Pandora (95 page)

Authors: Jilly Cooper

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction, #Literary

BOOK: Pandora

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I am especially indebted to Ruth Redmond Cooper, Director of the Institute of Art and Law, and her team. On my way to their conference on Art, Law and the Holocaust at the Courtauld Institute in October 1999, I was involved in the Paddington train crash. Arriving at the conference, I couldn’t have been treated with more kindness and sympathy; and as the speakers in turn described how the Nazis had tried to eradicate not only a people but their art and culture as well, they put any horrors I had experienced earlier in the day into perspective.

I am extremely grateful too to British Transport Police for later retrieving early chapters of
Pandora
from the wreckage of the train.

The law surrounding the restitution of looted art is extremely complex, often involving the legal systems of several countries. I would never have been able to tackle a big court case had it not been for the advice of my dear friends, the Right Hon. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the Family Division, and the Right Hon. the Lord Hoffman, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, who also lent me a brilliant and famous judgement on a looted art case by the Hon. Mr Justice Moses, presiding judge at the Royal Courts of Justice. Lawyers John Davies, Elizabeth Jupp, Hetty Cleave, Martyn Daldorph, Graham Ogilvy, Gillian Geddes and Michael Flint also helped me.

In my travels, I was incredibly lucky to meet Jamie Tabor, QC, who, while wrestling with a long and gruelling case in Norwich, nobly spent his evenings reading my court case chapters for howlers. But as in every aspect of
Pandora
, I took his, or anyone else’s, specialist advice only in so far as it suited my plot. Any mistakes are mine and in no way reflect on their expertise.

I am also indebted to Stephen Burrows, Chief Security Officer at the Royal Courts of Justice, to Emma Macdonald, Bob Parry and the staff at the County and Crown Courts at Gloucester, and to Gil Martin, ex-Gloucestershire CID, for his encyclopedic knowledge of matters criminal.

Writers need geographical locations on which to anchor their stories. Since moving to Gloucestershire, I have been haunted and captivated by two beautiful, historic and adjoining houses flanking our local church. On them I have based Foxes Court and the Old Rectory in
Pandora
. I should therefore like to thank Simon and Mindy Reading and John and Elizabeth Cowan for allowing me to range freely round their glorious gardens, but would emphasize that they and their sweet families bear absolutely no resemblance to the Belvedons and the Pulboroughs in my story.

I must equally thank our former High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, Major John Eyre, for explaining the duties of and historical background to the appointment, but would again stress that as a man of great charm and integrity he bears no resemblance to my frightful High Sheriff in
Pandora
.

Everyone, in fact, in
Pandora
, unless they are so eminent, like Joanna Lumley or Sotheby’s Chairman Henry Wyndham, as to appear as themselves, is made up and in no way based on any living person.

My characters sometimes fall ill and make miraculous recoveries. It was invaluable to be able to seek medical information from Joe Cobbe, Sarah Morris, Pat Pearson, Graham Hall, Tim Crouch and Martin Joyce.

On a Ritzy front, interior designer Nina Campbell dreamed up a beautiful bedroom for my heroine’s glamorous mother, while Lindka Cierach, Mariska Kay and David Shilling were a constant inspiration for lovely clothes and hats. Aspreys, Tiffany’s, Alfred Dunhill and Robert Young the florists in Stroud were also a great help, and I must especially thank Denise Dean and David Risley of Zwemmers and Stephen Simpson of Hatchards for so tenaciously tracking down books I needed.

Writers do not always expect kindness from their own profession. Few, however, could have been more welcoming and helpful than Lesley Garner, Nigel Reynolds, Will Bennett, David Lee, Bevis Hillier, Lucinda Bredin, Peter Harclerode, Matthew Collings, the sublime Brian Sewell, Esther Oxford, John Hawkins of Gloucestershire News Service, Robert Pearson of UK Law News, Peter Davies, Philip Jones and Maria Prendergast. I am also grateful that the
Art Newspaper, Art Review
and the
Jackdaw
kept me up to date with events.

I should like to thank Chris Wood of Decca Records for permission to quote five lines from his translation of Richard Strauss’s
Arabella
, and also William Mann for permission to quote four lines of Hermann Hesse’s poem ‘Going to Sleep’, which form part of the lyrics for Richard Strauss’s
Four Last Songs
.

The press offices at Middlesex County Cricket Club, the British Show Jumping Association, the All-England Tennis Club, Wimbledon, Conservative Central Office, the Lord Chancellor’s Office, and the staff at the Public Records Office at the Angel, Islington, were wonderful, always stopping whatever they were doing to provide crucial helpful information.

Another theme in
Pandora
is an adopted child’s quest for her natural parents. I am eternally grateful to Marjorie Dent, who formerly ran the Phyllis Holman Richards Adoption Society, for her wisdom and constant support; to social workers Clodagh Howe, Sue Jacobs and June Sellars, and to Felicity Collier, Chief Executive of the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, for their advice and ideas and for providing helpful literature on the subject.

I am also much beholden to the authors of the following books, which provided illumination or factual background on looted art, the art world and adoption. They include
The Lost Masters
by Peter Harclerode and Brendan Pittaway,
The Faustian Bargain
by Jonathan Petropoulis,
Portrait of Doctor Gachet
by Cynthia Saltzman,
Raphael
by Roger Jones and Nicholas Penny,
Blimey
by Matthew Collings,
Boogey Woogey
by Danny Moynihan,
Duchess of Cork Street
by Lillian Browse,
Sotheby’s
by Robert Lacey,
Groovey Bob
by Harriet Vyner,
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
by John Richardson,
Birth Records Counselling
by Pam Hodgkins,
Adopters on Adoption
by David Howe and
Ithaka
by Sarah Saffian.

My friends as usual came up with endless ideas. They include Dominique Bagley, Pussy Baird-Murray, Francis Burne, Ailsa Chapman, Sarah Collett, Mike Coppen-Gardner, Fran Cook, my stepdaughter Laura Cooper, Michael Cordy, Susan Daniel, Pam Dhenin, John Ferguson, Dorry Friesen, Glyn and Vanessa Hendy, Bill Holland, Ute Howard, Tidl Jefferies, James Johnstone, David Laurie, Bruce and Janetta Lee, Ava Myers, John Parry, Patrick Scrivenor and Heather Ross.

On my way home from the courts a couple of years ago I met a delightful and elated woman who told me about her daughter’s boyfriend who had longed to be married before he was forty and how the relevant families effected this. Leaping out at Stroud, I asked her if I could use the story in
Pandora
but failed to catch her name. Wherever she is now, I would like to thank her, and anyone else I may have forgotten.

Transworld, my publishers, have all been marvellous in every way, but I would particularly like to thank Mark Barty-King, their Chairman, to whom
Pandora
is dedicated, and my editor Linda Evans, who is simply a darling, who has constantly supplied me with comfort, joy, support and good advice. Richenda Todd has also been a terrific copy editor. Henry Steadman designed the wonderful hardback jacket, on the front of which is a beautiful painting of the myth of Pandora by Chris Brown. Henry has also designed the equally wonderful new cover for this edition. Neil Gower also drew a beautiful map.

I am extremely grateful to Steve Rubin, president and publisher of Doubleday, Broadway Publishing Group, and Jane Gelfman my agent in New York, for so kindly reading the chapters set in America.

I cannot thank my agent in London Vivienne Schuster enough for her kindness, enthusiasm and sympathetic encouragement in the many dark days when I thought
Pandora
would never be finished. Her colleagues at Curtis Brown, Paul Scherer and Jonathan Lloyd, and Euan Thorneycroft, her trusty lieutenant, were also always there when I needed them.

On the home front I am singularly blessed. My PA Pippa Birch is owed a huge debt of gratitude for typing the lion’s share of the synopsis and the penultimate draft, and for checking and seeking out endless facts and figures. Pippa came up with many ideas, as did Annette Xuereb-Brennan, Mandy Williams and Caterina Krucker, who heroically typed the rest of the manuscript and refused to go crackers over the endless corrections. To them all I am truly obligated – and also to dear Ann Mills, our housekeeper, for her sweetness and patience in keeping us all sane and comparatively tidy. Phil Bradley, of Cornerstones, drove me to endless places while I was writing the book and always got me there on time.

Most of all I want to thank my darling family, for putting up with shameless neglect for months on end. My husband Leo, who was encyclopedic on military matters, our son Felix and his wife Edwina, our daughter Emily, Bessie the Labrador, Hero the lurcher and our four cats, all provided their essential mix of good copy and endless cheer.