After Dick Francis took a tumble in the Grand National in 1956 he stopped racing and became a writer. Now, after a six-year break, he’s writing again. He spoke to Stuart Jeffries.
Fifty years ago, Dick Francis was a few yards from winning the Grand National on the Queen Mother’s horse, Devon Loch, when something unexpected happened. ”We’d cleared the last fence and we were 10 lengths ahead of the next horse, ESB,” says Francis, now 85, as he sinks deeper into a leather sofa at the Goring Hotel, London. ”I could hear the crowd’s roar. They were ecstatic. I was going to win on the first royal horse in the National since Ambush II in 1900, and I was very excited. I was riding hands and heels until the tragedy happened. Fifty yards from the winning post, Devon Loch pricked up his ears and collapsed.”
There were no horses or fences nearby. ESB cantered past to win. ”I walked away in disgust. The horse got up and trotted away, too. It took me years to get over the shock of losing that way. I went to the weighing room, took off my silks and sat there with my head in my hands. It was hell. I’ve never been more disappointed in my life.”
Did the Queen Mum demand your head? ”Oh no! Who could have been more philosophical than her majesty? When I went, crestfallen, to the royal box, she said, ‘Oh, that’s racing.’ She was far too gracious to complain.”
But was it a mishap, or something more sinister? The loopiest theory, advanced by some newspapers, was that it was those dastardly Soviets.
”It does seem far-fetched, doesn’t it?” says Francis. ”But there were other ones, just as mad.” For instance, the theory that Devon Loch suffered a heart attack. ”Unlikely, given that he walked away.” Perhaps he was put off by the shadow of the water jump on his left. Or — and this is my favourite theory — perhaps he was destabilised by breaking wind violently after his girth was made too tight.
What does Francis think? ”When I saw the newsreel I realised it must have been the noise that put him off. There was such enthusiasm when her horses won.”
The year after the Devon Loch debacle, Francis retired. By then he was halfway through his autobiography, The Sport of Queens. He’d been asked to write it after the National gave him unwonted notoriety and, despite misgivings, he finally agreed. ”I was sceptical. I’d left school at 15 and had no obvious literary talent. But Mary, my wife, said: ‘I’ll help you with the spelling and English’.” The pair wrote up the 37-year-old’s exciting life, one filled with derring-do in the skies (he was a wartime pilot, flying Spitfires and bombers for the Royal Air Force) and doughty deeds on the turf (by his retirement he had won 350 races).
This proved to be the start of the most successful post-war British literary double act. Dick Francis has sold more than 60-million copies of his books worldwide. His works include 38 novels, short stories and a biography of Lester Piggott. ”That was the hardest book I ever wrote. Easier to get blood out of a stone than a story out of Lester.”
In 1961, the pair got to work on a thriller set in the world Dick Francis knew. Dead Cert was published the following year. Francis produced a novel annually for the next 38 years, except for 1998, when he published a book of short stories. Despite his global success, you won’t find an entry on Dick Francis OBE in the Oxford Companion to English Literature. That said, he has won silver, gold and even diamond daggers from the Crime Writers’ Association.
Have you ever been tempted to write about anything other than racing? ”Well, although all my novels have the background of racing, they have had heroes with different jobs — painters, glassblowers, private eyes.” Mary and Dick would research the novels together. ”We went to Australia to do some research for In the Frame, which was about painting, and when we came back, she tried to become a painter herself. She also learned to fly for Flying Finish. She was a great researcher.”
Was she more than that? ”Oh yes. We collaborated on everything to do with the books. I wanted her name to go on the books, but she wouldn’t have that.” A measure of how much they collaborated, perhaps, is that after Mary’s death in 2000 Francis announced he would write no more books.
A few years before she died, Mary and Dick bought two cemetery plots on the Cayman Islands, where they had lived for several years.
Francis now visits Britain twice a year. Each August, for more than half a century, he and Mary took over part of a hotel in Paignton for a family reunion. ”It’s cost me a fortune. This year will be the 54th. I’m hoping my girlfriend from America will be there too. There will be 22 or 23 of us.”
He also visits Britain for a week in April to see the National. ”I’ve only missed one since 1937.” Last Saturday he opened Aintree’s new changing rooms and, as usual, judged the best turned-out horse. Does he think about what happened half a century ago? ”I can’t help but think about it. I try to console myself with the thought that if it had never happened, I would not have written a book.”
But he had more business in Britain this year than the Liverpool pilgrimage. He met his publishers last week to see if they liked the manuscript for his new book. They do. ”I did say I wouldn’t write another book after Mary died, but she’s been dead for five-and-a-half years now. I have got over the fact of missing her.”
What is the book about? ”I’m not going to tell you,” he says with a twinkling, sidelong glance, ”but it’s called Under Orders and will come out in mid-September. It’s set in the racing world and there’s all sorts of dirty deals and skulduggery.” Why change a winning formula? ”Quite.” — Â