‘Harry shamed me by leaving Oxford and joining up even before war had been declared, and by the time I followed him, his ship had been sunk by a German U-boat. Everyone assumed he’d been lost at sea. But you can’t get rid of Harry Clifton quite that easily. He was rescued by the Americans, and spent the rest of his war behind enemy lines, while I ended up in a German prisoner-of-war camp. I have a feeling that if Lieutenant Clifton had been in the next bunk to me at Weinsberg, I would have escaped a lot sooner.
‘Harry never talked to me or anyone else about his war, despite his having been awarded the prestigious Silver Star for his service as a young captain in the US Army. But if you read his citation, as I did when I first visited Washington as a foreign minister, you’d discover that with the help of an Irish corporal, a jeep and two pistols, he convinced Field Marshal Kertel, the commanding officer of a crack panzer division, to order his men to lay down their arms and surrender. Shortly afterwards, Harry’s jeep was blown up by a land mine while he was travelling back to his battalion. His driver was killed, and Harry was flown to the Bristol Royal Infirmary, not expected to survive the journey. However, the gods had other plans for Harry Clifton that even I would not have thought possible.
‘Once the war was over and Harry had fully recovered, he and Emma were married and moved into the house next door, although I confess a few acres still divided us. Back in the real world, I wanted to be a politician, while Harry had plans to be a writer, so once again we set out on our separate paths.
‘When I became a Member of Parliament, I felt that at last we were equals, until I discovered that more people were reading Harry’s books than were voting for me. My only consolation was that Harry’s fictional hero, William Warwick, the son of an earl, good-looking, highly intelligent and a heroic figure, was obviously based on me.’
More laughter followed, as Giles turned to his next page.
‘But it got worse. With every new book Harry wrote, more and more readers joined his legion of fans, while every time I stood for election, I got fewer and fewer votes.
‘He only in a general honest thought
‘And common good to all, made one of them.
‘And then, without warning, as is fate’s capricious way, Harry’s life took another turn, when he was invited to be the president of English PEN, a role in which he was to display skills that would be the envy of many who consider themselves to be statesmen.
‘PEN assured him that it was an honorary position and shouldn’t be too demanding. They clearly had no idea who they were dealing with. At the first meeting Harry attended as president, he learned about the fate of a man few of us had ever heard of at the time, who was languishing in a Siberian gulag. Thanks to Harry’s sense of justice, Anatoly Babakov became a household name, and part of our daily lives.’
This time the cheering inside and outside the cathedral went on and on, as people took out their pens and held them high in the air.
‘Thanks to Harry’s relentless determination, the free world took up the great Russian writer’s cause, forcing that despotic regime to give in and finally release him.’
Giles paused and looked down at the packed congregation, before he added, ‘And today, Anatoly Babakov’s wife, Yelena, has flown from Moscow to be with us, and to honour the man who had the courage to challenge the Russians in their own back yard, making it possible for her husband to be released, win the Nobel Prize and join those giants of literature who live on long after we have been forgotten.’
This time it was over a minute before the applause died down. Giles waited until there was total silence before he continued.
‘How many of you present here today are aware that Harry turned down a knighthood because he refused to be so honoured while Anatoly Babakov was still languishing in prison. It was his wife Emma who, several years later, when the palace wrote a second time, convinced him he should accept, not in recognition of his work as a writer, but as a human rights campaigner.
‘I once asked this modest, gentle man what he considered to be his greatest achievement: topping the bestsellers lists around the world, becoming a knight of the realm or making the world aware of the genius and courage of his fellow author, Anatoly Babakov? “Marrying your sister,” was his immediate reply, “because she never stopped raising the bar, which pushed me to greater and greater heights.” If Harry was ever boastful, it was only in the pride he took in Emma’s achievements. Envy never entered his thoughts. He only delighted in other people’s success.
‘His life was gentle, and the elements
‘So mixed in him that Nature might stand up