Grass grows greener for John Healy

It's 20 years since the publication of ' The Grass Arena', the autobiography of John Healy, an alcoholic vagrant who found redemption in prison through chess. Now out in a new edition, it is being lauded as a modern classic

SOME BOOKS HAVE the power to change the way you think about life. In my case, one such book was The Grass Arena, the autobiography of John Healy. First published by Faber in 1988 and now republished as a Penguin Modern Classic, Healy's visceral account of his decade and a half as a wino vagrant among London's feral underclass in the 1960s and 1970s - and his redemption through chess and writing - brought me hope in dark times.

I had lived a life not so dissimilar to Healy's in many ways until I was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1984. I was six years into the sentence and struggling with the weight of it when a probation officer sent me his book. "It is possible to fix a broken life," she wrote in the accompanying note. "Read what this man has achieved and be inspired."

Healy's life was broken almost before it had a chance to begin. Born in London in 1943 to poor Irish immigrants, he had a childhood that was blighted by violence and rejection, first from his rabidly religious father and later from bigger children on their bombsite playgrounds, who subjected him to beatings "at least once a week". His drinking began in earnest to relieve his "tension" even before he left school aged 14. For a little while, boxing also offered some relief. A paid sparring partner at a professional gym at 16, Healy showed promise and was described by celebrated trainer George Francis as "an acclaimed stylist possessing concussive power in both hands". He could have been a contender, until he started entering the ring drunk. From then on, it was all downhill.

His life was soon a blur of "stealing, drinking and finding somewhere to sleep". A spell in the army, where he became regimental boxing champion, failed to halt the decline. After a taste of military prison and a dishonourable discharge, he went back into the spiral that led ultimately to the Grass Arena, the park where Healy led the wildest existence alongside other degenerates, beggars, conmen, thieves and killers - all dependent on alcohol sourced by any means possible.

By the time he met Harry the Fox, a wily professional criminal and fellow prisoner in London's Pentonville prison, where Healy was serving yet another sentence for some drunken misdemeanour or other, more than 10 years had elapsed. It was the Fox who introduced Healy to chess and brought an end to his craving for alcohol. "Yes, it happened just like that - no dribs or drabs. Chess is a jealous lover. Will tolerate no other . . . " Despite having no previous knowledge of the game and no formal training, once out of prison he won tournaments, played grandmasters and had his brilliances reported in the national press. A more dramatic transformation of a life would be hard to imagine.

For me, the impact of the book was instant. From the gentle but ominous first line, "My father didn't look like he would harm anyone", to the wistful and poignant last, not a breath was wasted, not a drama overstated. His unique voice, at times angry and vicious, at others tender and funny, took me into a world whose inhabitants were as grotesque as they were wanting. Prison life could be base; life in the grass arena was baser.

I read it greedily in one sitting, Healy's beautiful prose sweetening the unpalatable, disguising the monstrous. I gasped at the sheer resilience that had enabled him not only to live through what men of lesser mettle would have found unsurvivable, but to come out the other end a notable figure in tournament chess and a world-class author. The Grass Arenaeven won the prestigious JR Ackerley prize for autobiography.

For a long time, Healy's book featured in the small collection that I held dear to my heart and that accompanied me as I was transferred during the course of my sentence, from cell to cell and from prison to prison, up and down the country. Over the years I shared it many times with neighbours who had lost hope, become discouraged, or just needed a good read to get them through another night. Eventually it disappeared - unreturned after a lending, most likely.

But I never forgot it, or its message that no matter how dire circumstances might get, there were always possibilities of a better time ahead. It never occurred to me that one day I might meet Healy. Neither could I ever have imagined that, following our meeting, I would play a small but pivotal role in his book's return to print.

IN THE IN-BEWEEN years I occasionally found myself wondering what had become of Healy. For a while he had been a prominent figure in the media, then it all went quiet. Apparently there had been a dispute between author and publisher, resulting in a memo being sent from the top of Faber's hierarchy ordering all involved to "stop the print run and deem the book out of print". Although an award-winning film of the book was released in 1991, starring Mark Rylance as Healy, The Grass Arenaglory train was halted in its tracks. Thereafter, Healy went to look after his mother in the poorer part of Islington in north London, nursing her through Alzheimer's disease to her death in the late 1990s. He moved around for a while after that, eventually settling in a tiny two-bedroomed flat in the area, where he lives alone to this day.

He and I eventually met up in Galway in April 2007 at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, where we had both been invited to give readings. A wiry, roughly hewn man, he reminded me of my Scottish uncles, hard-drinking and hard-fighting men from another era. Healy, however, has been sober for more than 30 years. In his trench coat and oversized black pumps, he looked a tad incongruous in the plush hotel in which we were both staying, and not a little lost. The skin on his pale face was taut and his eyes shifted around the room, as if constantly on the lookout for threats. Not wanting to startle him, I eased myself nearer to his seat until I was almost on top of him. "Oh hi," I said eventually. "John Healy?" He shuffled and stood up. "Yes," he said. I told him who I was and offered him my hand, which he took in his and shook warmly. "I'm so glad you are still alive," I said, smiling broadly. He looked bemused and laughed and said, "So am I."

It was some months later when Healy and I met again, at his home in London. We had spoken on the telephone a number of times since the Cúirt festival, and I was keen to get to know him better. "I'm still writing," he said. "I write most days." It struck me that he was living a very solitary life, and a poor one for somebody who had given so many people such pleasure and hope. Eking out his benefit money, he lived, he said, for the most part on brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes, while concentrating on a new book, a novel entitled The Metal Mountain, a vivid exploration of the Irish immigrant experience in 1950s England. The Metal Mountain is still a work in progress but sufficiently developed for a serious editor to take a look at, I thought.

He spent part of his day at a local gallery, where the two women who ran it referred to him endearingly as their "author in residence". Then the gallery closed down. Now, he sometimes rides the London buses, just to pass the days when his old foe "tension" is weighing heavy on his shoulders.

He still has plans, however, and a burning hope that his long-extinguished career might once again be ignited: "I just need to get published again." As well as the novel and a book about the rough and tumble of coffee-house chess, he has written short stories, plays and screenplays, one of which is The Conqueror, a feature-length film script about an 11th-century knight who steals the woman he desires from a convent - a stunning piece of writing of almost Shakespearean quality. Reading it, I felt as if I had discovered long-buried treasure.

Penguin decided to republish The Grass Arenaearlier this year after Healy sent it to Adam Freudenheim, publisher of the Modern Classics division. There was some confusion, with Freudenheim, a quietly spoken American, expressing ignorance as to who Healy was, although this was explained by the fact that the book had never been published in the US.

Freudenheim and I had a couple of telephone conversations, after which he agreed to take the book home with him. A week later he offered Healy a contract. "It was to my shame," he said afterwards, "that I was not aware of this wonderful book."

Should the return of The Grass Arenarevive his writing career, Healy will not be the only one who is delighted. Last year in Galway, after almost 20 years of obscurity, he read a short passage from his book to a packed and hushed audience. After the reading, they jostled to get close to him to show their appreciation. As he made his way towards the tiny bookshop attached to the theatre where he had given his reading, I saw him slowly lift up his head and pull back his shoulders.

"Go on, John," somebody shouted in the crowd. "Good on yer, John," yelled someone else. An admirer had paid out of his own pocket for a limited reprint of The Grass Arena, and the queue for Healy's signing was getting longer by the second. Seeing this slightly built man receive accolades that were long owed and rightfully his was, like The Grass Arena itself, unforgettable. (Guardian Service)

The Grass Arenaby John Healy is published as a Penguin Modern Classic