Stanislas Yassukovich

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Who once knew better words

Now only use four letter words

Writing prose.

Anything goes!”

Cole Porter

Memory, or memories - are at the heart of the writing of fiction. As the writer grasps the pen, or more currently, wiggles the fingers over the keyboard, memories are stoking the fires of his or her imagination. Even the writer of futuristic science fiction remembers what an astrophysicist said about outer space. The very words to be used are from memory. Memories are either good or horrid; but they conjure up the past and therefore prompt nostalgic reveries which either charm or dismay.

The most iconic writer of memory inspired fiction was Marcel Proust, whose master work A la Recherche du Temps Perdu is seven volumes long. It is usually translated as “Remembrance of Things Past” which seems rather flat next to the French title. Prose poured from the pen of Proust like a tropical torrent. He was particularly known for sentences that went on forever; they could fill a half page before you got to a full stop. There are many Proustian anecdotes; the Duc de Gramont supplies one. The duke entertained lavishly and was accustomed to receiving his guests in the great hall of his château at Mortefontaine. On a table behind him was a large leather-bound guest book one was expected to sign on arrival. His Grace spotted Marcel Proust arriving, pen in hand and gleam in eye.

“Your name only, Monsieur Proust. Please, your name only!” cried the duke.

Amongst Proust’s memories was a central one that influenced his whole life. He describes in agonizing detail how his mother used to go to him without fail at bedtime, to give him a madelaine, and a good night kiss. On one occasion, a social engagement prevented her, and little Marcel succumbed to agonized sobs and a night of heart-breaking disappointment that never left him. He was the mother of all mother’s boys. The event has given the madelaine – a delicacy of French patisserie (it’s a little rounded, oblong shaped cake) a psychological significance of its own and experts in child trauma refer to “Proust’s madelaine” The fin de siècle writer was a terrible snob, and probably a repressed homosexual. He wrote at night in a cork lined room and slept in the day.

I am an admirer of the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his two best works The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night are the product of the memory of his courtship, marriage and crisis bedevilled life with Zelda Fitzgerald. Biographies of Zelda’s tragic life, make this abundantly clear – even if a contemporary reader, unaware of the history, might not spot it. A further, more subtle influence of memory is present. Fitzgerald was particularly conscious of the social stress involved in transiting from the rural life of the mid-west to the fashionable aura of the urban East. When he describes in one sentence how his semi- hero Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, creates a stir by bringing a string of polo ponies from Chicago to Long Island, he is remembering his own sensations in beginning at Princeton University. The shock of glamour on a home town lad. Memory is not just of people and events – it is also of atmospheres – of impressionable environments.

The nostalgia I call a step child of memory is a love affair with the past. Usually, that is in the sense of the “good old days”. For some writers, it can be a painful memory of an unhappy child hood. But it still has nostalgic qualities in inspiring the creation of fiction. In how many dramas, novels, motion pictures is the hero “banging on” about his terrible childhood? It becomes an inspirational crutch – as with happy memories.

I make no bones of the fact that my own writing of fiction is the product of memory – and is also dripping with nostalgia. Some say I overdo it. But in terms of volume, detail, time span, location and depth, my memory borders on the freakish. My dear wife suffers from Parkinson’s and associate dementia. Her condition and medication are overseen by a delightfull psychiatrist who specialises entirely with geriatric patients. He terms himself “the memory doctor”. Of course, the majority of his patients have either partial or total memory loss. Recently, I took him aside and said:

“Doctor, I have a surplus of long-term memories and its actually psychologically uncomfortable. I feel my brain is bursting. Can you suggest anything to bring relief?”

I could tell that going through his mind was the question: should he refer me to a colleague that deals with unusual delusions? But he is a very tactful and considerate physician.

He looked at me for a few seconds and said:

“Write them down!”

I have just given him a signed copy of my Summertime & Short Stories, published by Koehler Books.

Stanislas Yassukovich

May 2026

Less than half the population reads at least one book in a year. The vast majority of readers have college degrees. Interestingly, many colleges and universities complain their students are coming from secondary education virtually illiterate. We must be talking about older college graduates. And it is the older age group where reading books is still practiced. Categories of books also proliferate. Crime and mystery tops in sales with self help second; then comes biography, history, science fiction, business and economics, travel and so on. Romance is an interesting category. Does that mean the bosom heaving, Regency novels of Georgette Heyer? But an even more curious category is Literary Fiction. It’s one of the smallest – with less than 20%. What definition of “literary” is being used? Is it just written words greater in quantity and more distinctive than speech? Could it be well-written fiction? But there is no non-literary fiction category, and there certainly is badly written fiction – just as there are badly written news reports.

I confess I am a published writer of fiction. My life career was as an international investment banker. Why do I now write? I will begin with the most shameful reason; I enjoy reading my own work. Why must it be published then? Because it will be professionally edited and nicely packaged. Many artists like looking at their paintings framed. If I had a psychoanalyst, he/she would say I was suffering from “narcissistic, intellectual self-abuse”. (I readily admit I have just invented that condition.) But a more serious reason is therapeutic. I suffer from an extraordinarily rich and detailed, long-term memory. It strains the capacity of my brain. I seek relief by fictionalising the events and people that crowd my memory. In my first published work – an autobiography, I admitted including a degree of invention. I justified this by stating: “Well, if it didn’t happen exactly like this – it certainly could have.” In the same way, I take the events and people that constitute my memory, turn them this way and that, combine them, send them in new directions, and develop them from a single scene to a full life story. None of my characters will easily recognize themselves as they are composites, and the participants in various events are, in most cases, no longer with us. I thank them posthumously for their contribution to my extensive memory.

I have a final reason. I fell in love with the English language while at my secondary school – Deerfield Academy. French is my mother tongue, but English fascinates me. As an equestrian loves to train horses, a golfer spends time on the range, a singer vocalises in the shower, an artist sketches on the restaurant menu, a model poses in front of the mirror, a cook looks for recipes on the internet – I try to write the English language, ever seeking the unattainable perfection of the great literary giants.

Stanislas Yassukovich

May 2026

In post-war Britain a similar phenomenon occurred. Hugely indebted to the United States, economic recovery faltered, the political scene fractured, and with ignored predictability, the three-day week arrived, the “brown outs”, and – dramatically, the Chancellor’s dash to the IMF. Bumper stickers proclaimed “will the last person leaving Britain please turn out the lights” And, exchange control persisted. One City figure recognised the critical importance of that supposed handicap. Sir George Bolton was chairman of the Bank of London & South America (BOLSA). One morning, he trotted along to the Bank of England.

Sir George commented that Europe was awash with US Dollars; the remaining liquidity from the Marshall Plan, war induced reparations, and rapidly increasing US corporate direct investment. Why not an interbank market in London for deposits and loans denominated in US dollars, and eventually foreign bonds, still floated in New York, but soon to be closed out of that market by the Interest Equalisation Tax imposed by the Kennedy administration? And here was the nub of the case. Exchange control protected the Bank’s management of the domestic currency, because this new market would be ring fenced. Economically dominant, Germany had no exchange control. The Deutsch mark was strong. Many regarded Frankfurt as the natural candidate for a European financial centre. But the Bundesbank would not tolerate foreign currency activity beyond its control – its inflation sensitivity dominated. Ironically, exchange control gave London uncontested preference – not to speak of its many other financial infrastructure advantages. Sadly, uncredited by Euromarket historians, Sir George was the creator of a concept that saved the City from slow death, and catapulted it to become the world’s leading financial centre. A number of my then colleagues - and myself, have been in receipt of crediting accolades over the ensuing years. Success has many fathers – only failure is an orphan.

During the outset of the Thatcher years, I conceived an idea I called the City Research Project. Michael Cassidy, then Chief Clerk and CEO of the Corporation of the City of London, was enthusiastic. The project would identify, analyse and categorize the myriad factors which made the City the financial centre of the world. This would help ensure their protection. As I began to canvas sponsors, I was summoned by Lord Young, the President of the Board of Trade. “A thoroughly bad idea!” his Lordship declared. “Why would you want to reveal the secrets of our success to our competitors?” Frankfurt and Paris were our jealous rivals at the time. But I had Bank of England and Mansion House support, so I went ahead. In any case, the factors behind our success were hardly secret. Michael Cassidy and I travelled the final report to Washington and Tokyo.

With the possible, and inconsequential, exception of favourable tax treatment of expats, all the vital factors listed in the City Research Project report are still here: language, legal system, accounting and consulting services, communication facilities (pre digital it was overnight printing), diversity of markets and their infrastructures, diversity of counterparties, diversity of HR, continuing, regulatory evolution, institutional tradition – and many more, nuanced advantages. The BREXIT drain was a mythical narrative produced by the anti BREXITeers. German labour laws and prohibitive overtime costs darkened the banking towers in Frankfort after 6 PM. London had a French Lycée; Paris had no English language schools for the young.

The first and second, historical rises of the City as an international centre occurred in uni-polar financial worlds – first with the Pound Sterling and then the US$. Now, as we enter the multi -polar, geo-political and hence, multi -polar currency world, it can all play to the essentially cosmopolitan nature of the City. It’s time for the third round. Confine the present financial and political crises to the historical dust bin, to join the Barings collapse of 1890, and the three-day week of 1974. The City can rise again – for a third time.

Stanislas M Yassukovch CBE

May 11^th, 2026