In 1962, an international writers’ conference, attended by a pride of literary lions and lionesses, was held at the Edinburgh Festival. One of the last to speak was Simon Raven, who caused a mild sensation by saying he wrote primarily for money. He felt the other speakers, who included Norman Mailer, Rebecca West, Mary McCarthy and Stephen Spender, had been too coy on the subject.
Raven had a point, I once asked Eric Ambler what he and Ian Fleming used to talk about when they
