What a Carve Up!

THE WINSHAW LEGACY ∗ A Family Chronicle

MICHAEL OWEN

PEACOCK PRESS

Preface

by Hortensia Tonks, B.A., M.A.(Cantab.)

Signor Italo Calvino, an Italian writer held in some considerable esteem among the literary cognoscenti, once remarked — very beautifully, in my view — that there is nothing more poignant than a book which has been left unfinished by its author. Such fragmentary works, in the opinion of this distinguished gentleman, are like ‘the ruins of ambitious projects, that nevertheless retain traces of the splendour and meticulous care with which they were conceived’.

How appropriate, how sweetly ironic, that Sig. Calvino should have delivered himself of this lofty sentiment in the course of a series of essays which were themselves left incomplete at the time of his death! And how fitting the phrase now seems, when applied to the present volume, the truncated work of an author cut down, as it were, in his literary prime, which shows him writing at the height of his powers (and which in time, perhaps, will be recognized as his masterpiece)!

I knew Michael Owen well, and feel towards his book much as a doting parent must feel towards a favourite child, for it blossomed and took shape under my benign aegis. And so when we at the Peacock Press heard the bitter news of his death, our initial sense of shock and bereavement was succeeded by the knowledge that we could do no better justice to his memory than by sending his last work upon its way with all despatch. It is for this reason alone (despite the malicious hints which have been dropped in various quarters of the press) that we publish it so soon after the sensational events which have recently aroused keen public interest in the Winshaw family and all its doings.

One might lament the keenness of this interest; but to ignore it altogether would surely be folly. I have therefore taken the liberty of including, by way of introduction to Michael’s history, a full and detailed account of the horrific murders which took place at Winshaw Towers on the night of January 16th this year. The composition of this chapter — compiled on the basis of authentic police records and photographs (more graphic and distressing, I am told, than any previously encountered in the long career of the pathologist who supplied them) — gave me no pleasure at all; but the public has an absolute right of access to even the most disagreeable particulars of such an affair. This is a point of high principle, and one which we, as publishers, have always been proud to uphold.

It also occurred to me, in my capacity as editor, that there were certain passages in Michael’s manuscript so laudably academic in tone, so rigorous in their historical perspective, that they might have proved a trifle daunting to those readers who were drawn to the book out of little more than a natural and wholesome curiosity to know more about the January massacre. My advice to such readers, then, would be that they can safely ignore the main body of his narrative, for my intention in the remainder of this Preface is to summarize, in a few concise, vivid pages, the entire early history of the family whose very name — once a byword for all that was prestigious and influential in British life — has now become synonymous with tragedy.

Tragedy had struck the Winshaws twice before, but never on such a terrible scale.