Jeremy’s path in life took him to Åland, where he now lives and works as a writer
Reliving one’s past is a common fantasy as
one gets older but, as Replay shows, mistakes are
an inevitable, and useful, part of growing up. We
look back on adolescence and cringe for good reason:
it’s then that we start to become the people we will
be for the rest of our lives, and the metamorphosis
is often uncomfortable.
I’ve had a glimpse into that fantasy nonetheless.
It’s been an honour and a delight to guest-edit this
10th anniversary issue of the Wykeham Journal,
allowing me to revisit the place without need of
time travel. The theme of this issue is empathy:
a vital attribute for writers, readers, students and
teachers alike.
Teachers might despair of lazy students, but
lessons can take years to ferment. Despite my shirking,
Winchester inculcated my love of literature, and
helped steer me towards writing fiction myself. The
protagonist of my four novels, Paul Dark, a British
agent and traitor in the late 1960s, is an OW – I made
him one because it gave me a connection to a character
whose experiences were otherwise worlds away from
my own. I’ve frequently plundered my sense-memories
of the place to flesh him out, and it’s helped me find
his narrative voice. I set my first novel, during the
Nigeria-Biafra war, in part because of an essay
about my childhood in Lagos I’d written for my
div don, Liz Nash. The memory of her enthusiasm
for that gave me firmer ground from which to make
the imaginative leap into the Cold War. In time,
characters take on their own lives, but drawing
on your own can help you climb into their shoes.
Several people I interviewed for this issue
cited Div as a strength of Winchester, and for good
reason. It seems to me it’s one of the school’s secret
weapons, even if its impact takes intangible forms.
A lot of it comes back to empathy, I think: my div
task for Liz Nash was about my own experiences,
but came from listening to her passionately discuss
books I would probably never have otherwise read.
The richness that comes from stepping outside
oneself isn’t always obvious to teenagers, but is one
of the most important lessons to learn. I’ll always
be grateful to Winchester for teaching me that.
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The Wykeham Journal 2018 13