Linen Hall Library

Stormont in Crisis: A Memoir by Ken BloomfieldReview by: C. E. B. BrettThe Linen Hall Review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 24-25Published by: Linen Hall LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20534417 .

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BIOGRAPHY BRETT

index later Without wishing to sound chauvinistic, I would

suggest that O' Faolain ' s fascination with France and French

culture deserved much closer scrutiny We now learn that

he may have been something of a philanderer, but apart

from his entire dedication to his art the only other passion

he remained consistently faithful to was his love for that

'Franco-Italian' novelist called Stendhal whom he literally

idolized throughout his life

Notwithstanding such relatively minor quibbles, this is

a thoroughly-documented and superbly written biography

There is more than enough to satisfy the most finicky reader

and revive his interest in O'Faolain's fiction That this is

the aim pursued is clearly indicated by the biographer as he

discreetly shifts from the accidentals of the writer's life to

individual works, pinpointing sings of artistic change

revealed through choice of novel themes and techniques, and providing ever more refined and authoritative insights into the workings of the artist's creative imagination By

producing this invaluable companion-piece to his Sean

O'Faolain a critical introduction (1967, 1984), Maurice

Harmon has written an essential chapter of the cultural

history of twentieth-century Ireland and magisterially cleared the way for a fresh reappraisal of Sean O'Faolain's

art

Guy Le Moigne

Ken Bloom?eld

Stormont in Crisis - A Memoir

Belfast Blackstaff Press, 1994, 295pp, ?12 99 pb, ISBN 0 85640 525 6

This book opens and closes with an account of the devastating

IRA bomb which destroyed the author's home and its

contents, and only narrowly missed killing him and his

family, in September 1988 No man is to be blamed if such

an event knocks him sideways from his perch, nor if he

finds it hard to recover his equilibrium exactly as before It

is sad, too, that Sir Kenneth Bloom?eld never reached the

pinnacle he would most have enjoyed How much happier he would have been to retire, after

a long and successful career, as Chief Vizier to an

octogenarian and successful Caliph, Terence O' Nei 11 ' That,

however, was not how things worked out

The Ken Bloom?eld one has known is a genial, slightly

pompous, public man, always ready with a well-polished

(and, sometimes, familiar) anecdote to illustrate every conceivable contingency The man inside the shell, it now

appears, is much less sure of himself, but perhaps none the

less likeable for that Some of us have wondered for years

whether to take him at his face value, as the just man who

saw the light, and successfully adjusted his ways from the

old monolithic Unionist system, to the very different politics of today, or whether to regard him as a trimmer, a modern

Vicar of Bray Interestingly, it turns out that he does not

know the answer himself

He quotes a French journalist, to whom he gave a

perhaps over-candid interview in 1970, as saying (rather

oddly) 'M Bloomfield is a gadget' and then asks

Was 1, indeed, a gadget, passed from hand to hand

as the political wheel turned around9 Did my

willingness to work closely with O'Neill, to work

closely with his rival Brian Faulkner, to work

closely now with the government whose

intervention I had sought with both of them to

avert, mean that I was too ready to practise any

trade for any proprietor able to afford my services9

Hejustifies his 'gadgetry' on several grounds, including the 'great experience, and some degree of skill

' that he had

acquired, in particular in the exploration ot constitutional

options But he does not sound like a man who is quite sure

that he was right, and the events of the years since 1972

hardly vindicate this claim

Sixteen years ago, I wrote i firmly believe that with

stronger leadership, perhaps better advice, O'Neill could

have saved us all the bloodshed and turmoil of the years since 1969' There can be no doubt of Terence O'Neill's

dependence on his so-called kitchen cabinet - Jim Malley, Harold Black, Eric Montgomery, Tommy Roberts, and,

most capable and most influential of that gang, Ken

Bloomfield himself Nobody can blame O'Neill for seeking advice from this group rather than from his dim Unionist

party colleagues And it would be unfair to expect civil

servants to have made the political decisions But could not,

should not, the kitchen cabinet, so much better educated,

arguably so much more intelligent, have done better than

the real one7 I do not recall that, at the time, any of them,

including Ken Bloomfield, struck their sparring-partners

(his description of me, which I would politely reciprocate) as being especially liberal or enlightened Were we wrong9

There are hints that Ken Bloomfield now thinks they could have done better 'With a wiser and steadier policy there were a number of occasions on which it might have

been possible ', reforms, 'if proffered at an earlier stage as

an act of generosity would certainly have made a major

impact', 'in a rising market, unionism constantly tried,

unsuccessfully, to buy reforms at last year's prices '

The book is illuminated by the effective use of a sharp

thumb-nail, descriptions such as those of Ewart Bell,

'tremendously efficient and proper', David Bleakley, 'the

Savonarola of the NILP', Brian Faulkner, 'the least

dissipated man I ever met' One concludes that our Ken had

rather be thought a regular guy than a model of uprectitude Some of the anecdotes are a bit strained and facetious

Though, as one would expect, the book is well-written, the

style is rather florid There is a good deal of name-dropping We learn, without undue surprise, that his visitors' book is

kept on a silver salver He pays several very fulsome

tributes to the part played by his wife, Elizabeth, in the

extent ot his success in which he is very likely right It is debatable whether top civil servants should wnte

their memoirs at all, and if so, how soon It is highly debatable whether any civil servant's memoirs should be

subsidised by the taxpayer, yet this one acknowledges

support from the Cultural Traditions Programme ot the

Community Relations Commission According to the

blurb, Ken Bloomfield 'is currently the BBC National

LINEN HALL REVIEW AUTUMN 1994 PAGE 24

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BIOGRAPHY BAKER

Governor for Northern Ireland, chairman of the N.I. Higher Education Council, and holds a number of other public and

private sector appointments'. In all this, as in his decision

to publish, he has chosen not to follow the precedent set by his more austere predecessor. Time will tell which made the

wiser choice.

C.E.B. Brett

Vivienne Draper The Children of Dunseverick

Dingle: Brandon Book Publishers Ltd., 1994,160pp, ?6.95 pb. ISBN 0 86322 195 5

Books about Irish childhoods divide inevitably into two main categories, steeped as they are in the Catholic and

Protestant traditions. In recent years we' ve had Polly Devlin

and Alice Taylor, both springing from the latter. Now we

have Vivienne Draper's Children of Dunseverick about her Northern upbringing in an old rectory on the harsh, ruggedly beautiful Antrim coast.

Happy childhood memories tend to be filtered through rose-coloured glasses, and so subjective and selective are

they that one's own images and sharply remembered tiny

incidents can differ markedly from those of our

contemporaries. And the childhood we remember as adults

is not the one we experienced as a child, though the child's

poignancy of feeling can strike again with the same force.

Vivienne Draper's memories will evoke many a

responsive chord. She has woven a shining necklace of

tales, and so fresh and immediate is the writing that the reader is at once drawn back into her vanished world of the 1920s in all its simplicity and charm.

Two figures dominate the scene: Father, the

unconventional rector, a 'character' and a great man for

practical jokes; and Mother, the adored centre of the

household, beautiful, warm and loving. They had five

children, four girls and a boy, of whom Vivienne was the eldest.

Father made a tree house out of an old cart, and the

children spent many happy hours in it: 'It was a magic place for us to play games, to keep house, or just to sit and read,

the wind in the branches above us bringing the sounds of the sea.' The three older girls were there when their baby

brother was born - an occasion which, in their ignorance,

caused them much anxiety. There was the incident of an unfenced, crumbling cliff

top from which the child was narrowly prevented from

hurtling to her death. How the rector took advantage of the farmer 'well on in his cups' to make him sign a contract for

a fence makes a good yarn.

There was the time when Aunt Lily got stuck - frozen with fear

- on Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge; and the day

when Father was driving to Bushmills in the trap, and the

donkey suddenly stopped dead and would go no further. The local doctor thought it a great joke and came back with

a bunch of carrots, hooked them to the back of his car, and drove off with the donkey in hot pursuit.

How the rector persuaded 'Big Hugh' to give up the

drink; how he allowed two old men to set up a 'kipperin' business' in a disused lime kiln on rectory land, only to find

they were making poteen, and sent them packing; how the children discovered that 'Mad Annie' wasn't a witch after

all is the stuff of more stories, while a nightmare trip to

Rathlin, and an horrific accident in the hayfield at threshing time remind us that rural life is not all roses.

Indeed the creeping shadow of Mother's rheumatoid arthritis grew ever larger and the decision was made to

move to the parish of Ardglass in the milder climate of Co. Down. Vivienne wept, but Father said: Tut all these

memories of your life here in a little box in the back of your head. Some day you can take them out and they will give you pleasure.'

She has done just that, and I feel will give her readers a lot of pleasure too.

Ruth Baker

From Fascinating Aida to the RSC, from the Odessa Philharmonic to Titanic Dance

DONT DARE MISS A MOMENT OF IT!

Book now at? estival House, 25 College Gardens, Belfast 0232 665577 /666321

VOLUME 11 Number 2 PAGE 25

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