So Who's Your Mother

by Tarquin Olivier

  RMS also had a call for help from the Sudan. This was very different. Twenty-two years earlier I had stayed there on my way back from retracing Livingstone, the journey which had pointed my life towards the Third World. The only hotel in 1958 was the brick-built and impos-ing Grand. The Nile was a-sailing with large Arab dhows. Everything was orderly. The Sudanese Civil Service had been even more prestigious than the Indian Civil Service. Second to none in the British Empire. The Main Square’s flower-beds had been laid out in stripes like the Union Flag, with a statue of General Gordon on his camel in the centre. After Independence the Sudanese had discreetly taken him down by night, enshrouded in a tent, and set him up in the museum.

  Now, in 1980, there were no boats to be seen. There was a new hotel, the Hilton, with air-conditioning. The town was a mess, although the men were tall and distinguished, with their finely featured dark faces and gleaming white robes and headscarves. The atmosphere was listless, everywhere run down, dried up and weedy. Religion was creat-ing its scars. The hotel was about to wall off a section of the swimming pool to divide men from women. Next would come segregation in the coffee shop. If the customs caught you entering with a bottle of whisky you went straight to prison.

  The Sudanese Mint symbolised everything that had fallen apart since Independence. The Nile’s black cotton soil at the end of the drought had dried out, with cracks several inches wide and several feet deep. When rained upon in the wet season it expanded with immense upward thrust. It had broken through the concrete floor of the mint building. Within a few years it pushed the levels into a series of concrete slopes; fatal for powerful machine tools. Worse than anything else was that water accumulated under the furnaces, with molten cupronickel above it at 1,500 degrees Celsius. Had molten metal dropped into the water the explosion would have obliterated that part of the building, and the roof. It was an unspeakable danger.

  I took Dave Rolf there. We had a slow walk round, decided where the furnaces could be repositioned out of harm’s way, what to do with the water cooling for the furnace coils, where a new blanking press should be set, and where a new foundation should be sunk for the minting presses, and much else. Our offer was £1.25 million. The Bank of Sudan honoured our brief contract both in letter and in spirit. This was very different from the French-trained Moroccans in Rabat, who wanted to renegotiate every phrase, so that the agreement would be all letter and no spirit. It was dozens of pages long, as if they wanted it to fail.

  I returned to Khartoum several times for various odds and ends. I introduced the Royal Mint’s engineer whom I had selected from the three short-listed to front up the project in Khartoum, supervise the suppliers’ installation specialists and train the Sudanese operatives. Within a few months, when all the equipment orders were placed, the project was extremely profitable. The RMS Chairman was so impressed he applied for a British Industry Award For Exports.

  RMS was set to make a profit of £150,000 half way through its third year of operation, having broken even at the end of the second year from various consultancies in Nepal, Mexico and Peru. In minting we were gaining market share through the Royal Mint’s newly competitive pricing. The world’s coinage really was going to be revolutionised by electroplated blanks, and client countries saved millions. I really felt I was doing what I had been born to do.

  Before Christmas 1981 in Basingstoke my then managing director called me in. He was on the point of going away to the Pacific for a holi-day with his wife and I had given him heaps of advice, much appreci-ated. He had news which for me was shattering. He said that I would be replaced in Minting. He had no idea why. He was simply passing on a message received, presumably from Peter Orchard, and at the behest of the Deputy Master. He then shamefacedly rushed off on holiday, leav-ing me in the dark. For the life of me. and I have discussed this with Dennis, my predecessor, the only reason I can think of was that the Deputy Master felt I had taken too many initiatives. I was dying to implement them, but that was prevented.

  When I began writing this memoir I wrote to the Royal Mint for news. The Director of Circulating Coin said that the Mint still remem-bered me after thirty years. He wrote: ‘The penetration of plated steel coinage has increased dramatically as a result of increasing metal prices and inflation leaving many low value denominations of homogenous alloys around the world in negative seigniorage. There are a number of significant suppliers of plated coins and ready-for-striking plated blanks worldwide, and we at the Royal Mint continue to work hard to main-tain our capability at the head of this list.’

  So, much as I would have loved to lead it, the revolution I had sought in coinage was well under way.

  I became a bureaucrat tied to Basingstoke, charged with improving the relations between ourselves as banknote printers and De La Rue Systems in Portsmouth who made banknote handling and authenticat-ing machines. Some of them were very ingenious. My title was dull: Used Note Sorting Co-ordinator. If the machines did not work they blamed our banknotes, and we blamed their stupid machines, just like that. Classic. All our sales force needed was a proper understanding of the machines’ technology, which I was able to learn and teach. I co-ordinated our sales efforts worldwide with De La Rue Systems people, to keep the wires uncrossed and ensure that the focus of effort was where it was most effective.

  Their major machines were the size of a car. They had specially developed detection devices to read the banknotes fed past them at speed. These recognised and rejected counterfeits and distressed notes, and culled authentic used banknotes which could be packaged for reis-sue. They could destroy authentic distressed notes on line, reducing them to sawdust. Systems like these enhanced the development of banknote security. Even in the early stages when installed by the Bank of England, they revealed precise information on the volume of coun-terfeits. Public visual recognition had culled them more successfully than anyone had estimated.

  For Third World countries Systems invented much smaller desktop versions, slower and easier to operate. Our regional managers were more preoccupied with these. Many central bankers sent delegations to be introduced to this new technology, manufactured in Portsmouth. They were always excited by such high tech new departures. These developments followed the company’s earlier years of pioneering in counting machines, and most importantly the delivery of through-the-wall cash dispensers of banknotes which revolutionised the public’s banking habits worldwide.

  With no more travel I could live normally. Throughout the late spring and summer on my way home I water-skied at Kirton’s Farm, by Exit 11 of the M4 Motorway, to get physically tired enough to sleep well at night. Weekends I divided between going there, or to the Garrick Club for lunch.

  Life in London blossomed. Almost every week I gave a dinner party for eight people. The housework, shopping and laying the table had to be done the day before. When on your own, cooking is difficult to com-bine with the hour of people arriving, being introduced and given their drinks. The main danger is a lady coming into the kitchen offering help, and you forget to turn something up or down, or even on. I evolved a system, starting with the main course: something that did not require my absence more than a couple of times nor for longer than a minute. Roast meats of every kind, game in season, fresh vegetables of every variety; not exactly original but certainly delicious, à pointor al dente as the case may be. In the French way we finished the claret with cheese, and then had champagne with the dessert. If they left before midnight I considered the evening a failure. They seldom did. And I tidied every-thing away by 1.30 or 2 a.m. so that next day everything was in place.

  Robin and Jane Mills invited me to a ball in their Gloucestershire house soon after my return from Hong Kong and that switched me back into England. There was a beautiful woman my age called Julie and we danced. Later I got her address, wrote to her and she came for dinner in London. She was the first real girlfriend I had had for so long. She met my family and children and I met her two sons, both in their twenties. One of them endearingly asked: ‘When are
you going to marry Mother?’ She suggested I move into a larger flat.

  De Vere Mews was sold almost at once. I consulted all the estate agents in Gloucester Road. It was one of the least expected, a rank outsider, who telephoned to say he had found the place. 40 Lexham Gardens, the second-floor flat. It had a large drawing room, big enough for my grand piano, and a dining/bedroom next to it, both facing south-west with spectacular views down the length of the square; balconies front and back, with the bedroom and kitchen facing east, so there was sunshine all day.

  There was a curious occurrence of my being impersonated. At a Garrick lunch I was sitting next to an American literary friend, David Farrer. He immediately said how splendid I was looking. I thanked him, let it drop and asked what he was up to. After a few moments he said he could not get over how much better I was looking. I asked when was the last time we had met. He said it was the previous week at the Play-ers Club in New York, one of our corresponding clubs. I told him I had not been there. I wrote to them, the letter countersigned by the Garrick secretary, and complained that an impostor was staying there pretend-ing to be me, and borrowing money from members. I received no reply. A couple of weeks later I wrote robustly that I was now an accessory to the impostor’s continuing crime of borrowing in my name, and regaling falsehoods about my family.

  By return mail their club secretary wrote an ‘Oh, Mr Olivier’ letter. He said what an enchanting man my impostor had been, how popular, and he made it seem I should be proud of his performance as me. He ended by saying how much everyone wanted to meet the ‘real Mr Olivier’. The impostor left and repaid his debts. He was an out of work actor who had put on his impersonation as a bet. He had arrived at the Players Club saying he was a Garrick member, but without the requisite letter of introduction. An old Garrick member saw him and mistakenly said he was me. They let him in. I was asked if I would like to know his name and I said not.

  Derek Walker-Smith, Lord Broxbourne, told me that even though my father was only a life peer, as he was, I as the elder son was entitled to sit on the steps to the throne in the House of Lords. We agreed to meet in the Peers’ Lobby. I waited while people of maturity and moment strolled and chatted. Eventually Derek arrived. The doorkeeper approached respectfully and asked: ‘Can you tell me the name of your guest, milord?’

  Derek cleared his throat and mumbled: ‘Mr H’m H’m ’liviyer .’

  The doorkeeper took a step back, aghast. He looked to his left. He looked to his right, gathered himself, leant forward as if in pain and asked in horror: ‘From Libya, my lord?’

  My parents had told me never, ever, attempt to act on stage, not even in a school play. In my mid-forties I discovered why. The Garrick Club asked me to take part in a one-night review at the Ambassador’s Theatre, with a dozen other members contributing their talents. The entertainment was to mark the publication of The Ace of Clubs by Richard Hough, on Sunday 26 October 1986. I automatically declined, of course, but then the playwright Ronald Harwood who was produc-ing the show inveigled me into doing a one-man piece on my feelings about the Club and its members. So I wrote it, about twenty lines, allowing for plenty of impersonation, over-acting and slightly patronis-ing good cheer. I learnt the lines and acted them out to Larry one evening at Steyning. He tightened up some of my gestures and was encouraging.

  Ronnie took us all through a dress rehearsal to an empty theatre. Six of the club’s small dining room tables were set about with two or three chairs facing downstage: a touch of familiarity. Then came the time for the audience to arrive and for us to sit in our places. Hubert Gregg played the piano and sang a few much-loved songs: ‘We’ll gather lilacs’, ‘Keep the home fires burning’, and Richard Pasco and his wife played a poignant piece from Shakespeare which they had both performed twenty-five years earlier. Sir Michael Hordern read a poem ‘In Praise of the Garrick Club’, specially written for the evening by Kingsley Amis, and eventually it was my turn.

  I stood and walked down the unaccustomed slope of the theatre stage down towards the audience. With each tread I felt energy surge from the boards. It was empowering. When I stood and faced the audi-ence I could sense them thinking: ‘You, son of’, with mocking expecta-tion. I looked slowly from one side of the audience to the other, not archly but with a hypnotised confidence that I would show them, and their quiet reaction made me feel that they knew it, their presence ener-gised me with the feeling of total control. My little act raised frequent laughter and at the end they cheered.

  I was hooked. I realised this could be addictive. Just as well I had never tried it seriously. After all, only a few percent of all actors actually make a living. At that time the only successful sons of stars had been Douglas Fairbanks Junior and Kirk Douglas’s son Michael. The inheri-tance of great talent is rare in any branch of the arts. With Larry as my father, even if I had been any good, the feelings against nepotism would have been marked in that most envious of professions. I understood why the parental advice to me had been so total.

  The Central Bank of Vietnam asked for advice on building a state print-ing works and a full-blown mint, together with recommended specifi-cations on all equipment, plus banknotes and coins. I went out to Hanoi in April 1983. I contacted the Vietnamese Embassy, round the corner from me in London, and our embassy in Hanoi. Our Ambas-sador Michael Pike asked me to stay with him at the Residency with his wife, a Malayan Chinese who had liked my book. The day before leav-ing I went to Harrods and bought a big Stilton cheese for them.

  I flew to Bangkok and spent the night as usual at the Oriental Hotel, managed by my old friends Kurt Waschweitel and his Thai wife Penny.

  Next day Hanoi. The airport was in the middle of fields overflowing with green rice, and surrounded by immense bomb craters, thirty yards across, water-filled. Not many people were on that flight. A bedraggled crowd waited outside. Michael Pike was in a suit and tie, chatting to a government official. We drove off, flag flying, in a diplomatically modest car.

  I was expecting to find the Hanoi bombed to smithereens. In fact it had been avoided by the B52s. There had been one single accidental bomb which hit the wing of the main hospital. Next day when two of the Central Bank’s English-speaking guides showed me round the city they pointed to the damage. The French colonial buildings were unscathed save for the ravages of neglect. The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was built like the one the Soviets had built for Lenin. He lay encased in glass, perfectly preserved. A continuous file of devoted followers in black cotton clothes paid silent respects. Uncle Ho had lived in a two-storeyed bamboo house overlooking a lake with water lilies and ducks. It was a friendly place, informal and summery.

  The guides introduced me to some bureaucrats. In their offices were paintings of the Vietnamese Navy junks attacking and sinking the Chinese. That hostility was historic. Their military victories were spoken of with the same pride as an Englishman describing the Armada, Trafalgar, or the Normandy Landings. How could anyone imagine that Vietnam would be a domino to be pushed around by the Chinese, yet that is precisely what the American Secretary of State McNamara got wrong. He failed to see that Ho Chi Minh’s struggle was for independence from the West. It was not in the name of Communism but of nationalism. General MacArthur would have known better.

  The Central Bank was the ultimate in French colonial grandeur. Around the spacious main hall were executive offices. While the Viet-namese hatred of the Chinese is vaunted in the paintings, their contempt for France is more recent. At the outset of my meetings with the Deputy Governor I was about to say how much I looked forward to speaking French, but he stopped me mid-sentence. He turned to his interpreter who bowed and said I was to speak in English, the Deputy Governor and Finance Director were to speak in Vietnamese, while he would interpret. I suggested that French would save days of time. They said it was now a forbidden language. The Deputy Governor left me with the Finance Director, an engineer, the interpreter and two secre-taries noting everything down. The Director and the engineer knew exactly what they wanted
to discuss, machine by machine, process by process, staffing tasks, skills and training.

  At the end of the first week the Deputy Governor told us how pleased they all were, and that for the weekend as a reward they were giving me a car with driver, an interpreter and an East German-trained lady economist. We would be accommodated in a rest centre near the Chinese border: Ha Long.

  Staying with the Pikes was a pleasure. The building was, as he pointed out, bizarre. The main hall was a tall octagon with naughty little rooms leading off. They had been for ladies of easy virtue. One was my bedroom which had richly patterned wallpaper. The plumbing was pre-war French, and Vietnamese-maintained. There was a loo but the flushing water was piping hot, while the shower was cold and deliv-ered small electric shocks. Michael gave a small dinner party and his young Vietnamese housekeeper wore her oudzhai. That was the only time I saw one in Hanoi. All the women in the street wore black cotton. One night the Pikes took me to a club to see the ex-pats perform a light comedy which was well done. Afterwards it was good to hear their optimism about the Vietnamese.

  The Bank’s car and crew collected me on Saturday morning, the only car in the street. Michael accompanied me outside with his manservant carrying a cardboard crate of beer. We fitted the cans in the boot round my suitcase and the spare wheel. He left the corrugated crate on the pavement. ‘Don’t think I’m a dirty ambassador,’ he said. ‘That will be useful to someone. It won’t be there for more than a minute.’