Thank Goodness for Cake

by John Pudney

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

John Sleigh Pudney was born in Langley, Buckinghamshire. He attended Gresham's School, where he was a contemporary of W.H. Auden. He worked as a radio producer and scriptwriter for the BBC and as a war correspondent, before joining the RAF in 1940. Before the war he had written two published books of verse, Spring Encounter and Open the Sky, two collections of stories and Jacobson's Ladder, a novel. During the war he was recruited by the British Government to write about the work of air crews in a way that could be understood by the general public. A Squadron Leader, he served in Africa, the Mediterranean and France.

He became a reviewer for the Daily Express after the end of the war and Literary Editor of News Review from 1948-1950. He then joined the publishers Putnam as a director. He was an extraordinarily prolific writer, producing twenty collections of poetry, dozens of novels, children's books, short stories and two plays. His non-fiction included a history of lavatories, The Smallest Room, and an official history of the Battle of Malta.

Probably his most famous poem, 'For Johnny', was written on the back of an envelope during an air raid on London in 1941. This simple, twelve-lined poem seemed to encapsulate the mood of the war taking place in the air at this time. It first appeared in the News Chronicle and was read on radio by Lawrence Olivier and quoted by Michael Redgrave in a war time film, The Way to The Stars, and has appeared in numerous anthologies:

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having recently come across references to John Pudney’s autobiography Thank Goodness for Cake (TGFC), I ordered it sight unseen. It was published in 1978 the year after he died. I anticipated finding out more about his wartime service in the RAF, his writing, his marriage, his children and his poems. Well as I discovered TGFC is an altogether different book from the ‘I did this and then I did that’ memoir. He dismisses his previous autobiographical gambit – Home and Away in the opening paragraph as a ‘well mannered, urbane account of the accepted and acceptable. No offence, no compelling interest’. So instead TGFC deals with the reality of his life. That is what he means by cake – cake is the reality and drink is the illusion. Drink blurs; Cake substantiates.

He was an alcoholic and the book deals with his decision to give up alcohol and all that entailed – ‘I was never recklessly drunk, I was never sober. The intake had been craftily and disastrously spread out over twenty-four hours – with such organised items as the brandy miniature in the pyjama pocket for shaving time.’

But he doesn’t just write about alcohol. TGFC is a beguiling book with glimpses of his childhood, his parents and their respective families, growing up, work, relationships and his poetry. It is all characterised by honesty. He must have been dying from cancer as he wrote it and so there was no need to pretend anymore.

It is also a celebratory account of the people and places that were important to him whilst being unsparing in its analysis of his owns shortcomings. I found myself liking him more and more as I read on.

And his wartime experience? At the start of the seventh chapter, The Square peg he writes “I have no wish now to recall or write about the war. I can only remember episodes and have to search my diaries to see if they existed or if there are bits of personal embroidery…. In my later life I’ve taken to constructive amnesia, deliberately de-memorising events and the people that went with them. This is not the same as forgetting. It is rather clearing the past into a limbo nearly out of mind, in order to leave more room and capacity for the present”. So instead of the war he writes about the poems that came out of it. Was I disappointed? Not at all – I was entranced with the book by this stage.