It's curious that when I or others write about the problems of independent bookselling in 2006 there is always a flurry of vaguely nostalgic comments about the long defunct Net Book Agreement. And yet when I invite comments on that subject to help inform our German bookseller and publisher colleagues there is hardly any response. My view is best expressed in an extract from a letter in yesterday's Bookseller from the Chief Executive of the Booksellers' Association, Tim Godfray.
Moreover, it is ridiculous to suggest that the BA just watched the Net Book Agreement wither. With the PA, we played a leading role in successfully heading off an OFT investigation on two occasions, as well as winning a court case against DGIV (the European Competition Commission) in the European Court of Justice. But at the end of the day, the NBA was a voluntary publishers' agreement. Two leading trade publishers had by 1995 elected to have nothing to do with it; they were joined by other leading publishing houses who, faced by opposition from the competition authorities, the media, many politicians, and by one of our largest members, Dillons, decided it could no longer be sustained. It cannot be brought back. It is history. We have to move on.
I was unable to attend the funeral of the great publisher and friend of Macmillan, William Armstrong. He died on 22 December 2006. The funeral took place on 11 January at St Michael's Church, Highgate.
George Morley described the event for us.
After the first appropriately irish hymn, ‘Be Thou My Vision’, his daughter Dido – who used to work at Sidgwick with William before she became a successful singer songwriter – gave a touching, heartfelt and funny address, ending it by singing ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ a traditional Irish song beloved by her father. Next came William’s cousin from Limerick, Des O'Malley, who told wonderful stories of William and his family, including an encounter between William’s formidable mother and the B Specials. William’s wide-ranging and often unusual literary tastes were apparent even as a young man, he told us, when he was very keen on the Venerable Bede who was ‘not very big in Ireland then.’ The priest of St Joseph spoke next and even managed to work in a reference to Bede’s story of the sparrow’s flight through a great hall being a metaphor for human life. William’s widow, Clare, then read John Donne’s ‘Death Be Not Proud’, followed by a family friend, who read a poem about William that she had written. Another hymn – Lord of the Dance – preceded Patrick Janson-Smith’s encomium to William’s long and successful career, reminding us that he had presided over Sidgwick & Jackson’s golden age, publishing – among many, many other successes – Edward Heath’s bestselling books about music and sailing, Shirley Conran's book of household hints, for which William coined the title and thus ensured its success - Superwoman, Shirley's novel Lace, Judith Krantz's Scruples, Bob Geldof's Is That It?, the memoirs of Ron & Reg Kray, Boy George's Take It Like A Man, whose title, PJS said, had to be explained to him by younger members of staff and, of course, General Sir John Hackett’s The Third World War, which was entirely William's idea. Mary Mount, ex Sidgwick work experience, now Editorial Director of Viking and family friend, read Philip Larkin’s ‘On an Arundel Tomb’ and the congregation sang the final hymn, ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended.’ William’s son, Rollo, came next, speaking about his dad lovingly, wittily and warmly, before Dido sang Patrick Kavanagh’s On Raglan Road, which she had sung to her father when he was dying and which he always claimed was about his great-aunt Hilda O’Malley. The service ended with the Pie Jesu from Faure’s Requiem and the usual prayers. Afterwards, the family and many of the congregation followed the cortege to Highgate Cemetery where William was buried, but not before Clare, Dido and Rollo had thrown tennis balls into the grave with him, reflecting William’s abiding love of a fiercely competitive game of tennis.
And I am grateful to Patrick Janson-Smith for his permission to quote from his eulogy.
Willian O'Malley Armstrong was a good friend of many years' standing. I met him through publishing and so it is of his distinguished career in publishing that I will speak.
Insofar as I am aware, William began his publishing career at Purnell, whre he edited a partwork on World War 2, but it was in 1968, when ke joined the then independent publishing house of Sidgwick & Jackson that he began to attract the trade's attention. For over a quarter of a century, through several changes of ownership. William presided over what was, without question, Sidgwick's Golden Age, publishing enthusiastically across a wide range of subjects, from poetry and politics to hard rock and even harder criminals' memoirs...
Milestones in William's illustrious career would have to include Edward Heath's extraordinarily successful books on sailing and music, of which it was said: The unsigned ones are the valuable ones...
In conclusion I have chosen an anecdote, Mildly censored, that, to me, best sums up his human qualities:
'I was going to lunch one day when William hailed me over. He was at his desk reading a tabloid newspaper.
It says here that my son Rollo was cavorting on a beach in Ibiza with someone called Helena Christensen .... why is THAT in the newspaper?
She's a well-known supermodel, William.
Oh really....So it's a GOOD thing?'
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rain fall soft upon your fields,
and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.