Things I wish I`d known at 18

(Jack Higgins)

Jack Higgins left school at 15,later became a teacher, then a university tutor before succeeding as a writer and becoming a millionaire. `The Eagle has landed` appears next month in its original unabridged form. A new hardback `Touch the Devil` comes out in October. Higgins also writes under his real name, Harry Patterson. He lives, in much luxury, in Jersey. Here he talks to Pamela Coleman.

I wish I had known at 18 somebody like I am now at 53, an older person with hard-won wisdom to whom I could have gone for advice. As a teenager, I was written off as an oddball. Coming from the docks of Belfast and living in a back-to-back in Leeds I was thought of as `Daft Harry` because of my obsession about becoming a writer. I had pretensions to being a kind of Ernest Hemingway. I wish I`d known my limitations. I wish I had known that you are capable of anything at 18. I was a teenager in the days before teenagers were invented – when it was a handicap to be young. You were `not but a lad`, held back because you were only 18, 20 or whatever. There were no pop singers speaking for younger people then. It was before John Braine, who`s a friend of mine, wrote Room at the Top, before the Angry Young Man thing took off.

Getting a safe job, earning a steady wage – that was the philosophy of life. It was a philosophy based on parents` attitudes. So I went into a succession of boring clerical jobs. I wish I hadn`t wasted my energies in so many directions before I finally got to grips with writing. I wish, for instance, I`d had the guts to try to become an actor. I was quite good, I used to act at the Civic Theatre in Leeds as an amateur and longed to try my luck with a seaside repertory company. But when I talked about it to friends – who were all office workers, factory workers, shop workers – they`d say: `Ooh, no`. I wish I`d known at 18 that other people`s opinions were nothing like as important as I thought they were. For me it`s what I think that`s important, and I don`t mean that in an arrogant way. In writing, for example, I had to learn to trust my own judgment. For years I earned modest sums and my first real break didn`t come until 1971, with a thriller called The Savage Day, based on the Irish Troubles. Everyone I told thought it was a terrible idea for a book, but I went ahead and wrote it. It got to number ten in the best-seller list without any fanfare of publicity. When I suggested writing about Winston Churchill spending a quiet weekend in the country when German paratroopers drop in to kidnap him, my publisher said it was terribly shaken. But I was so hooked on the idea, I persisted. That was The Eagle Has Landed, which created publishing history.

Because I left school at 15 with no School Certificate I thought I was a failure, but I think now that being a school drop-out was probably a good thing. It made me an instinctive writer. I think too much education can be a disadvantage. Universities are full of professors and academics who want to write but can`t. I wish I`d known that at 18. When I pulled Dostoevsky`s The House of the Dead off a library shelf as a lad I read it simply because I enjoyed the story, not because I`d been told to read it. But at 18 I longed for a piece of paper that said I was intelligent. I got it eventually when I was 31 after taking a double honours degree through night-school and correspondence courses. It didn`t mean much, apart from improving my career prospects. I became a lecturer in a polytechnic and finally a tutor at Leeds University. It was an ego trip more than anything else. Recently I had my IQ tested – it`s 147, just short of Mensa. I realised that the truth was, I always was a clever idiot who didn`t fit into the system and whom the system didn`t recognise.

At 18 I went into the Horse Guards on National Service and was stationed in Berlin. The Cold War had just started and we had to patrol the borders. Occasionally a shot was fired – a close friend of mine was shot in the stomach and died at my side. For me life has been a disappointment in general terms, which may sound surprising. I thank God for my wife, Amy, and four marvelous kids, but life is life, in spite of success. The total sales of my books are now well over 100 million. When Eagle was number one in England and number one in America, I never thought my success would continue. Since then I`ve had six more number ones. I`ve climbed my personal Everest. And so what? I realise I`ve been driven by a terrible desire to achieve. That desire made me a workacholic. I didn`t have time for hobbies, so now that I do I find there`s nothing I really want to do. I tried karate for a year and thought `What am I doing this for?` Then I tried being very healthy and running everywhere and weightlifting.

These days I get invited to Buckingham Palace garden parties and lunch with Princess Margaret and to talk to Prime Ministers. I feel as though it`s all a mistake. So what? – is a phrase that has figured rather largely in my life. I`m glad I didn`t know at 18 that when you`ve got to the top of the peak you`re left with an emptiness.

Put the following events of jack Higgins` life into chronological order. You will have to guess when some of the events happened.

a) was a tutor at university;

b) became a millionaire;

c) lived in Belfast;

d) did several clerical jobs;

e) started writing;

f) acted in Leeds;

g) wrote The Eagle Has Landed;

h) got a degree;

i) did National Service.

Explain what he means by the following:

a) I was a teenager in the days before teenagers were invented;

b) In writing… I had to learn to trust my own judgment;

c) The Eagle Has Landed created publishing history;

d) I read (The House of the Dead) simply because I enjoyed the story, not because I`d been told to read it;

e) I didn`t mean much;

f) …life is life, in spite of success;

g) I`ve climbed my personal Everest;

h) I feel as though it`s all a mistake;

i) So what? – is a phrase that has figured rather largely in my life.

Which of the following adjectives describe Jack Higgins?

Arrogant, snobbish, self-confident, hard-working, wise, proud, home-loving, disillusioned, boastful, self-made, cynical.

Find a word or expression the article that means the same as the following.

a) a persistent idea;

b) a disadvantage;

c) worked hard at and was successful in;

d) had the courage;

e) wanted very much;

f) lucky opportunity;

g) shocked;

h) obsessed by;

i) a person who does not finish a course of study;

j) chances of professional advancement.

XVI. Practise your translation skills. Translate the following sentences from Russian into English.

1. Моя сестра Нина замужем, хотя ей только 19 лет.

2. Ее муж Саша на семь лет старше ее, по профессии он доктор.

3. У них еще нет детей.

4. Родители Саши развелись, когда он был ребенком. И до женитьбы он жил с матерью.

5. Нинина свекровь на пенсии, но она еще не старая женщина. Ей всего 50 лет и она хорошо выглядит на свои годы. Она очень практичная и всегда полна энергии.

6. Свекровь всегда помогает своей невестке по дому, потому что сейчас Нина учится в университете.

7. Обычно Саша очень занят в больнице, но как раз сейчас он дома, так как они собираются навестить Нининых родителей и брата.

8. Брат Нины на 5 лет младше ее, ему 14.

9. Он занимается спортом и хочет стать первоклассным футболистом. И даже сейчас он сидит и смотрит футбольный матч.

10. Нинин папа читает газету, а мама готовит обед. Они ждут в гости молодоженов.

11. Нинина мама – приятная женщина, темноглазая и темноволосая. Нина очень похожа на нее.

12. Родители Нины одного возраста.

13. По характеру Нина пошла в отца: такая же спокойная, как и он.

14. В воскресенье приезжает сестра Саши со своими близнецами.

15. У молодой пары много родственников и они рады видеть их всех.

XVI. Writing essays.

1. Beauty and happiness: are they connected?

2. The famous family: do you think its members have similar problems or different from ours?

3. How have your wishes and hopes changed since you were a child?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16