I’ve lived in Toronto since 1987 but come back to Britain every year to visit friends and family. This magazine was one of my first employers and in 1983 the then-editor Hugh Stephenson asked me to speak to the famous children’s author Roald Dahl. Dahl had just reviewed a book for the Literary Review called God Cried, which covered Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon but went much further than criticizing Israel. He wrote of “a race of people” who had “switched so rapidly from victims to barbarous murderers” and claimed that the US was “so utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions” that the Americans “dare not defy” Israel.
Stephenson asked me, the youngest journalist in the office, to “have a chat with him and see if he regrets any of that nonsense.” I did. He didn’t. The author of Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox and the rest told me, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews,” and “I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere. Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason”. He said that when he was in the forces during World War Two, he and his friends never saw any Jewish fighting men.
I told him my father was Jewish, that Jews were over-represented in the Allied armies, and that what he had said was repugnant. He muttered something and then – always clinically polite – said goodbye. But it wasn’t goodbye to the article and for almost 40 years it has regularly resurfaced in articles and books about Dahl.
Larger than life
Now it’s in the news again as the basis for a major play, Giant, at the Royal Court, starring John Lithgow as Dahl. That’s why I’m in the UK a little earlier this year. The playwright, Mark Rosenblatt, first contacted me three years ago and at the time I assumed little more would come of it. I was clearly wrong. I’m mentioned in it of course, and the wonderful Richard Hope plays my voice on the phone. I knew about this, but it all felt far more eerie on press night, sitting in my seat at one of the world’s major theatres, watching a drama about my interview play out on stage. Part of me wanted to disappear into the floor, another to jump up and shout, “That’s me!” When John Lithgow, as Dahl, said, “Who’s Mike Coren?” I think I blushed. Thank God it was dark. But the play is far more important than that – it is a vital discussion of anti-Semitism, a wound more open now than at any time in my life. I expect reactions to it will say a great deal about the bitter reality of it all. That, frankly, isn’t entirely reassuring.
Street preaching
As well as being a journalist, I’m also an Anglican priest, ordained three years ago this very week. I usually wear my clerical collar in public because I want to “represent” the institution, and the response is surprisingly positive. Not always, however. Outside Holborn station an agitated young man stopped me and began to argue about the homophobia of the church and opposition to abortion. When he stopped, I explained that I championed equal marriage, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights, social democracy, and that Jesus said nothing about the conservative Christian hot button issues but lots about peace, justice, equality, and love. He paused, appeared to be preparing a response, then said, “Fancy a pint?” The Lord really does work in mysterious ways…
Funeral rites
It may sound paradoxical, even perverse, but I find funerals more meaningful and fulfilling than weddings. The grief is always gnawing, especially when the service marks the passing of someone young. But at funerals a priest has a purpose, and can be of help even to the non-religious. This week an old friend died, and I’m heartbroken that I won’t be able to attend his funeral. He was homeless, and first visited the church to acquire £30 cards to use at local supermarkets. We discovered that he’d spend them on healthy food and shared it all with others who were living rough. He did that for two decades and never told a soul. Saints come in all forms, many of them surprising.
Living with regret
It’s been a momentous week. As well as the play at the Royal Court, my memoir is published. People ask me if it was enjoyable, cathartic, liberating to write an autobiography. No, it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve written 20 books. The overriding emotion I experienced was guilt at the way I’ve often behaved. I’m not interesting or brave enough to be especially bad but I still feel so much regret. Not healthy I know but there it is. Mind you, at least I’m not as appalling as Roald Dahl.
Michael Coren’s memoir, “Heaping Coals”, is published on 1 November by Dundurn Press.
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