When I was eleven years old, about a year before we moved to Scotland in the early 60s, we were living in Bramley, a suburb of Leeds. We rented an upstairs flat, part of a big millstone grit house on Rosemont Road, just off the top of Hough Lane. My best friend, Sandra, lived a short walk away, on Hough Lane itself. This is a very long lane that leads down to busy Stanningley Road on one side, and on the other meanders past a few shops, a cemetery, a school, a couple of churches and a library, before heading down to Bramley Town Street. It always seemed to be greener that way, and still does, if Google maps is to be believed. If you turn left where Hough Lane joins Town Street, you'll come to Bramley Park, where Sandra and I used to play tennis on the public courts and through which I and my dad used to walk, using it as a short cut to Rosemont Road, when he brought me back from my weekly piano lessons. I'm not sure that the Victorian house is still there, and there is certainly no sign of the huge lilac tree in which I used to climb to cut big bunches of blossoms, every spring. The way into the top of the park at the end of Rosemont Road has disappeared amid a tangle of new and not very beautiful buildings.
Sandra and I, having passed our 11+, were attending a convent grammar school in leafy Headingly, on the other side of Leeds. To get there each day, we would walk down Hough Lane, catch the bus on Stanningley Road, get off in City Square, and race for another bus to take us out to the school. Looking back, we were mostly unaccompanied and nobody ever assumed that we wouldn't be safe.
Sandra and I had attended the same primary school and were firm friends. Sometimes a third girl joined us on the trip into school. Occasionally she would come to the park with us, and a few times, during that year before we decamped to Scotland, we would go on more exciting expeditions. I remember one adventure to Ilkley, from which we hiked over the moors to Bolton Abbey, and caught the bus back to Leeds. I had been hillwalking for years by then, and knew the way, but the amount of leeway and independence we three little girls were given still - from this perspective in time - surprises me. Mumsnet would be appalled.
Anyway, our new friend - let's call her Mary - had one quality that puzzled us. She fibbed. More than fibbed. She was capable of telling great big porky pies about herself, her family, what they did, where they went, who they knew. At first, we believed her. We were only eleven, after all. But I remember one conversation with Sandra as we slogged up Hough Lane at the end of our school day. 'Do you think?' I asked, hesitantly, because it seemed disloyal. 'Do you think she can be telling the truth?' Sandra thought about it. 'No!' she said, after a while. 'No. I think she tells fibs. All the time. I wonder why.'
I don't think we ever called Mary out on her fantasies. They were vivid and engaging and we never challenged her. We didn't believe her, but we simply went along with it. We never understood why she lied so much. I don't think she was a neglected child. She was bright, well dressed, seemed to cope well at school. We liked her a lot. But like Billy Liar, in Keith Waterhouse's poignant and hilarious novel, she felt the need to invent and embellish everything she told us, to the point where it was impossible to tell what was true and what was a lie.
I thought about Mary recently, when I finally got around to watching Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou's excellent and startling documentary about the Salt Path Scandal. I had never read the book, had never become enchanted with it, as so many people seemed to be. I hadn't seen the film, either. I think the media hype, the fawning, those endless breakfast show appearances on all possible channels had been faintly off-putting. But I did occasionally wonder about it.
Reflecting on the critical documentary that has only served to earn everyone involved even more truckloads of cash, it struck me that the publisher (once a reputable publishing house) was blinded by miracles and money. It also struck me that a good editor would have spotted the problems right away. In a long writing career, I've probably had only a couple of genuinely expert editors. They were astute and meticulous and always questioned something that might not ring true. Where matters of fact were concerned, I had to be prepared to defend my interpretation of events.
Sadly, editing itself may be a dying art. Even literary agents expect books to arrive as 'oven ready products'. Writers use 'beta readers' aka friends who may be reluctant to question things too closely. Many publishers seem unwilling or unable to spend the necessary money to buy experience, so books are simply proofread by beginners. AI would probably make a better job of it - and often does.
Good fiction has been described as 'made up truth' where 'truth' may mean the authenticity of events and characters depicted, insights into the human condition, and an overall coherence, even when fantasy is involved. I've written historical fiction and non-fiction myself. All of it uses some form of interpretation of researched facts. But the reader has to be aware of the writer's intentions, and should be free to disagree.
Fiction masquerading as undeniable fact, make-believe told as completely true, is a different matter.
Since then, I've discussed the documentary with a few readers. You know what? Nobody seems to to care. Cognitive dissonance plays its part. It can be distressing to admit that you were deceived. Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis reports trying to persuade somebody, face to face, that he had not been recommending crypto currency, and that his image was being used in a scam. Ten minutes later, he felt he was making some headway, but still wondered if he had really succeeded in changing the man's mind.
In the same way, the documentary itself bravely shows commentary from people who simply don't care about truth or falsehood, because they just like the books. 'Would it have made a difference if it had been written and published as fiction?' somebody asked me, sceptically. Of course it would. The writer can really write. An industry with more integrity might have published and promoted this and subsequent books. But I doubt very much if the invitations to sit on those breakfast show couches with presenters fawning over miracles would have materialised in quite the same way.
Perhaps our school friend Mary had the right idea all along. Perhaps Billy Liar - ironically enough from the same publisher - was factual, instead of one of the great fictional comic creations of the 20th century. And perhaps we have the media - and the publishing industry - we deserve. Poor us.
