First Lines
(my email to JD Morley 21/09/2017)
Hello David,
… On reading the collage of materials you sent me, I have the feeling that you are using life experience (yours and others) as raw materials, enriching and discarding with imagination, like a sculptor. You write beautiful English, and language is your creative tool. Unlike you, my English is affected by the man/men I work with or encounter at the time, and also, I don't have in depth knowledge of anything I read - it's just an instinctive like or dislike: e.g., I like the opening line to Rebecca: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again", but did not know it's an iambic hexameter. Recently I come across "Nothing Gold Can Stay", and like it very much, though I know nothing about poetry.
(David's reply 21/09/2017)
John David Morley was an English writer and novelist, the youngest child of the artist and sculptor Patricia Morley (née Booth), and grandson of Victor Booth, who was a piano professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He had written ten novels, including the bestseller Pictures from the Water Trade.
John David Morley to Me
