William Butler Yeats by Declan O’Hara

Title: William Butler Yeats

Author: Declan O’Hara

Publisher: not known 

Source book: Rivals by Jilly Cooper 

Declan O’Hara, super famous TV personality, is poached from the BBC by Cotswold Television with the promise of A list celebrities for him to interview. Unfortunately, Cotswold’s Chairman Tony Bullingham reneges on his commitment and annoys Declan so much, and so often, that he resigns in a fury.

Without his well-paid job and with a huge old house to pay for, Declan doesn’t know what to do next, but suddenly discovers himself to be one of the leading lights of a consortium bidding for the local ITV franchise* in the upcoming franchise war, with a brand new company called Venturer.

Declan has been slowly writing a biography of William Butler Yeats (pronounced Yates), a famous Irish poet, for years. Then he spends several months of Rivals in Ireland making a documentary about Yeats, bound to be a groundbreaking piece of television. Unfortunately we are never told what Declan calls his book. Or the doc.

Declan wrote a highly successful play (no title or any details given) for his future wife Maud, an actress, but he took to journalism for a more regular income. His son Patrick, while still at university, also writes a play (again no title) apparently about the British army in Northern Ireland. Declan finds it simply marvellous, incredibly original, funny, very moving and slightly over the top. 

Also featuring in Rivals is Rupert Campbell-Black, ex-Olympic show-jumper (see Riders also by Jilly Cooper), Conservative MP and now Minister for Sport, who becomes another member of the consortium. And I am telling you this because he is writing his autobiography. Well, obviously he doesn’t have any time for that so he has a ghost writer: Beattie Johnson, a Fleet Street columnist. And, again we are not told the name of his book. Hands up who thinks Rupert will find the time to read his own book? It is not clear whether Beattie Johnson’s work ever appears in book form but extremely scurrilous chunks of it are published by a tabloid newspaper.

Then there’s Billy Lloyd-Foxe, a close friend of Rupert, ex-Olympic show-jumper, sports journalist at the BBC and also a member of the Venturer consortium. His wife Janey, writes for a national newspaper and also finds the time to write novels, probably bonkbusters, but guess what? We don’t find out the name of any of her books.

Yet another character, Lizzie Vereker, wife of smug local television personality James Vereker, has two novels under her belt and, at the start of Rivals, is working on her third. Maude O’Hara tells us she thoroughly enjoyed one of Lizzie’s books; it was marvellous. But we aren’t given any titles.

And then there’s Lady Evesham, Vice Chancellor of the local university and a member of the Cotswold Television board. When we first meet her she is working on a biography of Emily Pankhurst. And Professor Crispin Greystock writes slim and unutterably dreary volumes of poetry: he’s very cross that he has been left out of the most recent Oxford Companion to English Literature.

Oh, Jilly. This is a bit disappointing. All these fictional books being written by so many of your characters, but not a title in sight. Regular readers: please forgive me for making up my own rather dull title for Declan’s book.

But Rivals is a terrific book and I’ve read it more than once.

* The franchise system is no longer used, thank goodness. The awful trauma here in London when the wonderful Thames Television lost their franchise to the ghastly Carlton. I don’t know who was behind Carlton but they certainly conned the IBA.

Thanks to Third Eye Traveller