Unlikely author John Healy takes success in his stride after enduring an abusive childhood, homelessless, alcohol addiction and time in jail. Katherine MacAlister is impressed...

John Healy’s story is so graphic, so shocking, so unlikely, that had he not written it down no one would have believed him.

An abusive childhood, enlistment in the Army, a descent into homelessness and alcohol addiction, stints in and out of jail, including Oxford Prison, and then a reincarnation as a chess genius and acclaimed author.

And yet here we are, discussing his impending visit to Oxford’s Blackwell’s bookshop where the great and the good will gather to hear his incredible story, to see the man himself in the flesh and try to get a grip of how John managed to reinvent himself to such a degree.

John is very nonplussed about it all, finding it easier to joke around than address any deeper issues, a defence mechanism from his 15 years on the streets perhaps or just a very British sense of humour.

“If I was six months younger I’d ask you out on a date,” the 71-year-old teases, although nothing can deflect from the almost rubber-necking car crash of his life, which he then put so beautifully and brutally into prose.

When I asked what led him to board a train illegally from London to Oxford he says: ”Elocution lessons,” and then laughs out loud.

When telling me about having to go past inmates holding knives to get to the toilets in Oxford’s prison I asked how he managed it: “Slit all their throats,” he says, and then afterwards: “You didn’t believe me did you?”

That he is a larger than life character who is lucky to be alive is obvious. His violent father was largely responsible for the way his life turned out and he was bent on self-destruction for a long time. But he doesn’t dwell on either too much or wallow. “It’s just the way my life was,” he says shrugging, “although when I was writing the book I did get angry and slowly understood it was because of my father and the divided loyalties involved in that.”

That he managed to craft what was termed “one of the 20th centuries greatest literary achievements” from his experience is the surprise, and one he must be proud of. “Why do you keep asking me if I’m proud?” he replies.

But despite his book’s success, he never made enough money as an author to give up his day job as a gardener and grass cutter, still keen on the big outdoor spaces he spent 15 years in as a down-and-out, the park being his home, hence his book’s title The Grass Arena.

“I thought it was apt because arenas were filled with a special kind of sand which soaked up blood easily. Because homelessness was different then – vagrancy was against the law so we hid in parks and deserted buildings and people were stabbed and murdered. You got immune to the violence, anaethetised to it.”

His visit to Oxford however, brought about the beginnings of his reformation, because he was stopped as soon as he stepped off the train and arrested after the ensuing fight. “Mad Fred got the station clippers stuck in the ticket inspector’s jaw,” he remembers.

John was sent to Oxford Prison. “It was very medieval and there was a cage in the exercise yard,” he adds.

Spending his time in his cell thinking about how he’d ended up there, he resolved to turn his life around. After being transferred to Pentonville, a fellow inmate, Harry The Brighton Fox, taught him chess, unwittingly giving him the key to his own salvation. He was a natural.

On being released, John was sent to The Clinic in Oxford to deal with his alcohol addiction and jailed after two weeks. A year later he was back and completed the course, never drinking again. Then he set his sights on becoming a grand master. “I could play 30 games at once and four in a row with my eyes closed. I got it. It was like warfare but I started too late at 30, I wasn’t good enough at opening, and soon realised I would never make a grand master so gave it up.”

Instead John found a book on a bench when he was grass-cutting and read it. Then he went home and wrote four A4 pages every second day about his own life. The words pouring out. “They came out in technicolour pictures they were so intense.” The publishing world took his offering with outstretched hands, The Grass Arena winning the JR Ackerley Award for Literary Autobiography, Radio 3 naming it “one of the great works of the 20th century”, Ian McEwan describing it as a “postcard from hell.”

Later, with his book out of print, John went back to gardening until Penguin picked The Grass Arena up and republished it as a classic.

So what’s it like to comeback? “They’ve got a cocktail named after me now,” he said, “I read it in the Evening Standard.”

So what’s in it? “I dunno, probably a bit of meths mixed with some paint stripper,” he chuckles, proving once and for all, that fame and the literary world have done little to change John Healy, he did it all on his own.

SEE IT
John Healy – The Grass Arena is coming to Blackwells tomorrow at 2pm-3pm. Tickets are available on the door or at bookshop.blackwell.co.uk

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.