Harry Pearson is a brilliant writer. He is also my mate. You may think of him as the Poet Laureate of the Northern League; he is, but he is also a writer of impressive breadth and inspiring talent. Here is my reflection on his other dozen books that don't involve chunky KitKats at Dunston -:
However, it should be noted that Harry has published the grand total of 14 books, of which only 3 are about football. His other works deal with agricultural shows, Belgium, specifically cycling in Flanders, cricket, dogs, the internet, playground games and war games. He’s a bloody nightmare to categorize and display for bookshop shelf fillers and non-fiction librarians. As I am honoured to call Harry one of my dearest friends, I would like to discuss the treasure trove of the dozen works that don’t discuss the merits of the tea bar at Esh Winning or the architecture of Ryton and Crawcrook Albion’s row of decommissioned bus shelters that provide cover on wet afternoons.
Harry’s second book, published in 1996, was also rooted in the North East, though rather than the devastated former pit villages and desolate concrete new towns of Durham, the picturesque and occasionally bleak Tyne Valley which Harry has called home these past 30 years or so. North Country Fair follows the quintessential Pearson approach; observational humour and lovingly-crafted, episodic narrative with regular, splendid interpolations, all delivered with Harry’s trademark laconic, deadpan humour. Within its pages are vignettes and snapshots of agricultural shows where everything from racing pigs to giant marrows are displayed and judged. Unfortunately, the original title was deemed too arcane for the casual reader, so it was retitled Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows, which seemed only marginally less opaque than the original. Whatever you call it, this is a charming read.
Perhaps the most informative of Harry’s books was his 1998 travelogue of an extended sojourn spent in Belgium, Tall Man in a Low Land. His parallel career as a writer for Conde Nast Traveller made him uniquely suited to writing travel books. The revelations that some visionary Flemish or Wallonian invented beer, chips, and pigeon racing, providing vast numbers of working class blokes from the Tees to the Tweed with the staples of their diet and an adored pastime, was a truly life-changing moment. Having known little to nothing of Belgium, especially the poorer, Dutch-speaking north, I came away from this truly enlightening volume with a fistful of useless knowledge; for that I’ll be eternally grateful, even if the promise I made to visit Belgium 22 years ago is still to be realised.
Strangely, it would be 7 years until Harry published his next book. Equally strangely, following a trip to Dunston 1 Fleetwood 2 in an FA Cup qualifier in September 2000, I wouldn’t see Harry again until a chance meeting in Newcastle Central Station in the summer of 2009. Somewhat fittingly, Harry’s next book when it came, was also about not seeing things for real. Around the World by Mouse is probably the greatest book ever published about the dial-up internet, which shows that, in light of the pace of technological advances, a book such as this could only have been written in the pre broadband era of screeching modems and glacially-paced downloads. The premise is that Harry doesn’t leave his living room and, hunched over an aged Compaq PC, uses the power of search engines, from Alta Vista to Yahoo to pilot a worldwide course by means of trains, boats and planes, stopping off to do on-line touristy things by putting himself in the care of rickety, homemade websites. What makes the book screamingly funny, is the use of a plot device, later popularised by Michel Houllebecq, that involves wholesale copying and pasting of wads of text, comprising terrible computer translations, suffused with inaccurate adjectives and bizarrely formal verbs. The cumulative effect is uncontrollable mirth. This is Harry’s least favourite of his own books, but I thoroughly recommend it to you, even if the last section of the book is a bit rushed.
As I’ve mentioned before, Harry and I are good pals, though there are interests he has that I know nothing about. An example of this is the litany of revelations contained in his 2007 publication Achtung Schweinehund! One of the first facts I learned about Harry is that he was schooled by kindly Quakers at the Great Ayton Friends’ School. As he is a most self-effacing and gentle bloke, it was a profound shock to discover Harry has been an obsessive war gamer for his entire adult life, though that is the second half of this fascinating book. The first is a rip-roaring, nostalgia heavy, trawl through the British obsession with World War II and how it influenced boys’ play in the late 60s and early 70s. It’s a superbly well-observed portrait of life in those almost far-off days that existed in a parallel universe to the swinging 60s, but it pales into the background when Harry waxes lyrical about his love of toy soldiers and the seemingly endless complexities of scaled-down battles and war campaigns. Rather like, Tall Man in a Low Land, Achtung Schweinehund! is a treasure trove of trivia and recondite facts.
2007 also saw the appearance of Dribble! The Unbelievable Football Machine. Harry’s journalism has seen him contribute to such publications as The Guardian, Conde Nast Traveller and When Saturday Comes, where he still shares his work on a monthly basis. This book is a distillation of the long-running series The A to Z of Football, collected in book form. Of course, it’s a load of preposterous lies mixed with devastatingly barbed attacks on the sacred cows of the game. Unlike a lot of these cash-in volumes, it is properly written and seriously entertaining.
As those of you who saw my cameo appearance outside Tynemouth Co-op will know, I am a cat person and definitely not a dog lover, except for Lexy and Poppy of course. Indeed, I’m rather more of an Andrew Newton than a Norman Scott when it comes to canines. That said, Hound Dog Days, Harry’s delightful account of his relationship with his dogs Ingemar and Little Man, has almost persuaded me to get myself a rescue mutt to look after. The idea of a gentle stroll down by the River Tyne out west of Hexham on a clear, early morning in summer with your best friend at your heels, is certainly an appealing one. Check this book out and I’m sure you’ll agree.
I referred earlier to a chance meeting with Harry in Newcastle Central Station. It was at the end of May in 2009; I was headed to Bathgate for the West of Scotland Cup Final between Bonnyrigg Rose and Musselburgh Athletic (2-1 to Bonnyrigg), while Harry was headed to a club cricket game in Yorkshire, as part of his research for Slipless in Settle; A Slow Turn Around Northern Cricket. Not only does it have a brilliant punning title, it is the cricket equivalent of The Far Corner, which was recognised by it winning the 2011 Cricket Society / MCC Book of the Year award, the Cricket Writers’ Club Book of the Year award and being named Best Cricket Book at the 2011 British Sports Book Awards. Cricket is the game Harry played the most and it is the sport to which, I feel, his writing is best suited. It also brings out the very best in him as an author; analytical, affectionate, detailed and dispassionate, the prose of Slipless in Settle is an endless series of Champagne Moments, Gold Awards and spontaneous applause from the boundary. I love this book as much as the two Corners.
Harry’s next full length book was another cricket tome; The Trundlers, which is undoubtedly a labour of love, as well as a meticulously researched hagiography of S. F. Barnes, the greatest medium pacer the world has ever seen. Before this, he edited Conkers for Goalposts, another WSC tie-in, telling the lore of playground games. I must admit, this is an acquired taste that I haven’t fully developed. However, his next project, a pamphlet commissioned by New Writing North about rural sports clubs in Northumberland, involving archery in the Borders, quoits up by Allendale and cricket at Bomarsund, Housekeepers, Shortlegs and Flemish String is an absolute delight; a love letter to his adopted county in all its glory. Seek it out where you can; it is a treasure in miniature.
Harry gave me a copy of The Trundlers while watched Northumberland flay Staffordshire all around the County Ground in Jesmond. It was the day Andy Murray won Wimbledon for the first time in July 2013, but I’m proud to say we didn’t see a stroke of the final, as the summer game held sway. His next book was about cricket too; Connie was a biography, in loving detail, of the West Indian great Learie Constantine. Focussing equally on Constantine’s background, playing career and post-cricket legal and political adventures, it is beautifully rounded portrait of one of the most seminal figures in Caribbean cricket history. Connie was longlisted for the 2017 William Hill Sports Book of the Year and won the 2018 Cricket Society / MCC Book of the Year. Deservedly so in my opinion, as this is Harry’s longest and, probably, most important published work.
Finally, in 2017, Harry went back to Belgium to research his account of Flemish professional cycling, The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman, as well as consuming many cakes and much ale. Again, Harry’s skill is in drawing pictures with words; we see the rain sheeting down across cobbles in market town squares, we taste the cream and chocolate of the regional treats and small the hops and fruit in 10% lambic and saison beers. We know the proud and reserved Flemish citizens, on buses, in cafes and by the side of hilly roads, who Harry introduces us to. The affection and admiration we feel for these model citizens has been inculcated in us by the quality of Harry’s writing. The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman was the third of his books to be longlisted for the Sports Book of the Year. It didn’t win. News has come through that The Farther Corner has similarly been listed; for goodness sake, let common sense prevail and Harry win the blasted thing!
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