A Present from Paul Temple: Two Short Stories including Light-Fingers: A Paul Temple Story. Francis Durbridge

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       INTRODUCTION

       How I Created Paul Temple

      It was in April 1938 that I created the character of ‘Paul Temple’ and Martyn C. Webster, the famous BBC Producer, put the first of the series on the radio.

      I had been thinking about the character for almost three months before I actually came across the person whose manner, voice and attitude suggested to me the man-of-the-world novelist with an interest in criminology. I was hurrying to catch a train to Birmingham, where I lived in those days, after a visit to London. The train was, in fact, already moving as I scrambled in.

      There was one other occupant of the compartment and he slowly raised his head at my unexpected entrance. As far as I can remember he was tall and dark and was reading a battered copy of Arnold Bennett’s Imperial Palace. We never spoke, but for some unknown reason after he had left the train – he got out at Leamington Spa – I started thinking about him.

      I remembered the quiet, casual manner in which he had inserted a cigarette in an unusual type of holder; the keen, intelligent face; the smiling eyes a little crinkled at the corners; the friendly nod he gave the inspector as he showed his season ticket.

      The man had other characteristics which fascinated me. He was obviously interested in literature and not merely a casual reader; one could tell that by the way he pondered over the novel he was reading.

      That night, when I arrived home, I started to read Somerset Maugham’s First Person Singular, and I came across the following paragraph:

      ‘I think, indeed, that most novelists, and surely the best, have worked from life. But though they have had in mind a particular person, this is not to say that they have copied him, or that the character they have devised is to be taken for a portrait. In the first place they have seen him through their own temperament, and if they are writers of originality this means that what they have seen is somewhat different from fact.’

      This passage by Somerset Maugham made me think again about the man on the train. I jotted down a few details about him. From these details, plus, of course, a certain amount of elaboration, emerged the character of ‘Paul Temple’.

      Francis Durbridge

      1964