November, December & January were sad months - worsened by the overnight news of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman - for a number of creative and original people with whom I worked or partied.
Tom Rosenthal, publisher and bon viveur (1935-2014)
I knew Tom just as he was leaving Secker & Warburg where he built an astonishing list of poets and fine writers. it was the talk at Heinemann that his expenses were in the early 1980s a thousand pounds a week which frankly is a good story but even by his standards he's have had to using Concorde just for breakfast. But, I do think there was more substance from the fact that he persuaded James Michener to sponsor his new poets list.
Timothy Arlott, John Arlott's son, had tried to publish a biography of his father without luck in 1992/93. He had sent his manuscript to a number of well known publishers but no-one showed any interest. It was suggested by Peter Bills, a joint-friend, that he send me the script to see if I could place it. I read it. It needed a lot of work. It has been a great sadness to me that editing books has gone out of fashion in the non fiction market place. Anyway, I re-organised the book and sent it back to Tim who then worked at Reuters in Paris.
Once he'd completed a bit of a re-write and accepted my chapter plan, I sent it to Tom. Tom read it and called me and said he wanted to fly to Paris to meet Tim to buy the book and buy the book he did. In 1994, he printed 3000 in hardback and reprinted again and again and from memory I think it sold 14,000 with another 30k-40k in paperback the following year.
Leo Cooper (1934-2013)
Leo had a military publishing imprint when I was a publisher and board member at William Heinemann and we shared a publicist called Rachel Ward Lilley. He probably spent as much time courting authors as he did courting bars but he was immense fun.
Simon Hoggart (1946-2014)
Simon was very good friends with Bob Marshall-Andrews QC - and latterly MP for Medway 1997-2010 - and through my friendship with Bob I met Simon at parties and in the House of Commons. He was never short of a pithy remark and his columns would have us howling in the aisles in Parliament. But in some ways there a loner quality about Simon - which might have been a strength - so that we never really knew him.