Introduction to talk on Walter Scott by John Davison, 11 December 2015

In his day Walter Scott was the most successful novelist who had ever written, and the most famous Scotsman in the world. He knew practically everyone in British society from the King (George IV) downwards; his books were translated across the world, and provided the plots for more than ninety operas.

Beginning as a successful (and not very good) poet he began writing novels almost by accident, and became the most successful novelist ever to have written in English. He was the inventor of the historical novel; every writer of historical fiction from Bulwer Lytton to Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel is in his debt. His influence on the Scotland of his time was profound, both through his novels and his political involvement. It can be argued that he helped to create modern Scotland by  reconciling lukewarm Scots to the Hanoverian crown, and  helping to heal the rift between  the  romantically backward Highlands and the Lowlands of the Enlightenment.

To a remarkable extent he and his books are one: the themes he treats in fiction are those which concerned him in life, and his own was quite as heroic as any of his characters'.  He had the distinction of being loved by almost everyone with whom he came into close contact, from aristocrats to servants. He is one of the most attractive figures the gallery of English letters.  

A Vision of Hell or the tale of a True Patriot? by Lawrence Youlten

“I leapt up at the loudest noise one could imagine, along with a massive flash and then fire - fire everywhere. I saw window panes flying and falling. My first thought was 'electric' what else could it be? The flames were suddenly everywhere - beneath me, above me, and all around me. I thought with a sadness, that all the loonies were right 'the world will end in fire'. I screamed for my mother as any child does, then, convinced that this was a general state of affairs, I yelled for God to save me. I felt myself sinking, almost disappearing. . . spiralling down, my body and my clothes aflame .”

This was written by the victim of a terrorist bomb, twelve years old at the time she describes. Her name was Glynnis Burleigh and the incident left her needing extensive plastic surgery following her 80% body surface area burns. She was left with lifelong severe facial disfigurement. In spite of this horrifying experience she was able to say in an interview many years later that one of the advantages of being so badly disfigured is that you can know for sure that people like you for who you are, and not for what you look like. Her grandmother had died of burns sustained in the same explosion, and over twenty other members of the public had also sustained injuries. Glynnis specifically stated that she felt no animosity towards the African Resistance Movement, (ARM), a member of which was responsible for constructing the bomb and leaving it in the concourse of Johannesburg Park Station one afternoon in July 1964. The bomber was a white South African teacher, John Harris, subsequently to be the only white person among about 2500 hanged by the State in the apartheid era. Jonty Driver has written a well-researched account of the bombing, Harris’s trial and execution, and subsequent “rehabilitation”, culminating in the addition to his memorial tombstone of the words “True Patriot”. To me, Glynnis is the real hero of Jonty Driver’s new book, , “THE MAN WITH THE SUITCASE, The Life, Execution and Rehabilitation of a Liberal Terrorist”. (Details can be found below.)

The suitcase bomb, which included dynamite, two gallons of petrol and a timer, had been constructed and left in the station by John Harris. Harris made two telephone calls, one to the  Railway Police, the other to a newspaper office, warning that a bomb would explode at 4.33, and was booby-trapped to detonate prematurely if handled. He suggested that the station should be cleared by announcements on the station PA system. The timing of these calls suggests that less than 20 minutes warning had been given, which seems an unrealistically short time to get an evacuation organised. In any event, no Tannoy warnings or other measures to clear the area took place. It does not appear that any such measures had been instituted by 4.33pm, and cynics have suggested that this was a deliberate decision on the part of the authorities, in particular B J Vorster the Minister of Justice responsible for security.

The ARM seems to have included informers, and others ready to implicate Harris under predictably brutal interrogation. He was very quickly detained and beaten up, and sustained a fractured jaw from a kick in the face. He confessed and then unsuccessfully appealed against the trial verdict of capital murder on the somewhat unlikely grounds of insanity. He received a death sentence and was subsequently hanged.

This tragic story raises a number of issues. How effective is violence with members of the public as its victims in bringing about political change? Arguably, the IRA achieved more by blowing up Lord Mountbatten, Airey Neave and the Conservative Party Brighton Conference than by killing and maiming dozens of innocent members of the public, including children, in tea-rooms, shopping centres and at Remembrance Day services. Those associated with non-violent protest such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and, most recently Aung San Suu Kyi, have achieved much more, without their consciences being troubled.

Jonty Driver, who was himself detained and then banished by the South African authorities around the time of the events described in his book, knew several of the protagonists in this harrowing episode. Questions about the personality of John Harris were raised in my mind when I was reading the book, some of which were addressed. Never having met Harris, on the evidence in this book, and in a radio documentary I heard some time ago, I imagine he was a sincere but misguided “Walter Mitty” figure. He was naïve if he thought that his bomb could achieve any good purpose, and that its predictably tragic consequences, both for his victims and his family were justifiable. His personality was, I think flawed, not only in his naïveté but even in his commitment to his family. Not only did he, by his action, effectively abandon his wife to bring up their baby son on her own, but he had earlier arranged with her for their first child to be given up for adoption, for no compelling reason that I can discern, apart from the inconvenience at that time in his life of coping with a baby. However, his letters to his wife, and his demeanour on his way to the gallows, singing “We Shall Overcome”, were moving, and highlighted what a waste of a life this was.

Postscript: On YouTube you can find "True Patriot", a recent documentary film covering these events: click here

Buying the Book

THE MAN WITH THE SUITCASE: The Life, Execution and Rehabilitation of John Harris, Liberal Terrorist, by C.J. (Jonty) Driver, Crane River Press

 You can purchase the book on Kindle at : click here

 or online from the South African distributor at click here

Jonty will be signing copies of his book (s) at the  Rye Bookshop in the High Street on Saturday 21 November between 11 am and 2 pm

There is a limited number for sale in the UK at £9 inc. If you wish to buy one of them, EFT to:    D Skinner   Lloyds Bank, Piccadilly     Sort 30-96-64    Account 31271568 (and notify douglas@cranerievera.com)

or send a cheque made out to Doug Skinner to:    21 Weston Park, Thames Ditton KT7 0HW and he'll send a copy in the mail.

“Jonty Driver’s book is a reliable and balanced account.  He knew all the main actors in the tragedy… He has been attacked for the word ‘rehabilitation’ in his title, but this is a shot from the hip. In fact Driver weighs all the arguments…Driver, who is a poet of some stature, includes a poem he wrote about these events in 1966 and even that is finely balanced.”  (R W Johnson in politicsweb.co.za)

Here is a link to Jonty's website: click here