The Wycliffe Companion

Radio Interviews - Transcripts

2.  1986

WJB on Radio Cornwall on publication of The Quiet Virgin. 

My taste in literature has been that way [detective fiction] ever since I was a youngster, starting with Sherlock Holmes, and then following on to Dorothy L Sayers, Agatha Christie, Simenon, and Nicholas Freeling, the man who created the Van Der Valk series, and it’s been largely an attempt, I suppose, to create something approaching the sort of thing they did, and not doing it terribly well, but having a go.

I started in 66, knowing that I would have relatively short service as a teacher and consequently not a very big pension, I looked around for something which would make my old age more comfortable.

I: Was it a natural ability, or did you have to work hard at it?

WJB: I think one has to work hard at it. Detective story writing isn’t regarded as very high calibre of literature, but it’s difficult because you are bound to have a closely connected plot with every incident integrated thoroughly into the story.  That makes a difficulty.

I took a tip from Simenon.  He started all his detective stories by writing a name and an address on an envelope, and then seeing what ideas came from it. I don’t write on an envelope but I do write down a name and address.  I must say it helps a great deal if you start thinking along those lines, and gradually some sort of idea comes. 

I: Mynhager obviously a fictitious house, but in fact the entrance to it is exactly as it would relate to Eric Quayle’s house, which is our book expert. 

WJB:Yes indeed.  It bothered me a little bit but I didn’t think he would mind and I did put the house on the other side of the inlet which should mollify him if he did feel upset.

I lived in Reskadinnick near Camborne for seven years, and I think Reskadinnick was a fair example of a Cornish village at that time. 

I think most Cornish people are very reserved about their personal life and their personal thoughts and they rather resent anyone trying to probe, especially if they are strangers.  I do feel Cornishmen have a façade which they present to strangers, and I fully endorse it.

I think readers of detective stories like a degree of complication.  Fundamentally they are puzzles, and people like to pit their wits against the writer to try to discover the way in which the plot will evolve, and it is the business of the person writing to try and trick them… but by fair means, so that when they’ve finished, they don’t feel that they’ve been swindled, that they’ve been led up the garden on the last couple of pages.

I: Do you write the book in such a way that it is possible for the reader to solve the problem before the end?

WJB: I hope so.  I’ve been told that it’s possible to do that, but I wouldn’t guarantee it.  One tries to drop pointers from different stages in the writing of the book, which would indicate what the final result is going to be, without giving the story away, and  spoiling it for anyone who wants to follow it through.  A few red herrings of course are legitimate.