Dearest Jane...

by Roger Mortimer

  Budds Farm

  10 May 1977

  I am writing to you less from paternal affection than a desire to try out a new typewriter ribbon. It is a perfect May evening and I am taking your mother out to supper. The blossom here is superb and it is going to be a great month for lilac. Poor old Jeremy Thorpe! I do feel sorry for him but I would not fancy him as leader of this country. I must say, if I was going to have a love affair with a male lunatic in Devonshire, I don’t think I’d pick N. Scott who looks about as physically attractive as Himmler.

  The Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was accused and acquitted of plotting the murder of one N. Scott, an individual who claimed to have had an affair with him in the early 1960s.

  The Turf Club

  24 November [1970s]

  Many thanks for your well-chosen and totally acceptable birthday present of H. M. Bateman’s cartoons now located in the downstairs loo!

  The bourgeois humour

  Of H. M. Bateman

  Brings the hint of a leer

  From an old Constipateman.

  (W. Wordsworth)

  Little Shiverings

  Burghclere

  [1979]

  I have seldom seen a more villainous-looking man than the individual called Haughey who is to be Ireland’s Prime Minister.

  I believe in fact he is far worse than he looks.

  Budds Farm

  2 February [late 1970s]

  Did you know that Karl Marx hunted with the Cheshire while engaged in writing ‘Das Kapital’? That Lady Zia Werner who won the Derby with Charlottown is descended from Pushkin who had black blood in him?

  The Drippings

  Burghclere

  [Late 1970s]

  I think it was the crowning humiliation for H. Wislon was to appear with Morecombe and Wise on TV. Can you picture Mr Gladstone participating with Dan Leno’s balloon act or Mr Asquith butting in on Harry Tate’s famous motoring sketch? I think Wislon has been ruined by La Forkbender: it was infinitely preferable when old Lloyd George stuffed a wide variety of secretaries on the table in the Cabinet Room during the lunch interval. He always kept his hair long as he thought it was a mark of his virility. Looking at his photograph, you would hardly pick him as about the randiest Welshman of his age. But then the murderer, H. H. Crippen of Hilldrop Crescent NW13 hardly looked likely to be a passionate lover, whilst another, ‘Brides in the Bath’ Smith, was illiterate, coarse, dirty and repellent in every respect. Yet respectable middle-class women fell for him as if he were a combination of Rudolph Valentino and Mr Onassis.

  It took little for my father to find comparisons in character with legendary murderers –not least in his own family! La Forkbender was Wislon’s private secretary and personal advisor, Marcia Williams, latterly elevated to the peerage as Baroness Falkender.

  Budds Farm

  12 October [mid 1970s]

  This week’s quotation comes from the late Bishop of Bath and Wells: ‘I like to get my golf over in the morning as then I am free for Bridge in the afternoon.’ He also observed: ‘Personally I must admit that the spiritual side of this job doesn’t particularly appeal to me.’

  The Old Damp Ruin

  Burghclere-under-Water

  3 January 1980

  The revolting hypocrisy of the lefty rent-a-crowd mob has been demonstrated to the full by its action, or total lack of action to be more accurate, over the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Not a squeak of protest from any one of them. The fact is that aggression and cruelty do not distress them at all when perpetrated by communists. However, perhaps if we keep our ears wide open we may hear a faint whimper of disapproval from that pathetic army of trendy liberal wets who comprise the bulk of the ‘Guardian’ readership. I have an idea that World War III is not far off. When it starts, I shall shoot the dogs, reload the guns and await the arrival of Russian parachutists in a manner I hope faintly reminiscent of Gordon awaiting the Mahdi’s spearmen at Khartoum. Your mother will certainly be in favour of a vigorous defence of her home. She is in fine bellicose trim, desires the death penalty for all strikers and is thinking seriously of doing a Charlotte Corday and knifing Arthur Scargill although not necessarily in his bath.

  Love to you all,

  D

  Arthur Scargill later led the major miners’ strike of 1984–5 which would be brought to an end by Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister. A century earlier in the French Revolution, the radical politician Marat was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday – a heroine of France.

  Budds Farm

  [Early 1980s]

  How do you fancy Mrs Thatcher? Quite a formidable lady, I reckon, and I would not fancy a swipe over the eardrum from her plastic shopping bag.

  Detention Centre 392

  Burghclere

  1 February [late 1970s]

  Your husband is a very well-educated man (Cries of Hear, Hear! Well spoken, Sir) so perhaps he could tell me the author of the following rather beautiful verses:

  The Captain stood on his bridge alone,

  With his telescope to his eye,

  The ship she was sinking rapidly,

  As the storm went howling by.

  He saw the rush for the lifeboats,

  And he noticed a peer old and grey,

  Then a sailor approached and saluted

  And thus to the peer did he say:

  ‘Pray take a place in the lifeboat,

  Tis a gesture I willingly make,

  Since I fagged for your nephew at Repton,

  It’s the least I might do for his sake.

  And when next, Sir, you’re seeing your nephew,

  Pray sing him this short refrain:

  “Piddock minor went down like a Repton man,

  And gladly he’d do it again.”’

  Chateau Geriatrica

  Saturday [1980]

  I wonder how old Mugabe will turn out. Probably a black Harold Macmillan whose next objective will be to join the Carlton club.

  Robert Mugabe became the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, in 1980. My father was spared being a witness to how ‘old Mugabe’ turned out.

  Chez Nidnod

  Kintbury

  3 September [mid 1980s]

  The sky is dark grey like a clergyman’s flannel suit, the temperature about 56 degrees F. The news is all about the hideous situation in the Gulf and the misfortunes of Dr Owen. The good Doctor went to Bradfield where he was unhappy because, according to his own account, he was very good looking and the other boys never left him alone. ‘Ah, nuts alors!’ as the French lady said when she was taken to see a six-day bicycle race in New York.

  Dr David Owen, Labour minister, then SDP founder, now Lord Owen.

  The Old Draughthouse

  Much Shiverings

  Berks

  [Late 1970s]

  I came across this rhyme yesterday in an old book:

  As for my dear one’s father, he

  Was just as tactful as her mother;

  He’d always leave us, after tea,

  Alone with one another.

  Locking the door with some remark

  About how ‘lovers love the dark’,

  He’d turn the gas off at the main;

  And I would sit for hours with Jane

  Trying to light the stove again.

  Schloss Blubberstein

  Montag [early 1970s]

  There have been two cases of indecent exposure in this locality. Rather sporting, I think, considering the unfavourable weather conditions for flashing the member virile.

  There was an old lady of Filey,

  Who esteemed her late husband so highly,

  That in spite of the scandal her umbrella handle

  Was made of his member virile.

  The Shambles

  Burghclere

  [1980s]

  Who said, and of whom: ‘She was a most unsuitable wife for Henry: she lived in Hampstead and had no clothes’?

  The
Bog Garden

  Burghclere

  [1980s]

  Do you like Durham? It is one of my favourite cities. The great Hensley Henson was once Bishop there: he spoke and wrote superb English. He hated his Dean, a hearty muscular Christian called Weldon who had been headmaster of Harrow. The Bishop once observed of the Dean, ‘He is a man who can neither speak with effect or be silent with dignity.’

  La Maison des Geriatriques

  27 February 1982

  There are some lugubrious females now camping outside Greenham Airfield; I am inclined to doubt if any action they take will greatly influence nuclear policy in America or Soviet Russia.

  The women’s peace camp on RAF Greenham Common was a protest against the siting of nuclear missiles there. The ‘scruffy’ appearance of the Greenham women and their camp offended my father far more than their opposition to nuclear armaments. As they were camping, they could hardly be attired for Ascot.

  Budds Farm

  11 January [early 1980s]

  You may recollect the remark of the Headmaster in ‘Decline and Fall’ when the Welsh Silver Band turned up on Sports Day: ‘I refuse to believe the evidence of my own eyes. These creatures simply do not exist.’ Those were my sentiments on seeing the Greenham mob. Not one in fifty knows what ‘unilateral’ means; they are all perfectly prepared to betray this country at the drop of a hat and believe, mistakenly I hope, that sucking up to the Russians will exempt them from exile to Siberia in the event of invasion. If Nidnod had a gun, which happily she has not, I feel sure she would give them a peppering.

  The Crumblings

  Wilts

  Sunday [mid 1980s]

  I have just been reading about Nicholas Udall, a former headmaster of Eton. He wrote the first comedy in the English language, ‘Ralph Roister Doister’. He stole all the college plate with the help of two boys, one of whom he had a passionate affair with. After a brief spell in prison, he was appointed Headmaster of Westminster. The Old Boy Network never lets you down!

  The Miseries

  Busted

  Herts

  11 May [1970s]

  I am busy on various projects and may have a little business to conduct re a TV series with an actor called Robert Hardy who was the Prince Consort in the series ‘Edward VII’. As he lives in the Thames Valley and hunts your mother thinks he is marvellous. He seems less oafish than most actors and at least writes to me on reasonable writing paper.

  Yesterday, reading some obscure piece of military history, I came upon the name of General Sir Cameron Shute. At one stage in World War I he commanded the division my father was in. He was a fearful old sod who never shaved properly and whose chin was invariably lit up by a blaze of white stubble. He had a habit of making surprise inspections in which the latrines were invariably the first target. Hence his nickname of ‘Deus ex Latrina’ and the following poem:

  The General inspecting the trenches

  Was heard to exclaim with a shout

  ‘I will not inspect a Division

  That leaves it’s excreta about.’

  The Division retained its composure

  And no one was heard to refute

  That the presence of shit in the trenches

  Was preferred to the presence of Shute.

  Best love to all,

  RM

  The Miller’s House

  11 October 1983

  Mrs Thatcher made a Boadicea type speech but omitted to mention (wisely) the economy. She’s a terrifying old bag but she’s got some guts and makes Kinnock look like a fairly agreeable but rather spotty adolescent. I managed to twist my knee climbing into my trousers this morning and am as lame as a geriatric camel.

  Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader in 1983–92, never became Prime Minister. Margaret Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in the 1987 election.

  The Soddens

  Burghclere

  [1970s]

  V. wet here and local shops have run out of galoshes. It is a fine sight to see dignified matrons hauling their shopping trolleys through eight inches of water in the municipal car park:

  Moved from the brink like some full breasted sawn,

  That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,

  Ruffles her pure gold plume, and takes the flood

  With swarthy web. (‘Morte d’Arthur’

  – Alfred Lord Tennyson)

  Alf Tennyson is my second favourite poet, No. I of course being Beachcomber’s Roland Milk who always wanted ‘to do something big, something clean’ and was advised by Lady Cabstanleigh to go and scrub down an elephant.

  From: R. Mortimer, ‘Sunday Times’ Correspondent for Burchglere, Wash Common and Echinswell; also assistant editor ‘Swedish Teenage Love’ (80p in plain envelope, inc. UK postage)

  1 October 1972

  I went to see a film called ‘Young Winston’. It is clearly made for the American market and is bad beyond belief. The military and historical details are ludicrously inaccurate. The casting is absurd with little John Mills, who looks like a retired jockey, playing with supreme inadequacy the part of tall, purple-faced, squinting and rather terrifying Lord Kitchener.

  The Sunday Times

  Editor-in-Chief’s Office

  Midnight [1972]

  I backed a horse at Ascot today because it was called de Musset. Its sire was called Alcide which was de Musset’s nom de plume. I always liked the rhyme:

  Alfred de Musset

  Used to call his cat ‘Pusset’.

  As was only to be expected

  His accent was rather affected.

  Newbury is crammed with Asians from Uganda. Here is a reported conversation at Lloyds Bank, Newbury.

  Ugandan Asian: What is the rate of exchange please?

  Bank Clerk: 93p to the £.

  Ugandan Asian: My friend on Tuesday obtained 95p. How do you explain that?

  Bank Clerk: Fluctuations.

  Ugandan Asian: You are a very rude man. Fluctueuropeans too.

  The Shudderings

  Burghclere

  [1978]

  I came across this startling piece of verse recently:

  O Moon, lovely Moon, with thy beautiful face,

  Careering throughout the boundaries of space,

  Whenever I see thee, I think in my mind,

  Shall I ever, oh ever, behold thy behind.

  Bottlebanks

  Burghclere

  8 January 1981

  I have been reading a book about the Darwin family. Old Charles Darwin used to bang on a bit about the origin of the species and one day one of his brothers observed rather sharply: ‘My dear fellow, I don’t give a damn for the whole kingdom of nature.’

  The Miller’s House

  15 May 1987

  I am already bored with the election. My first election was won by Mr Asquith (Liberal). He was a lazy old sod and constantly appeared in the House of Commons the worse for brandy. In the first months of the war he wrote 3 long letters a day to his girlfriend Venetia Stanley (40 years younger) confiding in her all the government secrets. His brilliant eldest son went to France with the Grenadiers and old Asquith never wrote to him once before he was killed in action.

  Whenever my father mentioned Herbert Asquith, Liberal Prime Minister 1908–16, it was with deep contempt both for his inadequacy as wartime leader and, unforgivably, as an apparently unsupportive father.

  The Miller’s House

  21 August [mid 1980s]

  There is a long article in this week’s ‘Spectator’ about Robert Byron who drowned in 1941. He was an authority on Persia and wrote an excellent book, ‘The Road to Oxiana’. I fagged for him my first half at Eton in 1922. He was a weird character, inclined to get cantankerous when he was tight. At Oxford he was involved in many scenes. There was a row when he drank too much at the Bridge House Hotel and shouted, ‘All I want is a teeny weeny little boy.’ Luckily I was too scruffy and juvenile to attract him.

  Robert Byron’s biographer visited my father at home to int
erview him for his research.

  The Miller’s House

  25 October 1987

  Not a very merry month, what with the Big Storm and the Money Crisis. I hope I shall not have slumped into pauperdom by the time you get here. I well remember the crisis of 1931 when the Navy mutinied and there were riots in the West End of London. I recollect the police using their truncheons without restraint on the heads of the more aggressive unemployed. My battalion was marched down to the Docks where there was some tepid trouble. En route, an elderly man on the pavement shouted out, ‘Don’t shoot your fellow workers, comrades!’ and Corporal Homer, an ex-miner, shouted back ‘Yes I will, Granddad!’ Generally speaking, there was little ill-feeling between the soldiers and demonstrators: the latter hated the special constabulary and so indeed did the police who regarded them as potential black-legs as they had helped to break the police strike in 1919. I remember a column of marchers headed by a fearful villain called ‘Ironfoot Jack’ – who had a metal artificial foot and was a power in the world of pornography.

  Best love,

  xx D

  Within days of each other in 1987, there was a global stock market crash – Black Monday – and fifteen million trees were blown down by gale force winds – the Great Storm.

  Gloom House

  Kintbury

  27 October 1987

  I have been reading a biography of Norman Douglas who wrote one of my favourite books, ‘South Wind’. Douglas was an awful old scamp who simply could not keep off the boys and eventually had to leave England in disgrace. In Capri some nosy individual asked him if it were true he had left England under a slight cloud. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘A cloud no bigger than a boy’s hand.’

  The Miller’s House

  Kintbury

  [1987]

  What a pity so many good English words gradually disappear from common usage. A 16th-century Warwickshire weaver advertised for sale: ‘the very finest tapestry, arras, moccadoes, carolles, plonketts, grogaynes, says and sarges’.

  Words I don’t much care for are: bland – mellow – crisp – operation – terminal – bowels – democratic – popular – sportsman – scurf – renegade – carbuncle – manly – motherly – bosom (particularly of Abraham’s) – genitals – mortgage – confidential.

  14b Via Dolorosa Burghclere