Estimated reading time:7 minutes, 21 seconds
Everybody has a story. Are you determined to have a more purposeful new year? For Richard Smith, January 2020 sees the launch of his first novel, Homeward Bound, which has been living in his head for more than 20 years. Interview by Nicola Baird. Photos by Kimi Gill
Richard Smith’s first novel, Homeward Bound, is published in January 2020. He wrote it in secret but when his oldest daughter, Becky, happened to read the first page, and liked it, he was pleased. “There are lots of music references and she’s made a Spotify track for the book,” he says. © Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
Richard Smith spent much of his working life behind a camera, filming commercials and sponsored films around the world. And it’s this story-telling expertise combined with a passion for music that nagged at him to get writing.
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“The characters lived in my head for 20 years, but I’ve only been writing seriously for 18 months,” he says over Americano at Salt The Radish café, 45 Blackstock Road. “I kept the book to myself as I was writing it – I’ve been trying to get something written for as long as I can remember, but I could never concentrate on it for long enough. There were big gaps when I had to focus on work. Two years ago I sold my business: I had to leave it in order to write this novel. But I didn’t tell people I was writing a book because I’ve seen how other people ‘retire to write’ and are mocked relentlessly.”
The strategy seems to have paid off, as now his book is written and there are launches planned at both Ink@84 (84 Highbury Park) and Waterstones in Crouch End. Richard, who is 70, is also hoping to sell his next fiction idea to an agent – the meeting is in the diary.
Thanks to the keep-it-quiet strategy Richard’s wife, Sue Jandy, didn’t realise her husband was busy creating his novel about dreams, choices and rock’n’roll. Sue, who was interviewed for Islington Faces in 2013 https://www.islingtonfacesblog.com/2013/06/12/sue-jandy-volunteer/ did think Richard was spending a lot more time in his cellar adapted to house his vast vinyl collection.
Richard Smith’s first book has been inspired by his passion for music. “I don’t like muzac. I like to listen to music. I don’t like as a background. If I see a jute box I tend to hit Runaway by Del Shannon. It’s the record that turned me into being addicted to music.” © Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
“I have thousands of records, organised alphabetically by surname or band name so The The is under T for its second name,” he says ready to explain in more detail… There are also piles of old NME and Record Mirror. Many people know Richard’s a big music fan, not just because he has a juke box and the musical man cave, but also his fiendish musical round provided annually for the Friends of Gillespie’s fundraising quiz.
Order is everything when it comes to Richard Smith’s huge music collection. (c) Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
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Places Richard Smith likes in Islington
- Highbury Fields – “I’m always walking through this nice green oasis with all those trees and Victorian buildings. When I was looking to bring Sue into the great smoke it was a really nice place to show her. I’ve grown to love it walking through to Arsenal.”
- Highbury – “I was a child when my father took me. We climbed up steps and then when we go to the top there was the green baize, like a billiard table, in the spotlight, and I went ‘wow’.”
- I really like greasy spoons. Lots have shut, like Olive in Crouch End. On Saturday morning Sue and I go and get the papers at the little shop at the end of Aubert Park (the sign above it says Supermarket & Off Licence, but I don’t mean the Tesco) and then have a fry up at Wagon Café, 60 Drayton Park by the Highbury Library, 66a Drayton Park.
- Ink@84 at 84 Highbury Park is supporting my book launch. I also really like it for its film nights and lovely smell of books when you go in.
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Richard Smith: “I’ve written forever, writing stories and school magazines. As a qualified secondary modern teacher in geography/history I learnt how important it was to keep students’ attention. I then worked in film and what stuck with me forever is it’s the audience that counts!” © Kimi Gill for Islington Faces
Parallel lives
In Homeward Bound 79-year-old George has a ‘50s playlist from his band days – he likes rock and roll but he’s never lost interest in music. Meanwhile his 19-year-old granddaughter, Tara, has a boyfriend steering her into avant garde, but she’s got a good voice and “is more into making music than listening. She relates to some of the songs her grandfather plays – a key song is Simon & Garfunkle’s Homeward Boundand also I almost lost my mindby Ivory Joe Hunter which was famously covered by Pat Boon,” explains Richard. It’s clear that he could talk music all day which regrettably is not Islington Faces’ forte. However, when Richard admits that “Runawayby Del Shannon is the record that turned me into being addicted to music,” I do sneak on to You Tube to have a listen (which is sure to pay off at the next pub quiz).
It was an aside from his next door neighbour, Angela Sinclair, when she ran the Islington Pensioners’ Forum and had an amazing life, including driving ambulances in the Blitz (she died in 2016 but was interviewed by Islington Faces in 2012 when she was 91), that inspired his novel’s theme.
“I remember Angela saying the trouble with being an old person is that if you have a house, with all your possessions, and you go into care, all they give you is a cardboard box for your things which then gets stuck on top of a cupboard. It was a horrible thought when I wondered where all my records would go,” says Richard for once not joking.
Homeward Bound author Richard Smith is dad of two daughters, granddad to Caroline’s four-month-old boy and waiting for Becky and partner’s soon-to-arrive first child. Becky was an early test reader of Richard’s novel, Homeward Bound. © Richard Smith
“My father was a manager for Sainsbury’s so we always lived over the shop, which meant we had huge rooms that I could fill with music and no one complained about the noise,” he says. Born in Woking, the family lived for a couple of years in Bishop’s Stortford and then moved to Crouch End where Richard went to school. The Sainsbury’s where he lived has now closed but it was opposite Dunns the Baker – you may also remember the site as a Starbucks and an Oliver Bonas, now two empty shops.
Growing up Richard became an Arsenal fan. “My father would sit in front of the TV on a Saturday to write down the football pools using a stub of a pencil he would keep behind his right ear. I was waiting for Juke Box Jurythat came on after. I only listened for the first few seconds and as the name ‘Arsenal’ invariably came first, it was the only team I really knew. Then years later, when all my friends were Spurs supporters, I felt I had to choose a different one. He’s been a season ticket holder since the 1980s.
Keen as Richard is on the Highbury area, where he has lived for many years, he is still drawn back to Crouch End – just like his novel’s title, homeward bound. Here he currently works/volunteers in the Oxfam Music & Books shop and as a committee member of the Friends of Alexandra Palace Theatre, has helped bring the Victorian theatre back to life.
Congratulations to Richard, and here’s to big success with this novel. See you at the launch.
- Homeward Bound by Richard Smith (Troubador, £10.99) is published on 28 January 2020.
Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola
