Reading Ulysses

I've started on James Joyce's Ulysses. I've long enjoyed Anthony Burgess, and he was a great admirer of Joyce, so I suppose it was inevitable. I'm not trying to spot every reference, or look up every obscure word, but just to read it like any other story book. Analysis can come later, if I fancy, and my old copy of Burgess's Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader will no doubt come in handy. 

I see fiction as entertainment and escapism - you're not going to discover the meaning of life, or your place in the Universe, or anything else "deep and meaningful" from it. If you want Truth go outside and it's right there in front of you. But if you're lucky you'll find a book that just takes you out of yourself for a while. It might be Burgess, it might be Biggles. And, if you're into that sort of thing, and it grabs your interest, then you can look into all the allusions and quotations and places and everything else in it, and fair play to you.

And is it as hard a read as we are told? Well, I've only read the first six episodes so far, and no, it isn't. I am cheating - but only slightly. RTE made a full-cast reading a few years ago, that is to say a reading of the text, not a dramatisation, but with a full cast doing all the different voices. Play the dramatisation along with reading the book, and it'll help you along. But I do find I gradually tune out the sounds, and listen to the text in my head instead, and I am enjoying it.

Damian Collins on David Lloyd George, Tuesday 12th May 2026

As part of the Fleet Street Quarter Festival of Words 2026 Damian Collins, author of Rivals in the Storm: How Lloyd George Seized Power, Won the War and Lost his Government, and a speaker at this year's Cymdeithas Lloyd George / Lloyd George Society meeting, will be in conversation with Richard Rhys O'Brien, long-standing Society member and biographer of Dame Margaret Lloyd George. They will be asking the question "Today, with crises at home and around the world, do we need leaders like Lloyd George who are unafraid to find unorthodox ways to take on important challenges?"

The event is on Tuesday 12th May, at Temple Church, and is sponsored by Cymdeithas Lloyd George / The Lloyd George Society. Signed copies of Rivals in the Storm by Damian Collins and The Campaigns of Margaret Lloyd George by Richard Rhys O'Brien will be available.

For further information and to book your place see here.

I hope to see you there! 

And another new Lloyd George Book!

A very welcome arrival this week - Paul Spackman's Lloyd George - Welsh Radical, World Statesman, published by Barnthorn Publishing. The first full-length "life" for many years, it is the result of seven years research, and aims to give a more holistic portrait of the politician and the man.

Paul's approach is to "explore the specific and distinctively Welsh roots and influences" that shaped Lloyd George. He highlights the social reforms that laid the foundations of the Welfare State, Lloyd George's vital replacement of Asquith in the Great War, his treatment of Germany at Versailles, the Irish settlement, and the years after his all from power, with his development of creative and practical policies to address the great problems of the 1920s and 1930s. Lloyd George's legacy - and popular misconceptions of it - are re-examined, and Dame Margaret's important role is given proper attention.

It's a big book - over 700 pages, but then Lloyd George, for all his physical shortness, was a big man. Aneurin Bevan called him "a bigger man than Churchill", and in his parliamentary tribute "the most iridescent figure that ever illumined the British political scene". I shall read it with great pleasure and interest. 

New Lloyd George book

G. H. Bennett's Lloyd George and the Coalition Liberal Party - The Papers of Lieutenant-Colonel Scovell, General Secretary of the Party, 1919-1922 arrived at Ducky Towers yesterday. It's a welcome addition to the literature, looking at the role played by a much-neglected figure in the working of the Coalition Liberals, and giving a fuller picture of the workings of the party leading up to the 1922 general election. Dr Harry Bennett is Associate Professor in History at the University of Plymouth. His previous books include Hitler's Admirals, Hunting Tirpitz, and Destination Normandy: Three American Regiments on D-Day. Of particular interest to "Lloyd Georgians" are his British Foreign Policy during the Curzon Period, 1919-24, The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919-22: Naval and Foreign Policy under Lloyd George, and The 1922 General Election Reconsidered - High Politics and the Birth of the Modern British Election.

The Cymdeithas Lloyd George / Lloyd George Society website has details of a discount kindly arranged by Professor Bennett with his publishers, Boydell & Brewer. 

Lloyd George's reading

One of the criticisms of David Lloyd George made by his enemies was that he "did not read". It was, of course, a nonsense. In Lord Riddell's War Diary on the 29th July 1918 Riddell notes Lloyd George reading from and discussing the speeches of John Bright, the letters of Byron, and Macaulay's Essays - "a favourite book of his. He reads well and his comments are fresh and interesting". Lloyd George said of Macaulay "His first object was to be interesting, his second to hit hard". 

A new biography of David Lloyd George

A new biography of David Lloyd George will be released soon. Written by Paul Spackman and published by Barnthorn Publishing, it aims to correct oft-repeated misunderstandings and misconceptions of the true nature of the man and of his policies. I'm looking forward to reading it. You can read more about Paul, and his book, on Barnthorn's website. 

Old Library Books

 As an avid reader of limited financial means I often find myself buying ex-library books from various websites. I understand that libraries have limited space and funds, and need to dispose of some books to free up the shelves and raise some money for new acquisitions.

But some of the books I've bought in this way make me stop and think about the way disposals are done.

My copy of Through Terror to Triumph, speeches by David Lloyd George in 1914 and 1915, has the bookplate of Manchester Central Library Reference Library - the Neville Laski Collection. 

Neville Laski was a member of the Laski family of Manchester, chairman of the Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital, secretary of the Manchester Jewish Community Council, and a host of other appointments including President of the Board of Deputies. His family were closely involved in Manchester's public life - his mother Sarah being a councillor and later alderman on Manchester City Council for many years, and a strong advocate for women, children, and the poor.

So the Neville Laski collection could represent a significant insight into the life and works of one of Manchester's notable sons. Alas, I can find no mention of it on the Manchester Libraries website, and indeed the only trace seems to be in booksellers' catalogues. 

When a library disposes of a collection like this it breaks a link with the past - not only the library's past, but the past of the community. It erases a collective memory.

So what to do? At the least I would suggest keeping a catalogue of special collections, bequests, and the like. To know what was in the Neville Laski Collection - even if the books in it needed to be disposed of by Manchester - would enable anyone to recreate it in their own library - whether of physical books or electronic media. This is the sort of thing that volunteers can do - and do well. For example, the book cataloguing website LibraryThing has "Legacy Libraries" - catalogues of famous readers, authors, politicians, etc. 

The People's Insurance, by David Lloyd George

I was very pleased today to receive The People's Insurance by David Lloyd George. Originally published in 1912 it explains the scheme of National Insurance and National Health Insurance introduced by the Liberal Government in 1911. As well as speeches by Lloyd George both in the House and in the country, it includes extracts from explanatory memoranda issued by the government, as well as the text of the Act.

My copy is a modern print-on-demand facsimile produced by Gyan Books in India. Usually I prefer to buy originals, but this work is vanishingly rare. It's a handsomely produced volume, leather-bound, and clearly printed. The binding is sewn, and it lies flat. It makes an attractive addition to my shelves. I must say I am impressed, and shall be seriously considering further books from them - both for works I cannot find (or afford) originals of, and for reading copies of some of my more fragile books.

Lloyd George Knew Her Husband*

My pursuit of the writings of David Lloyd George has turned up Then and Now - Economic Problems after the War a Hundred Years Ago by Mrs H. A. L. Fisher, with an introduction by Lloyd George. Fisher compares the economic disruption following the Napoleonic Wars with that following the First World War. Lettice Fisher was an economist and historian, and chaired the executive of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.

During the Great War she was a welfare worker amongst the munitionettes of Sheffield. The hardships she saw suffered by unmarried mothers led her to found the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child, providing practical support to single mothers, as well as campaigning for reform of the Bastardy Acts. It is now Gingerbread.

Her husband, the historian H. A. L. Fisher, was appointed President of the Board of Education by Lloyd George in 1916. He raised the school-leaving age to 14, established the Burnham Scales for teachers' pay, and introduced a national pension scheme for teachers. His underwear played an important role in the Second World War, but that, oh best beloved, is another story.

My copy was withdrawn from John Ryland's Library. I'll be posting some thoughts on library disposals another day.

* Sorry about the title, I couldn't resist it.

Lloyd George Knew His Father

While browsing The Times digital archive the other day I came across a letter calling for a memorial to the poet Edward Thomas. It particularly caught my eye as it was signed by Stanley Baldwin and David Lloyd George, two very unlikely bedfellows. I asked the Edward Thomas Fellowship if they knew anything more about it. They were able to tell me both that this was the appeal which led to the memorial on Shoulder of Mutton Hill, above Thomas's home in Steep, and that Lloyd George knew Edward Thomas's father. Philip Henry Thomas, a civil servant, was a Liberal, standing for Clapham in the 1918 general election. He had known Lloyd George for some time before this, and they even used to travel together into London to work. 

Lloyd George was also to write a foreword to John Moore's Life and Letters of Edward Thomas in 1939. I shall have to look out for a copy. 

In Memoriam: Easter 1915

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood

This Eastertide call into mind the men,

Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should

Have gathered them and will do never again

Books and rumours of books

One of the most frustrating things about book collecting is chasing books which turn out to (probably) not exist at all. You see them as results in Amazon searches, but they are never available, they may even be even cited in other works, but you find no trace of them in any copyright library. You may even find an ISBN or an entry in a publisher's catalogue - but even those trails peter out eventually.

For the student of David Lloyd George this adds to other frustrations - the unfortunate deaths of various biographers before they complete their planned series, the lack of bibliographical information about Lloyd George's own works (let alone an index of his numerous writings for newspapers and magazines), and the shear volume of works about him over the years. Just the other day I found a reference to The Future of Liberalism, a pamphlet of speeches by Lloyd George in Manchester, Oxford, and Llandrindod Wells, which not only had I never heard of before, but of which I can find no trace beyond its advertisement in the Lloyd George Liberal Magazine. At thruppence a copy post free it sounds like excellent value.

Two books, or rumours of books, stand out in particular. Collected Speeches of David Lloyd George, and Collected Correspondence of David Lloyd George and Winston S. Churchill, 1904-1945, both by Ian Hunter (whose Winston and Archie: The Letters of Winston Churchill and Archibald Sinclair certainly exists and which I have just ordered). Both would be of immense value to anyone interested in Lloyd George, the history of Liberalism and the Welfare State, and indeed to Churchill aficionados. I once saw the Collected Correspondence advertised on (I think) Portuguese Amazon, but I lacked the funds at the time for the £80 asked.

Still, I suppose it gives one something to hope for - one day a lucky google, or the back room of a dusty bookshop, will turn up something I had become convinced did not exist.