Wigtown and A Crooked Sixpence

Wigtown is not a place where one should be surprised to see a man reading an old book, almost any old book. But on the wooden seats outside the festival tents of 'Scotland's booktown' last weekend it was a small surprise to me to see a man with a fifty-year-old yellow-covered copy of Murray Sayle's novel of newspapers in the 1950s, A Crooked Sixpence.

This was first of all because, in that original 1960 edition, it is quite a rare book, having been withdrawn soon after publication because of an alleged libel and only republished two years ago. I had my own copy at home but I had never seen one before, as it were, away from home. Wigtown is a smaller version of Hay-on-Wye, both in its wonderful festival, where I was talking about On the Spartacus Road and in its welcoming shops, whose oldest, and the site of our writer's retreat, is pictured above. It was still odd not only to see the rarity but to see someone reading it.

The man said he had picked it up because he had heard that the author had died, which was a nastier surprise to me since I knew him a little and had admired him very much. He was the leading first generation man of Harold Evans' Sunday Times, still much talked of and revered when I arrived there in the late seventies; he was the only reporter to have interviewed Kim Philby and his novel was excellent of its kind too.

The title comes from a nursery rhyme.

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house

According to Murray Sayle's Scottish reader, the nursery rhyme comes from a story that is local to the Wigtown area, a tale of crooked seventeenth century politicians and the crooked border between England and Scotland and the crooked deal done to suppress Scottish presbyterianism and impose the King as head of the Church. I had already been taken to see the monument to the 'Wigtown martyrs', two stubborn lady 'Covenanters'  staked out to drown on the beach for refusing to change their spiritual ways. So I already knew something of the nasty events of which he spoke.

So did someone from Wigtown once buy the book thinking it was a story about their ancestors?

He didn't think so

But it couldn't be ruled out: 'people buy books for very strange reasons sometimes'. I couldn't dispute that.

I asked him if he was enjoying the book - which stars prostitutes, pimps and reporters and a young Australian on Fleet Street.

 Not very much, he said.

So now I have two copies. Murray's version of the rhyme, set out on page five, is slightly and lightly subedited.

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence. It wasn't enough.

 

Comments

[Tom Atkins]

I too have an original First Edition published by MacKibbon and Kee in 1960 .Both book and Jacket are in good condition.The only item of this early title that I have seen offered for sale was an American First dated 1961 lacking a jacket . The sale was posted on ABEBOOKS and the seller was asking £1600 odd. I am a retired accountant now concentrating on my hobby of collecting and marketing modern first edition books and have been at a loss to place a valuation on this item. Any ideas/thoughts??