by Jon Pertwee
Every Christmas, we performed a playlet in this niche; Roland and our friend Denise Robins, the prolific romantic novelist, were the regular authors and parts were always written for us boys and ‘guest stars’.
The first ‘naughty’ line I ever heard was in one of these plays, involving Roland and Denise. They were secret lovers, about to elope, and in unison delivered these two immortal curtain lines:
‘And now for life, life passionate and gay
(aside) we’ll stop the car at “Hepple’s” on the way.’
Hepple’s being one of the only chemists at the time where condoms could be obtained over the counter.
The most extraordinary coincidence happened some forty years later. My wife and I were living in Chelsea and heard of a splendid new kindergarten opening in South Kensington. We went to inspect it, as we were looking for a school for our daughter. I found to my amazement, that it was in none other than our old house, Number 86!
That Christmas, on going to see Dariel appearing as a Christmas angel in a Nativity play, I was not unduly surprised to find that she performed the play in the self-same niche in which I had made my first appearance, so many years before.
The basement consisted of the ‘kitchen-cum-staff-room’, scullery, larder, butler’s pantry, toy cupboard and playroom. Here, all hell could break loose. Dad said, “My floors are to be looked upon as Heaven, and treated as such, but if you want to make a Hell of yours that’s your concern.’
Every Christmas Eve ‘Santa Daddy Claus’ in full regalia of red dressing gown, red Arab head-dress (from a previous sortie into Egypt) and cotton-wool beard, would tip-toe into our rooms to fill our much prized stockings, which, alas, I don’t get any longer, but I miss them. Trembling from excitement, we feigned sleep to avoid upsetting ‘Santa-Dad’. But as soon as he had left, we felt the contours of the ‘woolly-wonders’, and tried to establish the exact nature of their contents, before drifting off back to sleep.
In the morning at first light, all three of us gathered in my and Coby’s big room and ripped into them. By dint of tradition on the top of each stocking was a wind-up tin racing car. These were pulled out and wound up before you could say ‘Merry Christmas’ and the annual ‘Mo-Mo Races’ began. Rugs pulled to one side, the floor being lino covered made a perfect track. A ‘book’ was opened on the result of each race and stocking presents put up as stakes. In all the years of ‘Mo-Mo Racing’ I never remember winning a single race. Even after committing in the dead of night, the heinous crime of switching Coby’s ‘Mo-Mo’ for mine, he still won. Being an extremely bad sport, I kicked up such a shindig that my two racing rivals were forced to return their ill-gotten gains to their rightful and tearful owner, on pain of missing out on the ‘Biggies’ under the tree.
Life was full and varied. There were shopping expeditions by number 11 bus to Hamleys, Harrods and Gamages, our favourite emporiums, as the latter two not only had wonderful sports and toy departments but also zoos with exotic inhabitants. There were honey bears, bush babies, foxes and assorted species of lizard and snake. I determined to own a honey bear and a lizard just as soon as my money box was sufficiently full. We travelled on these jaunts quite unaccompanied, for although still young, we were considered sufficiently responsible to roam London at will.
Usually these trips cost us little more than the tuppenny bus fare, as serious shopping purchases were rare. Our zealously guarded pocket money was in the main saved for visits to the ‘Kinema’. For threepence we could enjoy a double-feature, newsreel, ‘mighty-Wurlitzer’ organ recital, with the audience participating in the singing, under the guidance of that splendid ‘bouncing ball’ that bounced about on top of the words on the screen to give us the necessary tempo and rhythm. If one went to the Paramount in Tottenham Court Road, the organ would be replaced by Big Show Bands like Anton and his Orchestra or Troise and his Mandoliers. This gave me my first taste of the vaudeville side of show business, for those showbands had dancers, singers, soloists and comedians as an integral part of their entertainment. Years later I myself was to appear with Anton on that very stage in ‘Cine-Variety’ as it was then called, when, in between each big feature, five times a day, I performed my very raw twelve minute Variety Act, gaining little or no benefit except the experience of learning how to ‘die’ gracefully.
There were times when ‘flush’ that we actually managed to see four different shows in one day. And on one epic occasion Michael and Coby beat the all time record by making it five. But at a cost of one shilling and threepence for tickets, plus a penny lolly at each venue, what foolhardy extravagance!!
Each Christmas the entire family would foregather at Number 86 for the celebration. There would be Dad and ‘D’, Uncle Guy, Granny and all her living widowed sisters, including Aunt Decima (‘Lady Moore-Guggisberg, and don’t you ever forget it’) an ex-Savoyard and a great favourite of W. S. Gilbert. She was one of the original ‘Three Little Maids’ in The Mikado, and later married the much loved then Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Gordon Guggisberg. When Coby later joined the Medical Service in Ghana in 1947 he casually mentioned that he was ‘sort of related’ to Sir Gordon, and was immediately fêted and taken without more ado to see all the streets and hospitals named after that worthy gent.
We had by now an addition to the staff (by dint of Dad’s success as a scenarist in Hollywood) – a butler named Henry. Henry, for some reason known only to himself, would always wear a white tie with his tail suit at Christmas, instead of the traditional black of the correct Major-Domo. It was because of this idiosyncrasy that Aunt Decima annually kissed Henry fondly on both cheeks, being firmly under the impression that he was a smartly dressed member of the family. It was not until Granny had hissed, ‘Decima, for the twentieth time, will you stop kissing the butler’ that Henry was able to break free from her fervent embrace and mutter, ‘Good evening milady, can I take your coat?’
Aunt Decima once gave ‘D’ as her Christmas gift a hideous pink powder-puff on a long tortoiseshell handle. It was immediately put in the drawer labelled ‘unwanted gifts to give away’. This was in fact done, on many occasions, for various birthdays and highdays of friends and relatives, resulting in the same ‘grateful’, ‘Thank you so much! How useful!’ Useful or not it was always left behind and once more relegated to the ‘unwanted-gift’ drawer. The day came however, when the ‘puff’ was once more up for grabs and ‘D’, forgetting the identity of the original donor, gave it to – yes, you’ve guessed! – Aunt Decima. A hushed silence fell on the room as we awaited the inevitable ‘I have never been so insulted in all my life etc. etc.’ but no! Pulling the dreadful article from its newly gift-wrapped box Aunt Decima cried, ‘A tortoiseshell powder-puff!! How useful! Just what I’ve always wanted!!’ A fine old lady was Aunt Decima, with tremendous verve and guts. When asked what she would like to do on her eightieth birthday, she announced, after a full second’s deliberation, ‘Shoot a tiger, dear.’
Next in the pecking order was Aunt Eva Moore, the eminent actress. She had been married to the great actor-manager H. V. Esmond. Her daughter Jill Esmond, also a renowned actress, was often present with her startlingly good-looking husband Laurence Olivier. He was at that time enjoying enormous success in the West End and was destined to become in my opinion the world’s greatest actor – as the following example will indicate. Larry doesn’t like big parties very much, and equally does not like to be touched, particularly by a stranger, and from behind. He was at a friend’s party sitting quietly in a chair having a relaxing drink when an elderly lady crept up behind him, clapped her hands over his eyes and said, ‘Guess who?’ Larry leaped up, knocking the poor lady backwards to fall A.O.T. over a sofa, with legs waggling pathetically in the air.
Paying no heed to the lady’s predicament, he strode outraged straight up to his host and with eyes flashing and finger pointing demanded, ‘Who is that old woman?’ The surprised host after a quick glance at the now upright old lady – replied, ‘My mother-in-law – why?’ A
t which Larry, proving my point that he is the greatest actor in the world, smoothly changed gear and without pause said, ‘Isn’t she marvellous!!’
Larry and Jill were very good to me when I was young. I used to visit them with Granny at their beautiful period house that was then situated next to Chelsea Old Church. Sadly it was destroyed by bombs in 1941, but happily a little green park for pensioners now exists on the site. Larry had a rascally ring-tailed lemur called Tony as a pet, who skulked in his ‘hide’ until Granny had entered the sitting-room before pouncing on her hat. Granny’s hats were usually of the ‘flora’ and ‘fruit’ variety, and so realistic as to be irresistible to the vegetarian Tony. On discovering to his chagrin, however, that fruit and flowers alike had the same flavour – wax – he hurled them willy-nilly round the room at friend or foe alike. Larry, Tony, Jill and I became friends, and later when I was a prospective drama student Larry gave me unstinted encouragement and advice. I was to see him perform his famous ‘double’ – at the then ‘New’ Theatre, St Martin’s Lane. He starred in Oedipus Rex, a translation from Sophocles, and played ‘Mr Puff’ in Sheridan’s The Critic. After the gouging out of his eyes with the accompanying blood-flow in Oedipus during the first half; the audience sat stunned and silent. Few moved from their seats, so overwhelmed were they by his talent. Yet in the second half; within minutes I was wracked with pain from the laughter he evoked with his performance as Mr Puff. He was whipped up into the flies whilst stepping over a roll-cloth, slid down lines, tripped, fell and continually prattled his way through the piece, never stopping for breath. But it was his endless diatribe whilst pinning his tiny tricorn hat to the top of his periwig that finished the audience off completely, and sent them out of the theatre overcome by his greatness!
Aunt Bertha, another fulsome lady of tremendous charm and dignity was next. A splendid pianist, and accompanist to Joseph Joachim and Alfredo Piatti, the international violin and viola virtuosos, on their concert tours, she had been married to Frank Huth, a Jewish gentleman of ‘unknown profession’. Their son, Harold, also my godfather, rejoiced in the nick-name of ‘Uncle Choo-Choo’. ‘Uncle Choo-Choo, brave and fair, I’ll make a mattress of your hair’, the sonnet went. He, being a star of the silent screen, always took part in the specially-written playlets that were to be performed for the family’s delectation.
Aunt Bertha also ran a school for Young Debutantes, to put them through their paces before being presented at Court. By the time I was a manly fourteen, we three, Michael, Coby and I, were much in demand as escorts (bribed!). Suitably spruced up in dinner jackets and black ties, we accompanied the young fillies to Aunt Bertha’s soirées and social functions. The term ‘filly’ was in the main appropriate, for I remember few that did not resemble horses!
Uncle Choo-Choo’s much maligned sister, Marjorie, a tall lantern-jawed ex-actress, was an irregular member of this select company of players. ‘She is such a ham,’ commented my father, ‘as she will argue the toss all the time.’
‘Ham! Look who’s talking,’ I thought, for Roland, my Dad, was the biggest ‘ham’ imaginable. None of the modern techniques of Gerald du Maurier’s interpretation of the ‘Method’ School of Acting had rubbed off on him, even after many years of working together. Thank God he retired from the boards when he did, and became such a successful writer, otherwise I fancy we would have had a somewhat deprived childhood.
I was fond of Auntie Margy, for all the things she’d done and said. She was always kind to me and listened attentively when I was having a trauma over something or other. She could also tell a pretty tale so what more could you ask of an aunt? Married to a British Colonial Officer called Major Angus Duncan Johnstone, she dutifully followed him to Africa to be at his side. It is a good thing she did as being more than a little fond of the grain and the grape he regularly needed her broad shoulder to lean on.
‘Tom-Tom’ talk being rife in Africa, he soon became known throughout that part of the continent as ‘Drunken Johnstone’. ‘A most unwarranted reputation,’ complained Auntie Margy vehemently, ‘he rarely touched a drop!’ It was a surfeit of sausages that caused him to stagger – or another attack of beriberi – malaria – breakbone fever – or whatever disease was rife at the time – but never, she reiterated, never had he overstepped the mark, and then in an almost inaudible aside she plaintively added, ‘I only wish he would.’ At the time I failed to understand the wistfulness of her remark . . .
But the tales she told! Once when about to cross a river, going up country for a ‘pow-wow’ or whatever, her husband was approached by the headman of a nearby village and told that there was an infestation of man-eating crocodiles at the very spot they were about to cross.
‘Then what’s to be done?’ asked the perplexed District Commissioner.
‘Call upon the services of my personal witch doctor,’ suggested the chief.
‘And what will that cost me, as if I didn’t know . . .?’
‘Only one hundred shillings, Bwana,’ grunted the Chief, impassively.
‘And so my dear,’ said Auntie Margy, ‘the bargain was struck and the Chief’s personal witch-doctor was sent for. Laying out his sticks, his feathers and his stones, he awesomely invoked the gods, with unearthly cry and mumbo jumbo, to strike the crocodiles with stillness, until such time as the Bwana and I, the “Missie”, had safely crossed.
‘The water frothed and churned from the thrashing of the tails of a thousand crocs, as the witch-doctor, letting out a blood-curdling scream, threw a sacred chicken into the water amongst them. My dear, may I be struck dumb if I tell you one word of a lie! In a second, there was not a movement! Those crocs lay there side by side, absolutely motionless, as if frozen in a block of ice! “You are safe to cross now, Missie – the gods have so decreed,” the headman said, and with that, the Major, I and all our bearers walked over the backs of the once ferocious beasts as if walking over Chelsea Bridge.’
The most surprising part of this story is that I have seen a photograph taken by the Major of this extraordinary happening. With Auntie Margy in the foreground, you can plainly see that the river is full up with crocodiles and there is a native standing with one foot on a croc and the other on the far river bank. A case of ‘You go first, Bwana, Missie and I will follow.’
So that’s where James Bond got that idea from for Live and Let Die.
I remember little of my Aunt Ada other than on one occasion she physically forced me to eat a cold brussels sprout – to this day, the smell alone causes me to retch and vomit. My son Sean seems to have the same aversion, for he once, having assured us that a proffered sprout had been properly swallowed, slept the entire night with the offending vegetable tucked into his cheek like a hamster.
Aunt Ada was once giving a very smart supper party, when in walked my great-grandfather, a rough diamond of a man with gypsy blood in his veins, being born with a Lee for a mother and a Moore for a father.
Permanently concerned for the regularity of his bowels, he carried a rubber hot water bottle into the very room where Aunt Ada was entertaining and taking his coat off, asked a startled guest to drop it down the back of his trousers. Once down, he sloshed his way back out of the room without so much as a nod of gratitude!
Aunt Ada, mortified with embarrassment, went to the piano and, indifferent concert singer that she was, sang a song in which she wished she were a tiny bird.
As my father said in his autobiography, ‘had this unlikeliest of wishes been realised, I imagine that she would have flown away, in all probability as far as the Pyramids!’
As well as the family at Christmas, there were friends: Denise Robins and her three daughters, Eve, Pat and Ann (destined, if Denise had her way, to marry us three), followed by barristers, judges, lawyers, painters, writers, musicians and actors.
At dinner we ate ourselves to a standstill with Kate the cook being continually summoned from the kitchen to settle ‘society’ arguments such as one between Aunt Decima and a sparring partner as to which
daughter of the Duke of Chatsby had married that South African ‘hobbledehoy’s’ son? Kate, whose knowledge of society was encyclopaedic, pondered for a second, then in her soft Highland lilt rattled off the whole of the discussed Duke’s family tree in a twinkling finishing with ‘and will that be all madam?’ On receiving an affirmative, she gave a quick bob and was away to her own domain to send up more ‘cuckoo-spit’ pudding and other such delights.
I remember with nostalgia the sight of my father with nervous paper hat from a cracker jammed splitting on his head, involved in a heated political discussion with a guest wearing an equally stupid hat. There are few things more ludicrous than the sight of two grown men locked in verbal combat, completely unaware that they are sporting silly paper hats!
*
Sometimes in the evening, Dad asked, ‘Who’d like to see some “All-In” Wrestling?’
‘We would!’ we cried enthusiastically, and as one man piled into our gangster-like Chrysler and headed for ‘The Ring’, Blackfriars. This was a very unsalubrious area in those days and young villainy was rife. Pity the poor motorist unwise enough to leave his car unattended in that part of London! As soon as one arrived there, small boys would appear out of every dark alleyway. ‘Guard yer car fer yer, Guvnor?’ they asked, threateningly, implying that if you were stupid enough to reject their kind offer, your car would not be operable by the time you returned. Flat tyres, scratched paintwork, sugar in the petrol tank. You name it – for persuasiveness, they had it. ‘How much?’ Dad would ask.
‘Half-a-crown,’ replied urchin-in-chief. ‘But could yer see me now, Guv, I might not be ’ere by the time yer get back.’
On the face of it, this seemed an utterly pointless arrangement, for as soon as the half-a-crown changed hands, the recipient would be off to the nearest ‘chippy’ for a ‘nosh-up’.
But the surprising thing was, that in all the years we visited ‘The Ring’ once a ‘guarding bargain’ has been struck, not so much as a fingermark was to be found upon the car under contract and ever since those days I’ve become a believer, albeit reluctantly, that there is a certain honour amongst thieves.
