So there was another writer at the same time as Colin whose name was John Osborne. And John Osborne... in what year was it? His play, Look Back in Anger, was performed and was an enormous success. He had struck, as a kind of... one of these mysterious… mysterious changes that happen in society – it must be slightly to do with the generation change, but, in thinking in some way. And so, Look Back in Anger was wonderfully successful.
And he went on to do other plays that were successful, if not quite as villianously so as the first one. And he wanted to do a play of a book of mine that I'd recently had published, but he never had any luck because of censorship rules.
Anyhow, despite that, I got to know John and we became friendly. My memory suggests that he got married, but then became separated again, but certainly, at the end of his life, I went to see him. I can't think why, but we had got to know each other and so it seemed to me at the time that it was natural to go and see John. And there we were. He had a rather muddy little lake in front of his house, and one could think he was really quite successful and had had a successful career, contrasting with what I have said about Colin's career.
Anyhow, I went home after that meeting, which I had greatly enjoyed, and some days later, I had a five-page letter from Osborne, saying how wretched his life had been, and how disappointed he'd been, and really, with nothing to say for it. What does one do about this? Well, there's nothing much you can do. Of course, you can do what I did, you can write back and say, well, I'm sorry. Of course one was sorry. Shortly after that, he died, but he's left with this kind of dilemma. Colin was not very successful, really, but nevertheless, running about on the Cornish shore he seemed very happy and was still published. And yet, John was quite different despite all his successes.
This, of course, brings into question of what one should do – or fail to do – about one's own career. But, it's always haunted me that you can have a shadow in life that, apparently, nothing can cure, and that was the case with John, as I judge it.
