If you want to read a book that is fascinating, frustrating and psychologically intriguing then take a good long look at Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. An odd introduction you think? Not at all, as this is a 654 page and sometimes complex book that gives us an insight into someone who has been in the limelight to a greater or lesser extent for over 40 years.

Alan Bennett describes himself as a playright and an actor I think and it is fair to say that he writes the way that he speaks. What I mean by that is that you can hear Bennett speaking as you read his words. It's odd, that, as I haven't noticed that with anyone else. A coincidence was that this was the book of the week on BBC Radio 4 whilst I was reading it so I really can confirm that what you hear is what you read.

The fascination of the book is that it gives us a lot of insights into the childhood of the author. Bennett is clearly from Yorkshire but he is deeply from Yorkshire. He was born and brought up in Leeds and goes back there a lot more than I go back to my own little bit of Yorkshire. Moreover, he describes his trips around God's own county to such an extent that I think his next book should be along the lines of Bennett's Yorkshire Rural Rides. Bennett has a passion for churches (a real passion, that is, not the modern TV passion) and I have been made to want to go to the churches that he describes. Why? Well, wherever I go I go into their churches too. I love churches for some reason. For example and please forgive the apparent name dropping, I was in Singapore last week and paid a visit to St Andrew's Cathedral ... I have included a photo here to prove it!

Since Bennett mentions it, let me mention here something that has bothered me for around three decades. Harold Wilson was elevated to the Peerage following his resignation as Prime Minister and so on. Wilson wore his Yorkshire heritage on his sleeve and yet didn't become Lord Wilson of Eckerslike or Wilson of Na'then. Rather he became Wilson of the poncey sounding Rievaulx. Says a lot that!

Speaking of which,

• I bought the book at Dubai airport
• started reading it in Abingdon
• continued reading it in Bangkok
• read a lot more of it in Singapore
• then concluded the reading in Abingdon

All in the space of a couple of weeks.

Why such apparent showing off? Well, I wouldn't normally give you such information but it comes from my frustration with the book. Bennett is well into his 70s now and yet he mentions that he is a graduate of Oxford University so many times that you'd think he was still there. There is a paradox, too, in that we are told that Bennett thought nothing of his time at Oxford, didn't feel that he fitted in there ... so why go on and on about it then? More than that, why spend eight years there as student and researcher then?

The chapter entitled The Ginnel, we had a ginnel too, starts with this on page 174:

Mam seldom came back from the pictures in those days without being desperate to empty her bladder, the diuretic effect of the proximity of home making the situation so urgent that my brother and I would be sent on ahead to unlock the door in readiness, thus saving her the last terrible moments bent double on the doorstep.

That's me that is: in my own world I am famous for such potential bladderage. That is my own word and it's one that I would like to get into the OED one day: it means a sudden uncontrollable but minor leakage from the bladder.

I admired the way that Bennett portrayed the last time that he wrote for and worked with Thora Hird: sensitively and with great affection. A heroine of mine throughout my childhood, Thora was a brilliant actress and, not a lot of people know this, her father was a native of my home town of Todmorden. Thora announced that on Parkinson!

I want to rant and rail against Bennett's Americanisms: they are generally creeping deeply into our society now and I expected much more a first class honours graduate of Oxford University. On page 160 Bennett says,

We always called it 'the pictures', seldom 'the cinema' and never 'the movies'. To this day I don't find it easy to say 'movies'. Neither do I and I don't use the word. However, Bennett uses the word movies several times throughout the book and never, I think the pictures or a film. I do find that shocking and I also cringed when we read about a Ferris wheel and trash on page 198 rather than a Big Wheel or even the London Eye and rubbish.

Bennett is of an age to be someone who can regale us with a little story here and a bon mot there. How about this delight on page 561?

... Russell Harty's father's funeral. Russell had been sent round by his mother to give a neighbour the not unexpected news that Fred had died. 'Oh dear.' said the neighbour, 'I am sorry. Mind you, I had a shocking night myself.'

Gradely!

Of course, it's expected that Bennett must write about his own writings and he discusses his plays and other work in a good and informative way. I have read his first Talking Heads book but not his second but I have neiether read nor seen any of his plays. I will now, though. On the plane back from Singapore, I sat next to a couple who highly recommended The Lady in the Van. See, we even talked about Bennett on the plane!!

Bennett talks with fondness, too, about Philip Larkin although I cannot fathom why. He presents us with this snippet from Larkin on page 515,

From where I stand, the roof looks almost new
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I dont

In the margin next to this I wrote: crap! Sorry but for me Larkin is like Jeffrey Archer, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Clarkson whose personalities (or arrant lack of them) get in the way of anything they think or do.

That Bennett is a homosexual is his business and it is entirely a matte for him. It is, however, something I knew nothing about until a friend of mine mentioned it a couple of years ago in the middle of a conversation about this and that. However, Bennett does make a fair amount out of his sexual proclivities. Not quite an apologist but he gives the impression throughout the book that he never grew up and matured like everyone else. Maybe he believes that if only he had grown up he wouldn't be a homosexual. That represents the third thread of the book: the psychological aspect. Bennett gives many insights into his parents' lives and personalities as well as to his own. His mother suffered mental decline. His father was a typical dur Yorkshireman in some respects. And so on. I am not a psychologist so it is unfair of me to attempt further analysis. However, my impression is that this book has an element of catharsis in it.

Is it, though, a psychological failing that makes Bennett such a name dropper? Either he knows or knew a large number of famous people: both dead and alive. He has no shame is dropping those names ...hence my travelogue dropping earlier in this review!

Finally, there is some psychology in the reason why Bennett unloaded these Untold Stories on the market now. He was found to be suffering from polyps in his bowel and that gave him a right royal dose of mortality. He has come through the episode alive and fully in tact but he realised that there are things that must be said, by him anyway. The book is disjointed because of that as it sometimes lurches from topic to topic with no apparent links between them: moreover, there are two chapters on his liking for art that I labelled as shocking, they are shocking and unreadable.

This is not a book for everyone but if you are not over faced by a book of around 700 pages and are sufficiently curious about Alan Bennett then I think you will like it. It is not, however, the book of the decade as Nigel Slater is credited on the front cover with having said ... did he say that only because he gets a mention in the book? My opinion of Slater wasn't that high but it took a real nose dive by what is said about him on page 334.

Duncan Williamson
5th December 2006