*LEGAL EXPLANATION (rf The Remedy, page 50.)
The law allows that all documents (and recordings of conversations) that are generated with a view to taking legal action, are privileged, that is, unlike all other relevant documents pertaining to a matter in issue, they can be withheld from the evidence. Given that Richard Charkin's letter to me of 16th July 1985 constituted, in itself, a breach (the first of two) of Oxford's contract, my subsequent telephone conversations with Henry Hardy (this one and those following) were therefore held to be privileged and did not appear in the Trial or Appeal Court files (hence the a, b, c... numbering). By the time of the Damages Assessment proceedings however, certain passages in these conversations (e.g. Hardy's remarks about how he had planned to publish Making Names) had become relevant to these new issues, so their transcripts were then produced, to the delight of Oxford's City solicitors Clifford Chance, whose staff promptly spent hundreds of lucrative hours fruitlessly dissecting them. Case-students who wish to retrace the steps taken by the Trial and Appeal Courts should therefore now proceed straight to the next item in the original files and perhaps revisit these conversations later, while intrepid, carefree psycho-voyeurs may wish to read on now. - A. M.
Malcolm: Are you free to talk, for a second?
Hardy: Yes.
Malcolm: First, tell me how everything is up at the Press. Since I last phoned have there been any...?
Hardy: What?
Malcolm: Have there been any developments on any front, that affect me?
Hardy: Not that affect you I think, um, no. There have been some developments in the structure of the General Publishing side, but erm, Nicola Bion, whom I mentioned to you before I believe as the person who would be formally responsible for your book, has ended up in a position in the new structure where she will still be responsible for your book, so I don't think they need to concern you.
Malcolm: And what position are you in now, if I may ask?
Hardy: Oh, I am still in the same position as when we last talked, which is to say I am nothing all to do with that part of the Press. I'm still responsible for academic politics and sociology.
Malcolm: Uhuh?
Hardy: I think I told you about that before.
Malcolm: Yes. And, er, how is Richard Charkin? Is he well?
Hardy: And he is well, I think, yes. He hasn't, er, tipped any any more buckets of excrement over me since we last spoke, I think.
Malcolm: Or over himself?
Hardy: Or over himself, no. Over somebody else I expect, but I don't know about that. How are you?
Malcolm: It's funny you should mention buckets of excrement because I have been to Spain and I had a very nice time, but I have come back with salmonella poisoning.
Hardy: Oh, one does, yes.
Malcolm: And I have been trying to shake it off.
Hardy: Have you got a proper doctor treating you?
Malcolm: Well I have got a proper doctor, but she is not treating me. I think the current fashion is just to to let it... Either they win or you do, you know, that kind of thing.
Hardy: Oh God. Are you winning?
Malcolm: Well, it is just taking a long time. I'm alright, I'm just not really eating properly, but it is quite good because it's keeping my weight down.
Hardy: You can't kill the thing off by taking something?
Malcolm: No, no, well you can, but they then come back with renewed virulence after you have finished the pills. They don't like doing that any more.
Hardy: And the body is supposed eventually to build up antibodies to cope or something?
Malcolm: Something like that, or else they just get bored I suppose and then move on to someone else, I don't know.
Hardy: What is it, some sort of worm?
Malcolm: Oh no, I don't think so,
Hardy: Is it a virus then?
Malcolm: No, it's an organism, but I don't think it's a worm.
Hardy: No?
Malcolm: I don't really want to find out too much about it... a small fish, by the name of it I should think.
Hardy: (laughs) Yes, it sounds like it. Does this mean that you haven't been able to do any work?
Malcolm: No, it has meant that I have done a great deal of work. It has been quite good from that point of view because I have not had any reason to go out, so I haven't been distracted and I have been at the typewriter. I was writing when I was away and I have been at the typewriter ever since, and it doesn't sound much, but I have finished the first chapter.
Hardy: Yes.
Malcolm: In fact what I have done is I have turned the first original chapter into two.
Hardy: Yup.
Malcolm: Have you, incidentally, had any more thoughts on the book and have you read it again?
Hardy: I haven't, I'm afraid, no.
Malcolm: No.
Hardy: I mean it is not because I haven't wanted to. I have got the photocopy sitting on my desk at home. It is simply that I have been burdened by all his other stuff I have had to do, but no, I haven't, is the answer to that.
Malcolm: But your enthusiasm is still there?
Hardy: Oh yes! That would not change, just by the passage of time.
Malcolm: Right. Well, yes, I have turned the first chapter into two and the length of the first two new chapters is now a fair bit shorter than the original single chapter; it has come down from 110 pages to 75 I think.
Hardy: Well done.
Malcolm: And I hope it is much better.
Hardy: Good.
Malcolm: And although it is only the first part, it is where in fact most of the work is going to be, I think.
Hardy: Yes.
Malcolm: I don't think there is going to be much more much change in the next two or three chapters.
Hardy: No.
Malcolm: The next major bit of rewriting is in chapter five I think.
Hardy: Yup.
Malcolm: So I was wondering if it would be worth me sending you off these two, so that you could be reading them and give me your reaction, and I wondered whether there is any scope, on the basis of these two, for any kind of further encouragement at an official level?
Hardy: I think no is the answer to the last question. I think that you are not going to get any more... I mean, the only stage of official encouragement that is left is a contract, and, you know, you have been officially encouraged to submit the revised typescript, and that is not going to come until you have done the whole thing, in the light of events in the past.
Malcolm: Uhuh. Yes.
Hardy: I am very happy to look at and comment on the chapters if you would like me to, but I mean that won't carry with it anything but my personal feeling as to how it is going.
Malcolm: Yes.
Hardy: But if that is of value to you, you are welcome to it.
Malcolm: Yes, it would be of value to me actually, I think, if only from a sort of encouragement-or-not point of view. I mean, if you thought I was going on the wrong track or something, stylistically, you could tell me.
Hardy: I would also try and get Nicola involved at this stage, so that she can begin to take over, or at least share with me the process of helping you with the revision.
Malcolm: Yes. Does she know anything about it so far? I have not phoned her or anything.
Hardy: No? Well, she knows, er, about the saga aspect of it, but she hasn't read the book yet.
Malcolm: I see.
Hardy: I think she's waiting until the next draft so that she can start afresh.
Malcolm: I see.
Hardy: But she could certainly start by having a look at the revised chapters and seeing how it strikes her as the beginning of a book she hasn't yet met with.
Malcolm: Exactly. And I mean, perhaps if Alan Ryan could read it... It took so long before for everyone to get round to reading it... and sending them off apart from anything else would just speed up the reaction-time.
Hardy: Yes, I mean it may be that Alan is unwilling to read it in the way that readers often are who feel that their judgment of the whole thing is going to depend on having it all there to read continuously, but I can certainly have a shot.
Malcolm: Mm. As I say, the first two chapters could more or less go on to what you have already got.
Hardy: Yes, alright. We will have a shot anyway. I mean I will personally read it, and...
Malcolm: Okay. I will bung them off to you later this week then, if that is alright.
Hardy: Alright.
Malcolm: Is there anything else you can think of to say?
Hardy: Have you had any blinding insights as to how you're going to be able to do something to the last chapter, or have you put that on one side?
Malcolm: Well, the last chapter is the blinding insight. I mean, I am going to have a good old go at it, yes - the play you are thinking of, yes. I am going to try to do quite a bit to that.
Hardy: Yup.
Malcolm: It is mainly now the fifth chapter, I think, and the last chapter.
Hardy: Right. Okay, well, I'm glad to hear you are still at it, even if it needed salmonella to bring you to that point.
Malcolm: Well, I think I am going to have a little time off now, having done this chunk.
Hardy: Yes. You don't want to get stale, no.
Malcolm: Right. But any reactions that you can summon up, on any level.
Hardy: Right. Well thanks for keeping me posted.
Malcolm: Okay.
Hardy: Bye-bye.
Malcolm: Cheers.
Go to the next item, or the previous item or to the next privileged conversation in the Evidence (red) file.
Go to Malcolm's Statement of Claim, to the Case History, to the Affidavits: Ivon Asquith (1), Asquith (2), Henry Hardy, William Shaw (solicitor) (1), Sir Roger Elliott (1), Margaret Goodall, to the Witness Statements: Elliott, Hardy, Richard Charkin, Nicola Bion, Goodall, to the courtroom testimony of the Oxford Six, 14/3/1990: Elliott, Goodall, Bion, Asquith, Charkin, Hardy, to the testimony of Andrew Malcolm 13/3/1990, to the Chancery Court Judgment, the Appeal Court Judgment, the Damages assessment, the Settlement agreement.
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