22 May 2013 15:13:28
Morland skips lightly where angels fear to tread. Her book has astonishing range. There is an especially wonderful encounter with Rafaelillo, a Murcian matador (involving a masterclass with a fake bull); an austere audience with David Alderson, uncannily brave bomb disposal expert; and a cheery chat with 50-something Sally Ann Sutton, mauled by a mad rottweiler in her determination to save a baby from his jaws. But this is only the tiniest sample of Morland's interviewees. In every case, she proves the liveliest company: sane, merry and undeceived. But the intriguing thing is that the more she focuses on courage, the more elusive it becomes. Not many will admit to having the quality.
One of the most memorable passages describes the Iranian earthquake in Bam, 2003. It is remembered in nightmarish detail by Ruth Millington, a former high-flying lawyer, whose heroic efforts to dig people out of the wreckage saved lives. Yet when congratulated on her bravery, she is bemused: "I never even felt like it was a choice." When non-timid souls are put on the spot, this is their most common rejoinder.
Morland scrutinises the question of choice and considers animal courage in this light. She interviews representatives of the PDSA who give animals awards for bravery. She quotes Byron's fond tribute to his stout-hearted Newfoundland dog. But she remains unseduced. Instead, she wonders: can courage be courage when an animal has no choice? On a visit to St Christopher's Hospice, there is no choice about what is ahead – but there may be a choice about how to face it. Morland movingly alludes to her father holding her hand, at the end of his life, as though to express "the extremity in which he now found himself, as one might hold on to a vital scrap of paper or a £50 note in a high wind."
This is writing of unusual, sympathetic precision. And speaking of high winds, she also writes about people who throw caution to the winds, waves and to dizzying heights. She interviews star surfer Greg Long, eccentric French spiderman Alain Robert and superhuman Dean Potter whose flying feats are never inconvenienced by his lack of feathers. And what these encounters make one realise – the book's most interesting implication – is that the death wish and life wish are so close as to be almost, yet never quite, interchangeable. GK Chesterton helps this idea along – he defined courage in 1908 as "a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die".
What one wonders is: what does the courting of danger say about the value a person places on his life? At Wootton Bassett, Morland finds soldiers who, characteristically, prefer not to dwell on courage at all. However, Colonel Tim Collins, OBE and former SAS commander, hauntingly explains: "Every time you prepare to die, you die a bit and you never get that back." And what emerges elsewhere is that pretending to have courage can be the same as having it. What, after all, is courage without fear?
It is also clear throughout this bracing, moving and uncommon book that performance nerves are not about to fade away. Morland seeks out orchestral players (an alarming number) calming their nerves with beta blockers. "I don't know why I have such a sense of panic about it," says viola player Ken Mirkin of the New York Philharmonic. It sounds as though the time may have come to reconvene the Society of Timid Souls.
