A lost civilisation

It’s odd that a writer as excellent and long-established as Ian Jack hasn’t ever written an actual book but has stuck doggedly to the humble trade of journalism, of which this volume is a collection.

It’s odd that a writer as excellent and long-established as Ian Jack hasn’t ever written an actual book but has stuck doggedly to the humble trade of journalism, of which this volume is a collection. The reason may be that since what he called ‘perhaps the best Sunday morning of my life’, the day in 1970 when Harold Evans offered him a job as a sub-editor on the Sunday Times, journalism has remained his first love. In the struggle between the fun and comradeship of the editorial floor and the loneliness of the ivory tower, the former has always seemed to be the victor.

Still, we mustn’t complain, for what he has given us here, whatever you care to call it, is superb. Collections of columns and newspaper articles are not usually a very good idea. They quickly become stale and dated, and one sometimes wonders what the point of them is except to deceive journalists into thinking that their ephemeral scribblings deserve some permanence. Jack is an exception to the rule. His columns (which now appear each Saturday in the Guardian) are not of the kind popular with tabloid editors — heavy on phoney outrage and light on honest observation. Jack goes, sees, looks and thinks; and his subsequent reflections are of timeless interest.

The title under which they are gathered together — The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain — sounds as if it might have something to do with Scottish devolution and the possible break-up of the United Kingdom.