the most annoying book i have read in a long while.

​The title of this book is ‘Aintree’s Queen Bee’, with encouragement on the front cover given to the racing enthusiast that the subject matter is Mirabel Topham and the Grand National. I bought this book with great anticipation of a good read, in a parcel of five other racing books, off the internet and I admit, as someone with a life-long love of the Grand National and its history, I was keen to get stuck into it. Which perhaps explains what is to follow.
This is an awful book, and I speak as an authority of the subject as I have written a great many of a similar description. As a writer writing without the assistance and steadying hand of an editor or proof-reader it is too easy to lose track of the narrative, to become self-indulgent, to altogether lose the plot. Joan Rimmer, the author of a book I have the nerve to rip to shreds, began her work concentrating on her subject matter, Mirabel Topham, an interesting and important character within the realms of horse racing in this country, Her problem was that she was a friend of Mirabel and her family to the point where they entertained each other, went on holiday together, or at least to Mirabel’s holiday home on the Isle of Wight and because of their friendship and the sentiment of writing about Mirabel after her death objectivity was cast aside in favour of reminiscence and irrelevant fact.
If you have not read this book, and I doubt if many have had the ‘pleasure’, I’ll give the example of chapter 5, ‘Topper the Toff’. Remember, this book purports to be a biography of Mirabel Topham and her close association with the Grand National, the world’s most famous horse race. So, it comes as both a surprise and great annoyance to have a chapter, and a long chapter at that, given over to one of Mirabel’s dogs, with the greater part of 30-pages dedicated to an exchange of ‘letters’ between Topper and Joan Rimmer’s dog, Nippy. I kid you not. I have not skipped so many pages in a book for many a long year. That particularly chapter would have sold more copies than the book in its entirety if it had been excised from ‘Queen Bee’ and sold at Crufts.
We all have quirks and preferences when it comes to books, I suppose. I prefer brevity of length and short chapters. Short chapters allow the reader to fit in a ‘quick read’ during a brief lull in the day or a quick read before sleep overcomes the enthusiasm for the book. The lengthy chapter, when the reader is old or just plain sleepy, is a feat of endurance that does neither the writer nor reader any favours. ‘Aintree’s Queen Bee’, at 222-pages, is not an overly long book, I admit, its downfall is that those 222-pages are divided into only 7-chapters.
And the author goes off topic with the ease of a spaniel after a rabbit and it takes her as long to get back on topic as it does to bring the excited spaniel to heel. And she makes the classic mistake when writing a biography of putting the spotlight on occasion on herself, informing, quite needlessly, the reader of stories that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of a book she has given so much of her life to writing. She seemed to be the under the illusion that her core audience would not be horse racing enthusiasts but members of the Jam and Jerusalem brigade as she listed at one point the qualifications of a good housewife, a position in life that though married Mirabel never considered to be her fate. The qualification, by the way, covers half a page, a full-page if you include everything the good housewife should achieve when spring cleaning. There are also recipes, including one for fish and leek pudding which seemed quite yummy.
At one stage she remembered what she was about and quoted Ginger McCain and Red Rum is brought into the story, and while she was about it, she allowed a few well-known anecdotes about other Grand National winners, with an informative section on the Russian invasion in 1961. Unfortunately, Ginger was really the only racing person she spoke to about Mirabel. Also, and given the subject matter you would be forgiven when picking up the book that it would at the heart of Mirabel’s story, the long-drawn saga of her decision to sell the racecourse for housing development is given scant coverage. It was 7-years between her announcement to sell-up and Ladbrokes stepping in to safeguard the racecourse and yet the protracted legal wrangles, the subject did not even warrant its own chapter, with Bill Davies (now living in Monaco. Or at least in 2007) were glossed over in two short paragraphs.
I say no more.