What has 22 legs and one ball? A women’s hockey XI.
Thought for the week: ‘Life is only made worth living by three things; to be writing a moderately good book, to be in a dinner party for six, and to be travelling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.’ Cyril Connolly.
Chez Nidnod (Sans any bloody heating)
16 November 1978
I have just been treating myself to a course of Balzac paperbacks. I was taught to enjoy Balzac at Eton in 1927 and even won a small prize for my knowledge of his book ‘Une Ténébreuse Affaire’, greatly to the surprise of the master concerned. I also developed a fancy for Maupassant after translating his Franco-Prussian War stories at the age of 15. His story ‘The Two Friends’ still makes me blub a bit. It was at Eton that I developed a liking for the poetry of Housman, the master in question being, I am fairly sure, unaware that the author’s affection for Shropshire Lads was not of an entirely innocent nature and that his deeply homosexual feelings were the mainspring of his poetical outpourings. I believe Housman, a tall bachelor with a military moustache and the foremost Cambridge classicist of his time, was a very formidable character indeed and not at all the type of man one would have expected to be in love with a corporal in the Shropshire Light Infantry.
Budds Farm
23 June [late 1960s]
I am sorry you detect fascist tendencies in me but of course ‘fascist’ can mean anyone to the right of Cohn-Bendit. It’s just one of those words like ‘democratic’, ‘liberty’ and ‘truth’ that have different meanings according to the user. In my opinion students who deny freedom of speech to those whose views differ from their own and who use violence against political opponents qualify as fascists (Mark 1). They are hideously reminiscent in behaviour of Hitler’s supporters in the struggle for power in Germany forty years ago. It is really sad to see young people with such closed minds. Luckily our ‘protesters’ are much softer physically than those ghastly Nazi thugs who really were tough and would have eaten the entire left wing of the LSE before breakfast without noticing it. I remember the shock I got when I first saw the SS Division ‘Adolf Hitler’. Enormous, mindless, blond giants, dedicated to violence and very good at it too, what’s more. Older generations that have had to take on Germans in two world wars find it difficult to regard even the most violent of our ‘protesters’ as anything but puerile and 98 per cent harmless.
Yours ever
RM
Daniel Cohn-Bendit was a German anarchist activist and the prominent front man in anti-government student riots in Paris in 1968.
Chateau Marcuse
Cohn-Bendit
Deauville
France
1960s
Over here, the dockers, who don’t do all that badly on a weekly minimum take-home of £35, are being as bloody-minded as ever with total disregard for the precarious economic state of the country. In greed and ignorance they almost match some business tycoons that I know, but not quite.
The dockers’ strikes affected England and France in the 1960s.
Schloss Buddestein
Worms
[1973]
I was reading yesterday of a vague and elderly Dean who went to preach a sermon to the boys at Winchester. Unfortunately in his usual muddled way, he embarked on a sermon destined for a small rural community. The boys were apparently quite surprised when he started off, ‘All of you have hands horny with toil and many of you are mothers.’ On another occasion he meant to start his sermon with the words, ‘It is my half-formed wish’. A ragged cheer went up when he intoned, ‘It is my half-warmed fish.’
Budds Farm
25 July [early 1970s]
What times we live in! A General Strike – Civil War even – is well on the way. I have started to despise my own country and to dislike most of my fellow countrymen. Odi profanum vulgus et arceo (I hate the unholy rabble and keep them away – Horace). It will be amusing, if the revolution comes, to find ourselves on opposite sides! I can picture you as Vivandière to Che Guevara Highgate Commandos while I shall be serving in a minor capacity with the Burghclere Blimps.
The 1970s was a troubled and discouraging decade in Britain and my father was in a regular state of apoplexy. I could have been up for the role of vivandière – a female supplier of military provisions.
The Old Troutery
30 January [early 1970s]
I think the decline of this once great country set in when people started to use the term ‘students’ in place of ‘undergraduates’. Until recently I had always thought of ‘students’ as squalling Arabs overturning trams in Alexandria or members of a quasi secret society planning to do something unspeakable to the Minister of the Interior in Zagreb.
Chez Nidnod
Burghclere
[Late 1970s]
Do you remember Lady Knox in ‘The Irish RM’ saying she disapproved of gardening for young girls as ‘it promoted intimacy with dowagers’?
Budds Farm
Monday [late 1960s]
It is bitterly cold and snowing hard, bringing to mind my favourite lines from Wordsworth:
Life has its problems for us all.
Our dreams must go beyond recall,
The future’s chill and black.
The girl I loved was so cross-eyed
That every single time she cried
The tears ran down her back.
The Sunday Times
31 October 1973
I have just received an enormous tome called (God knows why) ‘The Pearl of Days’ and dealing with the history of the Sunday Times. As an exercise in crawling up the arses of their employers, the authors win the Nobel Peace Prize for 1973 and probably 1974 as well. If one did not know Lord Thomson and his henchmen to be a posse of ruthless financial cut-throats, one might regard them after reading this as next in line for canonisation. As for H. Evans, the pinchbeck radical who carries out the function of editor, he is made to seem the equal of the great Delane of the Times whereas, cardwise, he is roughly the four of clubs. I found it unattractive in the book that the sexual eccentricities of former employees were exposed and ridiculed. There are members of the current hierarchy who would look fairly comic if their propensities had been revealed in the same way. I have written a letter to the Sunday Times thanking them for the book and giving my opinion of it. It will not make me more unpopular with the trendy back-stabbing mob than I am already.
Best love,
xx D
Never a fan of Harold Evans, then editor of the Sunday Times, Roger was spared working under the Rupert Murdoch regime to come! A mere reader, I enjoyed the paper under Harold Evans.
Budds Farm
Thursday [late 1970s]
Did you ever read Harry Graham’s poem on the dangers of being bright at breakfast time, featuring a row between a Rural Dean and a Bishop? As far as I can remember, the Dean was having a peaceful meal:
Perusing as he munched his toast
The Anglican or Churchman’s Post,
When in there walked to his distress
The Bishop of the Diocese.
The Bishop is intolerably breezy and a row ensues, ending in blows:
Until at last the luckless Dean
Slipped on a pat of margarine,
The Bishop took a careful shot
And stunned him with a mustard pot.
14b Via Dolorosa
Burghclere
Sunday [late 1970s]
I’m sorry for the poor old boy in the Foreign Office who is accused of being a paedophile (?), a word almost unknown to me: I thought it was a form of chiropodist. Of course he’s a dirty old man (aren’t we all?). In a perfect world all sexual desires would fade peacefully away at 45; the trouble is that people are beset by powerful sexual desires long, long after they themselves have ceased to be sexually desirable.
Budds Farm
[Early 1970s]
Thought for the week: ‘Naturally a doll who is willing to listen instead of wanting to g
ab herself is bound to be popular because if there is anything most citizens hate and despise it is a gabby doll.’ D. Runyon.
The Bracket
Much Slumbering
Beds
[Early 1970s]
I read the Labour Party Manifesto today. I rather resent the obvious contempt the compilers feel for the intelligence of potential supporters; but no doubt they have good reason for that particular sentiment.
The Maudlings
Heathcote Amory
Berks
[1970]
The election is really very comic. The new Minister of Transport is John Peyton, once engaged to your dear mother! At the Board of Trade is my old POW friend Fred Corfield, known to all as ‘Dungy Fred’. Your mother and I motored unwilling residents of Burghclere to the polling station and made them vote Tory, rather against their desires and convictions. Conservative majority in our constituency up from 3,000 to 10,000.
Edward Heath became Conservative Prime Minister.
Budds Farm
[1973]
I know you like riddles. Yes, you do and please don’t argue.
Q. What is the technical term for two rows of cabbages?
A. A duel cabbage-way
Good, isn’t it?
Budds Farm
28 March [1970s]
This week’s thought: ‘Love is blind but sight is restored by marriage.’
‘Bangla Desh’
Burghclere
4 December 1971
A Colonel Walker I used to know in the Army was barbarously murdered last night by IRA savages. I was at the ‘Sunday Times’ office today and spoke rather sharply about their soft, arse-crawling attitude to the IRA. When I said the paper was becoming known as ‘The Quislings’ Gazette’ there was rather a nasty silence. No doubt within twelve seconds of my leaving the office, one of my lovely little liberal colleagues was off to report me to H. Evans, Middlesbrough pygmy. However, I doubt if they can sack me for my political views. I hope not, anyway.
The Geriatric Ward
Budds Farm Eventide Home for Indigent Members of the Middle Class
[Early 1970s]
I went up to London on Monday and had a superb lunch with Lanson Frères in Manchester Square. The white wine was unforgettable. When the repast drew to a close at 4 p.m. I decided to walk to my club and found myself in Carnaby St where I was sold an obscene magazine and an improbable necktie. Just for a nice sit-down I entered a cinema showing a Swedish ‘love’ film. It was rather less erotic than a pair of bicycling clips and I sank into a deep sleep. On emerging I met Twitch who was in good form and we had some refreshing drinks. I then went to dinner at the ‘Sportsman’s Club’, Tottenham Court Road, this joint being owned by a character called Eric Morley and looking like a combination of a Roman Catholic Church in a backward area and one of the more expensive Neapolitan brothels. The browsing and sluicing were quite good and I had agreeable types on either side. The speeches, though, were interminable and in lamentable taste, combining the maximum obscenity with the minimum of wit.
Love,
xx D
Budds Farm
[1973]
We forgot to sing the following at dinner the other night:
Oh that gorgonzola cheese,
Never over-healthy I suppose,
The old tom cat fell dead upon the mat
When the sniff went up his nose-ose-ose-ose.
Talking about the flavour of the crackling of the pork,
Nothing could have been so strong
As the terrible effluvia that filled our house
When the gorgonzola cheese went wrong.
(Traditional)
c/o Bishop of York
Ebor Castle
York
[1970s]
Here I am in this ancient city at present rendered vile by coach loads of elderly Americans, all with expensive cameras slung round the neck and not a sex kitten among them. The food here is typical of ‘Hotel Anglais’. I hate this part of the world; all the men look like Michael Parkinson. I always have pyrophobia in places like this and can find no fire escape. I am all for cremation but not when alive, if you please.
Castle Gloom
Burghclere
7 February 1974
I hate elections and all the lies and bullshit. I don’t think it matters which party gets in as this country is just about done for, rotten from top to bottom. For years we have thought the world owes us a living and now we are tottering on the edge of revolution and bankruptcy. If any tough, well-organised and determined minority group tried to seize power now it would probably succeed. The mass of British people would be too wet to leave their television sets and resist. The situation is very like 1939 – 95 per cent of the country were appeasers then and chose to take the view that if Hitler was given Danzig or Austria or Czechoslovakia, he would be quite happy and show himself to be a terribly decent chap afterwards. The attitude now is ‘give way to the miners and they’ll be ever so pleased. If we stand up to them it will annoy them and we might well be the subject of certain discomforts.’ The plain fact is that if a constitutional government yields to a militant minority to secure short term peace, then the democratic system has had it and we are on the way to a dictatorship of the extreme left or the extreme right. I really think I would emigrate if I could think of anywhere to emigrate to! In the meantime I shall be interested to see the line taken by windy little fence-sitters like the editor of the Sunday Times. He’d rather like to go Labour but is nervous about the advertisers. If the Conservatives get in, I think we shall have general strikes and bloodshed. If Wislon gets in, we shall see a mass surrender to militancy, penal taxation for the bourgeois, and the end of this country as I’ve known it. Wislon’s backers are far more left-wing than they were and Wedgehead Benn fancies his chances as Trotsky while Michael Foot would make a merry Robespierre.
Best love,
xx D
Here we go again! Wislon was Private Eye’s soubriquet for Labour leader Harold Wilson. Michael Foot – intellectual on the left wing of the Labour party – later became its leader (1980–83). He was famous for his informal dress – a donkey jacket.
c/o The Official Receiver
29/31 Carey Street
London EC2
16 October 1974
I have just been writing to my local MP, upbraiding the Tories for cowardice and panic in turning on Heath immediately after an election in which the party, all things considered, did reasonably well. I agree that on TV Heath is slightly less attractive than cold boiled mutton; that women refuse to forgive his reputation for total sexual inactivity; yet in sheer ability he is far above most members of the party. He is honourable, tough and reasonably shrewd. However, in this era of hideous crisis, there are people who would apparently prefer a genial TV personality to a man of nearly first-rate ability.
Goodbye to the Conservatives and hello again to Harold Wilson. Heath’s defeat paved the way for Margaret Thatcher.
Les Deux Gagas
Bonkersville
Berks
[1974]
If Barbara Castle has her way, and she will, members of the middle class will not be allowed to spend their savings (if any) on expiring in privacy, a privilege that most animals demand. There is, alas, no bolt hole left for elderly rats like myself. I think I have got out of racing just in time; in a couple of years there may not be any, at the rate things are going. The newspaper world is in a state of acute nervousness. The Daily Express may not last much longer and the Observer is just kept afloat by subsidies from the Astors. The Manchester Evening News stops the Guardian from going under. Worst of all, the stinking corrupt National Union of Journalists is trying to destroy what liberty the newspapers now possess. It will be typical of Michael Foot, who always proclaims his deep love of liberty, if he becomes the instrument that ultimately destroys a fundamental liberty. There is no place in the modern world for the reasonable man. It is the age of bloodthirsty fanatics imposing their will o
n an inert majority.
As the late Mr Gibbon observed, ‘What is history but a catalogue of the crimes, follies and miseries of mankind.’
xx RFM
Fiery, long-serving Labour MP and minister, Barbara Castle, was just the woman to ruin my father’s repose as he read the papers at the breakfast table.
14b Via Dolorosa
Burghclere
[Mid 1970s]
I wonder if we are going to have a revolution in January. I could rather fancy death at the head of a platoon of bourgeois reactionaries charging the inmates of the London School of Economics with fixed bayonets. What a mess this country is in. Of course Hitler had to be crushed, but apart from that, most of my friends who were killed in the war would reckon they had died in vain. One of the few leading statesmen I know observed the other day that we are a nation of lemmings rushing blindly towards our own destruction. He said it was quite impossible to have a conversation with union leaders like Scanlon and Gormley. They just wanted to bring the government down and did not care if the country was ruined in the process. They don’t give a damn about miners’ pay. The total breakdown of the established order is their true objective. I had dinner last week with Mr Ray Gunter, a former Welsh miner and ex-Minister of Labour. He is under no illusion about the aims of the more militant members of his own party.
The Gadarene swine were a thoughtful and reasonable set of individuals compared to most of our delightful fellow-countrymen. Such is the political climate that even H. Wislon seems quite nice.
The Olde Lazar House
Burghclere
12 January [1980s]
It was evening at the factory,
Old Gasper’s work was done,
And W. D. and H. O. Wills sat smoking in the sun.
Before them scampered on the green,
Their little grandchild Nicotine.
Insolvency Lodge
Burghclere
29 August 1976
As I was waiting at Newbury Station yesterday, an ambulance came roaring up and a man was removed from a 1st class non-smoker who had just cut his throat from ear to ear. I have sometimes thought of doing the same thing myself on this particular line.
Dearest Jane... Page 27
