On Monday 6 October 1983, Golding wrote in his journal:
This morning at ten o’clock, Ingmar whatsit rang from Stockholm. He then mysteriously talked about a phone call I ‘might’ get in a couple of hours time and went on to say it was a fifty/fifty chance that I would get the Nobel Prize! It is an example of thoughtless selfishness that he should try to get a foot in the door by inflicting a couple of hours anxiety, then a probable disappointment on me. That is a journalist all over. He is getting his foot in the door. How thoughtless can you get? I am shaking with a quite unnecessary excitement – no I’m not. I’m dismissing the idea and being calm.
Golding had been disappointed before. However, this time his experience was different. His journal records:
At five past one the news was on radio and television – I’ve won the nobel prize. After that the phone’s been on all day. I went riding, having left Ann in charge of the phone but when I got back to the stables the television people were there. Then more television and photographers and journalists turned up. It’s about ten o’clock and the last lot of Swedish journalists have just gone.
The day was a strange one, but punctuated by moments of normality. It gave the Goldings great pleasure that the first person to congratulate them in the flesh was their oldest friend in Bowerchalke, Nancy Butler, whom they first met in 1940 and who appeared at their back door minutes after the news was broadcast. Unfortunately, at some point during the afternoon, Golding injured his right hand. Subsequently, as each well-wisher vigorously wrung that hand, Golding found himself concealing pain, rather than the expected disappointment.
The award made Golding and his family very happy. Controversy was generated by some remarks attributed to one of the judges, implying that Golding should not have had the prize. However, this matter receded, and Golding himself was able to put it behind him, acknowledging to himself that his writing could rank with the work of many previous winners.
In November, Golding and his wife travelled to Stockholm to receive the award. They took with them Golding’s long-time editor and friend, Charles Monteith, who had picked Lord of the Flies off the reject pile at Faber and Faber in 1953. Golding always acknowledged his great debt to Monteith, and the group of these three, the author, his wife and (always) first reader, and his editor and publisher, was absolutely appropriate at this occasion.
When Golding received his medal from the king of Sweden, he was astonished to hear the young man say:
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Golding. I had to do Lord of the Flies at school.’
The Nobel prize changed Golding’s life in many ways. There were more reporters, more of a world-wide audience. However, his books were already widely available in many languages, including minority ones. The difference was that after 1983 he became personally more recognised. He was glad to use such fame for issues about which he felt deeply, above all his environmental concerns, which figure in his Nobel lecture ( Moving Target, 2nd edition, 1984), and as ever the existence of man’s inhumanity. On such matters he continued to write and to be concerned until his death. A sombre interchange in his journal, with a holiday acquaintance, records their agreement that they felt they had made the world fairly safe for their children, but were not so sure about their grandchildren.
Golding’s medal and citation are on indefinite loan to his old college, Brasenose College, Oxford, and can be seen on request. In the citation, the Nobel Foundation spoke of:
his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today.
On December 22nd 1983, Golding wrote in his journal:
This morning David [his son] and I went into Salisbury and bought some presents – one for him, and one each for the little boys [his three grandsons]. I have Ann’s. I think the Nobel Prize is enough for me.
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