Once in 1919, when I was traveling at night by train, I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wrote my first short story for a competition and won second prize. Another competition came up and I won first prize. The first story was published in a newspaper. The second went out on radio.
The train we had so confidently boarded had been speeding at almost 100 miles an hour and it had derailed. Someone, I can't remember who, showed me a newspaper photograph of the carriage we had been sitting in tilted on its side on a station platform next to a large notice that said Welcome to Potters Bar.
The first writing I did was short short stories for a newspaper syndicate for which I was paid five dollars a piece on publication.
I think all of my writing life led up to the writing of 'The Train Driver' because it deals with my own inherited blindness and guilt and all of what being a white South African in South Africa during those apartheid years meant.
When I worked as a newspaper photo engraver in the only job I ever had, many years ago, I'd get the train home to Pukerua Bay where I was staying with my parents. An hour ride, 16 stops, and almost always, I'd have automatic wake-up, seconds before we pulled into my station.
The subject matter of the stories on the surface... there seem to be a number of stories about travel.
My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around.
I rode into the dawning world of television in 1944 on a train.
Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.
I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.