In May-July 1985 David Attwooll was working in New York for OUP Reference Books. In September 1985 he returned to England and was appointed Editorial Director of OUP's Reference and General Books Division, which was by then 'handling' Making Names. In March 1989 Attwooll left OUP to become Managing Director of Arrow Paperbacks, a division of Century Hutchinson.
I introduced myself as Andrew Malcolm, without mentioning any litigation. He at once recognized my name and remembered the Making Names affair.
Malcolm: I am trying to piece together exactly what happened, and it has come down to an extraordinary little technical matter... Correct me if any of this is wrong: if a book, a General Publication such as mine got interest from the editors and so on, it would then go to some sort of internal publishing meeting at which people would argue about it and say yes or no; I think a form called the Publishing Proposal Form would have been filled out with facts and figures about costs etc., and if it was approved, then it would go to the Delegates of the Press for a kind of rubber-stamp approval...
Attwooll: Well it wasn't always rubber-stamp, but go on, yes.
Malcolm: And a document that I'm given to understand is referred to as a Delegates' Note would have been put together with any comments that would have been made by readers about the book and other facts and figures about the publication and so on; and that this paper would then have been sent to an official by the name of the secretary to the Delegates' Secretary, who I believe was and is a Mrs. Goodall; and she would then photocopy that document and send it out to all the Delegates at the time, about 15 or so bods, who would then, a week or so later, discuss it at their roughly fortnightly meeting; and they would then say yes or no and the original of the paper would be marked 'approved' or 'deferred' or whatever the decision was; and then, if approved, a contract and other bits and pieces would be sent out to the author. Now is that, as far as you remember, the correct way of things?
Attwooll: Yes, broadly speaking. That's the rough procedure. There were always projects that were put up to Delegates that were either... that didn't have unanimous support, particularly in the Academic end, from the editors, that were put up for discussion by the Delegates, anything particularly controversial for instance... In many cases the Delegates would have a more expert opinion than anybody in the editorial side, so it wasn't a rubber-stamp procedure by any means. The Delegates would often turn things down, or ask for further information, or ask for a manuscript to be improved.
Malcolm: Right. I see. My most detailed question is this: I have got a paper that seems to be a Delegates' Note drawn up in connection with this book and it's got on it various comments from the two readers, on the bottom left-hand corner it's got the proposed printing number 2,000, the mid upper left it's got 'TO ALL DELEGATES' underlined, and at the top right-hand corner it's got what looks like a square rubber-stamped thing on it with: TOTAL INVESTMENT FOR FIRST EDITION (a figure typed in), LIKELY YEAR OF PUBLICATION (a figure typed in), RED/AMBER/GREEN (in this case red and amber crossed out, typed), and then "FLEXCAT. General Philosophy" typed in. Do you remember these forms?
Attwooll: Oh sure!
Malcolm: How were the original documents put together? Was it typed and then the rubber stamp stamped on it and then those things filled in?
Attwooll: Yes. I'm not quite clear why you're asking me all these questions, you'd get the information from OUP, but yes, as I remember it, the editors drew up the forms, filled in those little boxes with what they expected to happen and so on and then, if they were approved, they were signed by the person who was actually at the Delegates' meeting.
Malcolm: Yes.
Attwooll: But the little rubber stamp which you describe was actually done by the editors or the editors' secretary.
Malcolm: So it was put on individually onto each original of a Delegates' Note, was it?
Attwooll: Yes.
Malcolm: It was?
Attwooll: Yes, as far as I remember, yes.
Malcolm: You see, the point is this...
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