Charlie and Roger Mortimer
Constable • London
Constable & Robinson Ltd
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London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011
Copyright © Charlie and Roger Mortimer, 2011
The right of Charlie and Roger Mortimer to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-7803-003-7
eISBN: 978-1-78033-013-6
Printed and bound in the UK
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To my long-suffering parents,
my charming sisters and
my soul-mate, Tim
Preface – A Tribute to Mr Pooter
This book is a tribute to my dad and a big thank you to him for never giving up on me despite my endless shortcomings, failures, disasters and general inability to live up to the high hopes and aspirations he and my mother had for me, which, as these letters show, over time became slightly more realistic. Initially there were hopes that I would get my house colours at Eton and become an officer in the Coldstream Guards. Ultimately my dad merely hoped that I would avoid ‘being taken away in a Black Maria’ together with my then business associates, the now infamous John Hobbs (the colourful Chelsea antiques dealer to the mega-wealthy) and his brother Carlton. However, it is now twenty years since my dad died and I suspect he would be delighted that, now almost sixty, the same age he was when he wrote me the early letters, I had at least survived thus far and was moderately happy.
As he predicted it is only in later life that I have come to fully appreciate the affection and wisdom imparted by him to me. I am grateful that, despite what he described as my ‘unorthodox lifestyle’, I somehow managed to keep the majority of the letters he sent me, which is somewhat of an achievement in itself. At an early age I was aware that they were something special and not at all like the letters that my friends’ fathers sent to them. In fact, I used to regularly read them out loud, often after a few drinks, to whomever I was with at the time and there were always many laughs, mainly at my expense.
My dad was enormously self-deprecating. He saw himself as a patiently enduring and thoroughly respectable middle-class gentleman, much along the lines of Mr Pooter in The Diary of a Nobody, while I was the disreputable son, Lupin, who was always getting into frightful scrapes. Thus many of the letters start ‘My Dear Lupin’ before launching into a thoroughly bleak assessment of my current situation and future prospects. The early letters were largely of concern and admonishment but, as time went by, a resigned acceptance of the way things were crept in. Despite everything, my father never showed me anything other than affection and tolerance.
I think in later years he almost used writing as a form of therapy to deal with his own ups and downs and this, together with his unique and sometimes devastating perspective on almost anything, made the letters real gems that have clearly stood the test of time. He was a great pricker of ego, self-importance and pomposity.
He was also a total original, as indeed was my dear mother, thus his descriptions and analogies of people, situations and such are both a breath of fresh air and highly entertaining. I clearly remember him summing up Yoko Ono, when she first came on the scene, as being ‘as erotic as a sack of dead ferrets’, while in one of his Sunday Times articles (c.1971), he wrote, ‘At one time a little humdrum adultery could prove a barrier to The Royal Enclosure at Ascot but now something more spectacular is required, such as hijacking a Securicor van or taking too prominent role in a sex education film designed for circulation in the best preparatory schools.’
This little collection of literary snapshots in the form of letters is a celebration both of a long-suffering father’s enduring relationship with his ne’er-do-well son and a humorous insight into the life of a mildly dysfunctional English middle-class family in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
A Bit of History
My dad was born Roger Francis Mortimer on 22 November 1909. My grandparents were pretty well off and lived in a house in Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea, London. According to the 1911 census there were eight ‘live-in’ staff members. My grandfather, Haliburton Stanley Mortimer, was a charming man but by all accounts not a great stockbroker. My grandmother, Dorothy (née Blackwell) was an heiress of the well-known food company Crosse & Blackwell. My father had one sibling, Joan, born in 1907.
He was educated at Ludgrove School, Eton College and Sandhurst. In 1930 he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards. He was a captain when his platoon fought a desperate rear guard action at Dunkirk in 1940 during which almost all of his men were killed and he was wounded. Unconscious, he was taken prisoner and spent the remainder of the war in prison camps running the camp radio. Many of my father’s friends in later life were those he met as prisoner-of-war no. 481 in various Oflags and Stalags.
After the war he rejoined his regiment and, as a major, served in Trieste. However, in 1947 he resigned and took up an appointment with Raceform, the official form book for horse racing. He followed this by becoming racing correspondent of the Sunday Times until retiring almost thirty years later. He also wrote for various other newspapers, was a commentator for the BBC and became PR officer to the Tote. In addition, he wrote several classic books on racing, the greatest of which was undoubtedly The History of the Derby. His other books on racing included The Jockey Club, Anthony Mildmay, Twenty Great Horses and The Flat. My dad was also a keen gardener and quite an expert on military history.
He met my mother, Cynthia Denison-Pender, in 1947 and within six weeks had proposed to her. They were married in St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, on 10 December of the same year. My older sister Jane was born in 1949, myself in 1952 and my younger sister Louise in 1957.
Dramatis Personae
Family
My mother: Cynthia Sydney Mortimer aka Nidnod (née Denison-Pender, born 28 February 1921).
My older sister: Jane Clare Torday aka Miss Cod-Cutlet, Miss Cod’s Eyes, Miss Fisheyes, Miss Bossy Pants (née Mortimer, born 23 January 1949).
My younger sister: Louise Star Carew aka LL, Lumpy Lou (née Mortimer, born 12 January 1957).
My brothers-in-law: Paul Torday (married older sister, 1971; two sons, Piers and Nick); Henry Carew aka HHH, Hot Hand Henry (married younger sister, 1977; one daughter, Rebecca, and one son, Ben).
Father’s mother: Dorothy Mortimer aka Gar (née Blackwell).
Father’s sister: Joan Cockburn (née Mortimer, born 1907; married to Reggie Cockburn aka Uncle Reggie).
Mother’s sisters: Pamela Darling aka Aunt Pam (née Denison-Pender, born 1915; married to Kenneth Darling aka General Sir Kenneth Darling); Barbara Denison-Pender aka Aunt Boo (born 1917; divorced).
Father’s first cousins: Tom Blackwell; John Blackwell (my godfather).
Father’s first cousins once removed: Tom Blackwell’s son, Charlie, and daughter, Caroline.
Father’s aunts: Shirley Blackwell (née Lawson-Johnson); Margery Blackwell (never married).
Mother’s aunt: Phyllis Shedden aka Aunt Pips (née Fisher; married Norman Loder, then Lindsay Shedden).
Pets
Turpin (w
onderful black mongrel); Moppet (the cat); Pongo (Dalmation); Soloman aka Tiny Man, Solly, Cringer (fox terrier); Peregrine aka Perry (chihuahua); Baron von Otto aka The Baron, Otto (chihuahua).
Gardeners
Mr Randall aka Randy; Keith Bailey.
Domestics
Jenny and Audrey.
Neighbours
Colin and Sarah Bomer, and their two sons, Mark and William; the Roper-Caldbecks; Farmer Luckes; Lord Carnarvon; the Adams boys.
Dad’s ‘prisoner-of-war friends’
John Surtees aka Mr S. (and wife Anne); Desmond Parkinson aka Mr P. (and wives Heather, then Paddy); Freddy Burnaby-Atkins (and wife Jenny); Fitz Fletcher (my godfather); Francis Reed; Sir Frederick Corfield QC aka Dungy Fred.
Dad’s horse-racing friends
Nick and Judy Gaselee; John and Liz Pope; Peter Willett; John and Jean Hislop; the Cottrills; Dick Hern; Peter Walwyn; the Wallis family.
Other family friends
Agnete Cameron aka Mrs Cameron (my godmother); Gerald and Helen de Mauley aka Lady de Mauley; Nancy and Richard McLaren; Rodney Carrott; Raoul and Sheila Lemprière-Robin; the Hambros; Joyce Walker; the Grissells; the Tollers; the Yarrows; Paul Majendie; the Thistlethwaytes; the Guinness family (bankers); the Edgedales.
My school tutors
Norman Addison aka CNCA (House Tutor); John Faulkner aka Ordinary Faulkner (Classical Tutor); Michael Kidson (Modern Tutor).
My friends
Probably the less said about them the better but including: Pete Breitmeyer aka Peter Carew; George Rodney; Jeremy Soames; Charlie Hurt aka Chicken Hurt, Le Poulet; Charlie Shearer; Joe Gibbs; Andrew Brudenell-Bruce; Tony Simmons aka Tony S.; Robin Grant-Sturgis; Charlie Higgins; Mollie Salisbury aka Lady Salisbury, the Marchioness of Salisbury; James Staples.
Other characters and acquaintances
Simon Sandbach; the Greenwells; Jeffrey Bernard.
Family homes
Barclay House, Yateley (1950–67); Budds Farm, Burghclere (1967–84); The Miller’s House, Kintbury (1984–2006)
It all started for me on Grand National Day, 1952.
My dad’s job was that of racing journalist and radio commentator and he was up in Liverpool for the big race at Aintree. The following observations were written at the time in my blue ‘Baby Book’ by my mother: ‘Charles Roger Henry kept us waiting three weeks to the day and then arrived at his home Barclay House at five minutes to eight on the morning of Friday April 4th. Jeanie his nurse (and mine!) only rang the doctor at 7.15 so he was literally scrubbing up in technical terms when Charles shot himself into the world. It was quite thrilling to hear I had a lovely son and see him on the bed beside me. The moment I had been revived by a cup of tea I rang up Roger at Liverpool and caught him still in his room. I knew he would never believe he really had a son. Charles himself was the happiest of babies, so placid and easy.’
Roll on fifteen years and it’s a rather different story . . .
1967
The Sunday Times
3 February
Dear Charles,
I hope all goes well with you. I never seem to hear of you unless some disaster, major or minor, has taken place. Owing to lack of communication on your part, I have not the remotest idea of what is going on at Eton or how you are progressing, if at all, in your work. Jane has not come down this weekend and I have no idea what she is up to. Nor do I know where she is living: she might be on the run from the police judging from the rapidity with which she changes her domicile. I had a bad and painful attack of gout last week and now I have a throat infection and am partially deaf. Getting old is revolting and I hate it. Poor David Gundry, who stayed at Barclay House a couple of times, was killed in a car accident last week. He went off the road at 90 mph and that was that. A tragic waste of a young life. We are now off to lunch with the Hislops. Last week we went to the theatre and saw ‘The Secretary Bird, which is very light but by no means unamusing. Inspector Barlow and the man who plays his boss were sitting just behind us. I had to drive to Doncaster and back last week which was rather tiring. Louise is home and seems in good form. She is the one member of this family that gives me no trouble.
Best love,
D
I am now fifteen years old and enjoying a somewhat undistinguished career at Eton College. In an end-of-term report, my Classical Tutor sums up the situation thus: ‘Nero was content to roll in the dust in order to collect his laurels. Mortimer however seems merely content just to roll in the dust.’
Budds Farm
23 May
Dear Charles,
It was nice to hear from you again after rather a long interval! I’m glad to hear that life seems to be going reasonably well. What has happened to Ordinary Faulkner to make him so cheerful? The prospect of getting rid of you, I suppose! I am going over to Eton if I can tomorrow for Charles Gladstone’s Memorial Service. I woke up this morning with the house stinking of oil and full of smoke. One of the boilers had gone all wrong and a chimney was on fire, too. I switched the boiler off, opened the windows and went to bed. I saw a hideous car pile-up on Saturday. Two cars – a Zephyr and a Cresta – were upside down and one had gone over a ditch and into a field. Two people were killed. Louise and Jane come home tomorrow. Thank God it is slightly warmer today. I have had a couple of barmy letters from Gar. One of Mr Luckes’s cows got loose in the garden and was a great nuisance. Are you keen on pictures by Toulouse-Lautrec? If you are I will send you a book on him. I think in future I shall call you ‘Lupin’ after Mr Pooter’s son in ‘The Diary of a Nobody’. I’m sure Mr Kidson would agree it is very suitable for you.
Yours ever,
D
And so I take on the name of Lupin, the disreputable son who was the source of much of Mr Pooter’s worries.
1968
Budds Farm
28 January
Dear Charles,
Your mother came back rather sad and depressed after seeing you yesterday. You may think it mildly amusing to be caught poaching in Windsor Great Park; I would consider it more hilarious if you were not living on the knife edge, so to speak. I know there is always a temptation for boys who fail to make their mark at work or games to try and gain a reputation as a law-breaker and a defier of authority. I trust you will not give way to that particular temptation. If you do, judging from your past record of folly, you will end up with the sack from Eton or with gaol. Doubtless you regard me as a monumental bore, tolerated at times only because I fork out some cash, but senile as I am I probably know a bit more about you and your friends than you seem to realise; and what I know, I do not necessarily like. As you are so clearly reluctant to discuss your future with me, I have written to Mr Addison to ask for his advice on that point. I have suggested you are wasting your time at Eton. I shall also ask whether in his opinion you are sensible enough to be allowed at large in Paris with Soames. I hate writing to you like this but I do care so much for you and it is distressing for me and your mother to see you making such a hash of your opportunities. No doubt you resent my advice and reproaches now; perhaps in ten years’ time you will realise that I was trying, possibly ineffectively, to help you. I’m not God and my advice is not necessarily right, but as I care for you I must do what I can within the limits of human error. At least you have parents that love you; some people do not even have that consolation.
D
I am quite happy with my little escapades although nobody else is. ‘The knife edge’ referred to is the fact that I am on a final warning following a flogging from the headmaster as punishment for visiting a certain ‘Denise Bunny’ in London one night. A couple of appearances in Maidenhead magistrates court for riding a 750 cc Ariel motorcycle without a driving licence or any other paperwork haven’t really helped much either.
The Sunday Times
12 March
My Dear Charles,
I am writing to you in confidence so please do not discuss this letter with anyone. That silly young ass Simon Sandbach has got himself into a r
eal muddle and is now in a mental hospital, where he will remain for at least six months. I think he has been drinking and sampling drugs, too. It is really very sad. I have known people do very stupid things at Eton with regard to drink, sex, gambling and, more recently, drugs. I implore you not to experiment even in the mildest way with drugs. Probably you have not the slightest intention of doing so, but it is quite easy to be tempted by others who may regard the experiment as harmless which of course it is not. I think on the whole you have plenty of common sense but as you grow older you may tend to find life at Eton tedious and restrictive; if you do, don’t commit some act of folly that could have dire consequences for yourself. It would be much better if you left and did a job of work if you honestly felt that Eton was no longer of any benefit to you and that you were no longer of any benefit to Eton. Perhaps this letter is unnecessary, but it is a worry to me when a boy like S. S. suddenly goes right round the twist. It is all too easy to go off the rails at Eton and once off it is not simple to get back on again. I rely on your common sense to keep within the bounds of decorum!!
Yours ever,
D
Any letter starting ‘My Dear Charles’ is generally well worth avoiding. This particular letter contains much excellent advice, all of which goes totally unheeded.
1969
Budds Farm
16 January
Dear Charles,
I assume you got back safely last night. Time is running short so do try and get through this half without disaster and without a chorus of disapproval and despair from the unfortunate masters who have to try and teach you something. Unless Mr Addison and Mr Kidson can provide strong arguments to the contrary, I propose that you leave Eton at the end of the summer. After all, you are not interested in work or games and you have no ambition to assume responsibility in your House or in the school as a whole, so what would be the point of staying on? I suggest that on leaving you either go into the Army for three years or alternatively I will give you a single ticket to Australia and £50 and you go and earn your living there for a couple of years. I think you need to stand on your own feet and not rely on the efforts of others. Before you go into business, you must learn a little about life so that you have something to offer an employer. I have just had a letter from Aunt Joan asking me whether you received a Christmas present from her as she has received no acknowledgment. As in other matters of life, you are childishly idle about writing letters, thereby giving the impression that you are both ill-mannered and ungrateful. If people can bother to give you a present, the least they can expect is that you rouse yourself from your customary state of squalid inertia and write and say thank you. It was disgraceful that you were still writing thank-you letters on the last day of the holidays. Surely you can see for yourself that your idleness and refusal to do any little task that is in the slightest degree irksome renders you totally unfit for adult employment? I am very fond of you but you do drive me round the bend.
Dear Lupin... Page 1