The Tinner’s Arms is a Cornish pub in Zennor with 700 years of history. I went there in search of a small part of that history – to follow in the footsteps of the writer D.H. Lawrence, who lodged there in 1916. He wrote: ‘Zennor is a most beautiful place…It is the best place I have been in, I think.’
But his contentment was not to last…
Cutting a curious figure among the locals, (he was hiding from the First World War with his German wife Frieda) he was soon suspected of being a spy and hounded out!
Of course, Lawrence was no stranger to suspicion and trouble with the authorities. From his first to his last novel, scandal seemed to follow him. Indeed, it was his last novel ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ that was to be famously prosecuted for obscenity in a trial that was to change the course of publishing.
On the 20th of October 1960 a jury found in favour of Lawrence (30 years after his death) and the book was published. It was revolutionary: “no other jury verdict in British history has had such a deep social impact.”
Although it is not my favourite of his novels, few can deny now that Lawrence was a great writer – despite his explicitness, he approaches sex with an almost religious reverence that is the very antithesis of the charges of pornography that he continually faced…And besides, I believe in the maxim by Oscar Wilde: “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
The following clip is one of the funniest news reports I have seen. Peoples’ excuses for buying the ‘scandelous’ novel ranging from academic research to buying it for a friend!
