first night I spent in Peter Mortimer's house I had an asthma attack. Reading "Peter Mortimer at Large" on the bus gave me quite a lot more pleasure, even if I was wheezing a bit - this time from laughing. The one point where I almost read out a bit to my fellow passengers was when Mortimer of Cullercoats and his partner Kitty checked in for a weekend mini-break at the Grand Hotel, Tynemouth, a short walk away from home. That's the way to avoid global warming by unneccessary airflights. Mortimer has some obsessions - the way developers are tearing the heart out of Cullercoats to put up luxury flats that nobody lives in, and the way Whitley Bay is allowed to fall into dereliction. And he loves to walk, cycle and combat the inanities of the Metro, so he sees his patch in ways the car driver never can. Though I think the book could have done with a bit of pruning (hence four stars not five) it's a great read. And the editorial staff at the Whitley Bay News Guardian deserve congratulations for allowing Mortimer to be at large. The developers and the Councillors must hate him, he does such a good job. I'll chip in a fiver if anyone has plans to build a statue of him.

ross bradshaw