Oxford University

by Ed Nelson

  “That it is.”

  I wasn’t about to mention the KGB and my relationship with them, he just thought we were some family.

  He held me to the drinks later in the week, but at least he didn’t say anything to the others.

  I made one small error. I left home without a handkerchief. That was no big deal. I sneezed and had to blow my nose. I felt a bar napkin in my pocket and used it. That was the end of my part ownership of the Beatles. They later sent me my money back along with an offer to buy me out.

  I replied that I had accidently destroyed my copy but they still made the offer of buying me out or the same amount I loaned them. I agreed and we had real paperwork made out so it was legal. I would have a story of my own in future years. They also all signed a copy of their first album for me.

  Another weekend I spent at Bill Benton’s house in Yorkshire. The way he had first described where he lived I thought of a dreary suburb of an industrial town. His parent’s estate was larger than The Meadows.

  The house was about the same age as The Meadows and had been updated with modern amenities. That meant a shower and flush toilets. An electric refrigerator had just been installed and was the wonder of the town. I guess the local butcher was right put out about it.

  I don’t know why they would eat the same amount they always had. When I saw the kitchen maid who went to the butcher it was all clear. I would have been put out to. She was too old for me but what a looker.

  I talked to her at one point and found out that looks were all she had going for her. She was as dumb as the mounting block at the front gate.

  Earlier Bill had taken me aside and told me, “My Dad will probably approach you for money for one of his hairbrained schemes. Whatever you do don’t commit to giving him any. He had been swindled so many times. Yet he always falls for the next one. The only reason we aren’t in the poor house is that Mum is the one that brought money to the marriage and she keeps control of it.”

  “Thanks for the heads up, I will be careful.”

  “Dads, not a bad sort, he is just the eternal optimist, and he feels he can take a shortcut to get rich. I think it is because Mum brought a fortune to the family he thinks that he has to do the same. Yet it would never occur to him to go into business or work.”

  His father reminded me of David Niven. His mother had her own unique look that reminded me of Anna Romanov. Not that she looked at all like her but she had class. A tall blonde with blue eyes obviously a Scandinavian background. She looked like class and acted like it, but not over the top or better than you. She was pleasant and showed a direct interest in me as a person. It was not just me; she was like that with everyone.

  Within half an hour of arriving at the house, Bill’s Dad asked if he could have a word. Bracing myself I accompanied him to his office. He started with a name, “Andrea Doria.” This was a famous Italian cruise ship that sank around 1956. I remember a little about it, but not much.

  “Sir Richard we have a wonderful opportunity. A method has been developed to raise the Andrea Doria. The safe in first class will have over a hundred million pounds worth of jewelry alone. Who knows what it may be worth?”

  “May I ask how this will be done?”

  “In brief cables run under the ship attached to floatation devices.”

  In my mind, a bunch of problems prevented this. Getting cables passed under the wreck. How many cables would be required? How large would the floatation devices have to be? Actually, I had read about this method in Popular Mechanics.

  Their conclusion was that while theoretically possible it would not be practical as it would take hundreds of cables to support the 29,000-ton ship without it breaking up. Not to mention the danger of that many dives at that depth.

  “I have read about this method before and it was concluded that it was not possible.”

  “Come, boy, where is your sense of adventure. Prove that it can be done and become fabulously rich in the process. Why for every pound invested you will receive a thousand back.”

  “I could use five thousand pounds.”

  “You only have five pounds to spare?”

  “Yes Sir, I have an allowance till the end of term and I’m afraid it will run out.”

  “Never mind I thought you had access to real money.”

  “I’m sorry Sir.”

  At that, he pulled out his wallet and insisted that I take twenty pounds!”

  Now I really felt bad, I had lied to him and now he was giving me money. I didn’t know how to handle that so I thanked him and hunted Bill up. I told him what happened and he shook his head.

  “That’s my Dad.”

  I tried to hand him the twenty pounds but he wouldn’t take the money which was gifted to me.

  We went out in Leeds on Saturday night with several of Bill’s friends. I insisted on paying for drinks until the twenty pounds was spent. They were a fun group and there were several girls in the mix.

  The pub was crowded so some of the girls chose to sit on boy’s laps. Stella sat on mine. Having her close like that was a wonderful feeling. She may not have been the best looking girl in the room but she felt the best. I had to do multiplication tables several times during the evening.

  I did get a steamy goodnight kiss but that was it. While not exciting I will always have kind thoughts about Leeds.

  Another weekend I spent in Scotland with Steve Stewart. I hadn’t thought about what his house would look like. I must have had a Highland Castle in mind, so the three-bedroom bungalow was a surprise. His parents were really nice ordinary people and we had a good time.

  Saturday night Steve and I went to a pub in Edinburgh with some of his friends. Since they were from his rugby club I didn’t let any of them sit on my lap. Not that they would have. It was a drink up, play darts, and get pissed. I once again proved that being born in England did not make you a great dart player. I had one pint and switched to coke so I was able to get us back to Steve’s place.

  His Dad was waiting up and I thought we were going to get it now. Instead, he just helped me pour Steve into bed. I guess the Scotts like their drink and don’t mind the consequences.

  Chapter 35

  School and life went on. I was enjoying the routine. Even calculus was coming under control. It would never be my favorite subject but I could now sing the tune. Heh, about the only tune I could really sing no matter what people thought.

  And people did have weird thoughts. Mr. Sinatra released our duet of the Coffee Pot song and it became a hit, it rose to number two in three weeks but never made number one on the American side. For some reason the Brits liked it and it made number one for three weeks in a row. Thankfully it died a natural death soon after.

  The guys tried to get me to sing it at the pub and I told them I would if they could get Frank Sinatra to join me. I never did have to sing there.

  May Day or May 1st was a hoot at Oxford. The campuses and a good part of the city turned into a huge street fair. People came from all over the country. There were the Maypoles with traditional dances. There were Morris dancers everywhere.

  Hymnus Eucharisticus was sung by the choir atop Magdalen Tower at sunrise. The tower was so tall you couldn’t hear the choir up top so they held up a sign to say when the choir was done so we could applaud. This was followed by twenty minutes of bell ringing, not the tower but a group with handbells.

  When that was finished Morris dancers collected the crowd and led a procession across the Magdalen Bridge and down High Street to Radcliffe Park where they commenced dancing.

  That was at sunrise, we had been at it all night. We had breakfast at 4:00 am at Taylors on High Street. The pubs were open all this time so the crowd was feeling no pain. I stuck with coffee as I was losing a night’s sleep.

  We had dressed for the occasion. My face was green and my hair looked like branches of a tree. My robe looked like the bark of a tree. I looked like I was the Green Man stepping out of Beltane into the world.

  It is a wonde
r what a makeup artist hired from Warner Brothers at Leavesden can do. It cost a mint but was well worth it. With my height, I really stood out. I spent a good amount of my time posing with people for their pictures. It was good fun.

  For my efforts I was given a lot of kisses, for the record it was all women, but of all ages, sizes, and shapes. I recognized them later by the green smudges on the cheeks. I had a small jar of the green cream to refresh my look.

  The guys took the easy way out and wore robes to make them look like Druids accompanying me, their faces were painted blue and they wore circlets of flowers. We were a hit.

  I burned out right after lunch and retreated to my garage. There I took a nap and then drove home. There I took a shower with green running everywhere. After that was finished I dressed casually for dinner. Grand Mum was not the stickler that Mum had become.

  Grand Mum worried that the Viscountess business might go to her head. I disagreed Mum would never forget who she was, or where she came from. She was an actor and was performing as expected. I know the beast.

  After dinner, I put on my RAF mess dress with medals and escorted Iris Butler to a ball at her school. Her boyfriend was out of town on business and sent his regrets. He was the one that suggested I escort her. We had a good time and I got to dance with a lot of different girls. My gongs and how I had earned them were a topic of conversation. It kept the subject away from me the actor and rich guy.

  I slept in the next day. It was a Monday but I didn’t care about classes. When I asked later I found out that neither did any of my Dons as none of them showed up.

  Mum and Denny’s birthday were both on May 19. For Mum, I had shipped to her a complete Scottish outfit I had seen in Edinburgh. It was in the Jackson tartan and included the kilt, blouse, sash, tam, sporran, the long socks, shoes, and what I knew she would like best a Sgian Dubh.

  I bought Denny a more prosaic German Hasselblad camera. While I considered it prosaic it was arguably the best camera in the world.

  Mary’s birthday was on May 28 a week later. What do you get a young lady that is turning six and already has been in movies and on TV and has her own line of clothing? It was easy, with Mum and Dad’s permission I had the State Coach refurbished and then pictures taken.

  The pictures were staged with it being pulled with six white horses and our staff in livery alongside. She was promised a ride when she came to England, of course, that wouldn’t be until the summer school break. In the meantime, Grand Mum was getting out and about to the local bingo hall so we all dressed up one mild evening in May and took her to bingo in style.

  They would be talking in the bingo hall about that for years. While we were parading along people came out of the stores to see what was happening. She leaned out the window and gave the Queen’s wave. That little side by side motion they make. It was a hoot.

  Of course, pictures were taken and sent to the papers. The scandal sheets said it was a sendup of the Queen and disgraceful. The more staid Times reported it as good clean fun. Someone actually got a quote from Elizabeth.

  “If my coach breaks down maybe they will lend me theirs.”

  When I wasn’t flying for the Messenger Service I was flying my own plane every weekend. A trip to the guy’s house for the weekend was a flying trip, with a ride arranged from the local airport. I was doing the tourist thing as much as possible.

  I would fly to Dublin and rent a car and end up kissing the Blarney Stone. Next weekend it would be to Cologne to see the Cathedral. Man, it was big, I felt like an ant. Then it was down to Aachen to see Charlemagne’s iron crown and drink from the public water fountain which had been flowing for over two thousand years.

  Then I went back to the Louvre to spend some realtime there and Notre Dame. Sometimes I had company but many times not. The touring explains how I ended up in Cannes one week in May. As an actor with films in release and one about to be released, I was invited. I had called Mr. Monroe and asked him about the festival.

  He told me to go and enjoy myself but have no expectation as none of my films were entered as they were crass commercial products. They were deemed as having no artistic value and those who worked on them as common tradesmen.

  I couldn’t wait. What a chance to see world-class arrogance up close!

  What I found was a bunch of overinflated egos who attended boring parties to talk about themselves. I guess that is what made them boring. I wasn’t invited to that many events or even the ones considered upscale. My title did get me into enough of them to know that this would be my first and only festival.

  I stayed in Nice as that was as close as I could find a room for the weekend. It was only seventeen miles. I stayed at the Hotel Negro. Even there it took a phone call from my concierge at the Plaza in London to the hotel to secure a room. Who knows what sort of horse trade was done for that.

  It was across the street from the Mediterranean. I was going to lie out on the beach as my California tan was now a distant memory. When I saw the black rocks that they called a beach I decided that was not the best idea. I did sit and look at the scenery for quite a while. Did you know they go topless in France?

  I had arrived Friday morning and by Sunday afternoon I had had enough of the in-crowd. I had thought about staying over until Monday even skipping class to do so. It shows how bad it was that I skipped the festival events to go to a lecture on calculus. Getting drunk and throwing up in the street wasn’t my idea of a good time.

  There was another downside to the festival. Producers were there looking for money for their next picture. The word was out that I had some money, thank goodness not how much, and I was approached on three different projects.

  As politely as I could I told them as a minor all my funds went into a trust. So I lied. Much later I recognized one of those as actually making it to the screen. It was a total bomb.

  Then there were the so-called actresses. I don’t talk about it much but I do get propositioned on occasion by women who are washed up or want to get into the industry. They are easy to recognize and scare the heck out of me. Run Rick, run.

  I think my perfect girl would have the elegance of Anna Romanov, the beauty of Sharon Bronson, and the personality of a smalltown Ohio girl. What were my chances of finding that?

  When I got home from school that Friday there was a note to call Mr. Norman no matter the time. I called him immediately. The RAF had ordered me as a seconded flight officer to appear at Barkston Heath tomorrow morning at ten hundred hours in the Queens Messenger plane. There would be an Air Marshal Steed waiting at flight operations. No other information was available.

  With a little trepidation, I flew to Barkston Heath on time for my meeting with Air Marshal Steed. He was waiting for me as told. A big bluff hardy sort of guy, he would have looked good in a Walrus mustache. Well as good as any guy could look.

  I reported in as per the RAF procedure.

  “Well, at least you know how to report. Now, do you know how to fly?”

  I must have looked puzzled because he added, “I have heard many things about you as a boy wonder, except what sort of pilot you are. I want to check you out today.”

  My thought was that someone had too much time on their hands, but of course, my response was, “Yes Sir.”

  We went out to the Greyhound and I performed a walk around as though I had never seen the aircraft before. Lucky for me the wings hadn’t fallen off or the tires went flat in the last fifteen minutes.

  Since my fuel state was good we entered the aircraft and again I pretended this was a true check ride, it might be for all I knew.

  Receiving permission I taxied to the runway and went through all the radio chatter that was appropriate to take off.

  After we were in the air the Air Marshal gave me instructions on where and how to fly. It was virtually the same as all my previous check rides in this aircraft type. We flew around for forty-five minutes and the Air Marshal told me to get us on the ground as quick as I could.

  I asked if i
t was an emergency and he said no, he was satisfied that I could fly and to get him back down quickly as he had things to do.

  I radioed the control tower and asked for permission to land immediately at the Air Marshal’s request. I was given clearance to land on runway 06 at once.

  Now I was little resentful for having to go through this exercise so I took the Air Marshal at his word and got him down quickly. I landed on runway 06 the same way I had in the California brush fire. Dive bombed down, flared out as fast as I could and set it down hot, and then jammed the brakes and airfoils to a complete stop.

  It felt like we had dove into the earth but somehow ended up sitting on the runway.

  “Was that fast enough Sir,” I asked as though butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth.

  The Air Marshal was working his jaw as though to speak but nothing was coming out.

  Finally, “That will be all.”

  I dropped him off at flight operations. I had to go in and file a flight plan for my return to Oxford. I wondered what that had been all about.

  A Squadron Leader approached me, “I saw that landing you gave old Steed. He is probably in the loo about now. Well done.”

  “I hope he won’t get too upset.”

  “Did you notice Air Marshal Steed does not have his pilot wings. He is purely administrative and hates anyone that can fly. I think he was trying to find something to use as a complaint about you.”

  “I just followed his order to get him down as quickly as I could.”

  “The tower has noted that he gave that order so you won’t have any problems there.”

  After that, we introduced ourselves.

  “Oh by the way Rick, never try a stunt like that under my command, you could have torn the wings off.”

  “No disrespect Sir but the plane is built for it, and I have done precisely that once before.”

  “Do you have time for lunch?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Fine I will buy and you can tell me about the last time you did that landing. It must be quite a story to tell.”

  At lunch, we were joined by three other officers and I told them about the brush fire in California and how the FAA was upset until they realized I knew the aircraft’s capabilities.