Freddie Mercury: An intimate memoir by the man who knew him best

by Peter Freestone

  Freddie plunged headlong into this new design project. He could never have only had one property. He had far too much furniture, far too many pictures and furnishings to put into one building and to a certain extent he was a hoarder. Like so many of us, he hated throwing things away. This reminds me of the occasions like Christmas and birthdays when he received so many gifts which, as they revealed themselves on being unwrapped, we would declare to be a “Loft job!” This verdict meant that under no circumstances would it be thrown away but merely that there was absolutely no place for it in any design scheme in any of his households. Instead, the gift was relegated to the capacious space in Garden Lodge’s loft.

  There was a delay on Freddie’s moving in caused by the resolving of certain issues in the lease but this didn’t stop him making elaborate plans and going on shopping sprees to furnish the place. Once again, Rupert Cavendish’s shop was patronised for it was from here that the apartment’s dining room antique Biedermeyer furniture came. I was also dispatched on several occasions to Sotheby’s and Christie’s Auction Rooms in search of furniture and paintings while Freddie pursued one of his favourite pastimes which was scouring the catalogues of all the forthcoming auctions in the world. I can evidence the fact that things are bought on the telephone at auction for once I was that person, bidding for a painting by Burgess which Freddie wanted in a New York sale.

  There was an Empire suite of drawing room furniture which I bid for and secured at Sotheby’s which went straight to the upholsterer and restorer for ultimate installation in the Montreux apartment. Freddie spent as much on its renovation as he did on its purchase but the end result was absolutely stunning and the furniture eventually arrived in Montreux only to be sat on once or twice.

  Freddie loved catalogues because there were lots of pictures and little need to read any text unless the picture caught his eye. Freddie was not a reader. I couldn’t tell you the title of anyone book which Freddie ever read. His attention span wasn’t long enough for him to get stuck into a novel. His boredom threshold was very, very low and his time was too precious, in his terms, to be spent reading when you could get the answer to your questions a lot easier by asking someone. Perhaps because his life wasn’t ‘normal’, he wasn’t going to derive any excitement from reading about anyone else’s ‘normal’ life.

  Beds and bedding he always bought wherever he was. I remember going to Bloomingdales to buy all the bedlinen after he had secured the New York apartment. Similarly, all the beds and bedlinen were bought in Montreux for the apartment there. By the time of his last visit, the place was fully furnished although none of his projected structural alterations were ever begun.

  Chapter Five

  I am suddenly reminded that one of my purposes in writing this book has been to attempt to dispel some of the more outlandish rumours which have become associated with the life of this sometimes very ordinary man whose own life unintentionally touched the lives of millions. I could have written a whole book merely by dissecting all the other books which have been written and refuting the incorrect assertions and the falsehoods, whether intentional or not. Rather than be so schoolmasterly, I have decided that one of the ways to best achieve my aim is to go into some detail about Freddie’s everyday life as he lived it. In thinking about this final section, I am primarily reminded about Freddie’s contradictory attraction to conflict. I don’t mean confrontation but the sort of conflict which only he instigated. It seemed to be a need which permeated almost every aspect of his life. It was almost as though he needed a fight to jump-start his motor so that he could get to grips with living. Like Don Quixote, another legend, Freddie was quite capable of dreaming up windmills to tilt at. I suppose, therefore, I was his Sancho. As he always said to me, “You can never say that life with me is boring.”

  That much is true but, as you will now see, life with Freddie could at times be very predictable. As much as he disliked being so, he was inevitably wrapped up in a cocoon by his mere circumstances and required a confrontation of one sort or another to start the day and connect him to a real world.

  Luckily, most days, all that was required was a quick flick through the newspapers. We regularly used to get the Sun, the Mirror, the Mail, the Express and the Guardian, the broadsheet which the house glanced at, although Joe, to give him his due, was the one who would study its columns in depth.

  One of the first jobs we had in the morning was to go through the papers on the off-chance that something had slipped through without Roxy Meade from Queen’s PR company – Scott Riseman Lipsey Meade – notifying us. When something unauthorised was found, Freddie would come out with some remark like, “Not that old chestnut!”

  By the mid-Eighties there was little about Queen or Freddie that hadn’t already been published in one format or another. On the subject of the press and its organs, Freddie never wasted too much emotional time. The papers were just something that appeared everyday. He didn’t particularly follow anything that happened on the news, either in the press or on television. Very rarely did he specifically ask for the television to be tuned in for the news. I think in his opinion, if a news story was important enough, television programmes would be interrupted so that the public could be kept abreast.

  As far as representatives of the press were concerned, Freddie knew that if he spoke to any of them off the record as ‘a friend’, people like Nina Myskow or David Wigg, that nothing he said would be printed. He was also aware that if he was to give an interview to either David or Nina as well as anybody else, that they could usually not be held responsible for what was actually, ultimately printed. However logical his assessment might have been, the emotional reaction when he was mis-reported was predictably volcanic: “What do they know! Fuck ’em!”

  On many occasions, he gave what he believed to be a reasonable interview. On one specific occasion, after much trying, David Wigg secured an interview with Freddie on the understanding that it would be centre page with a couple of decent pictures. In the end, the piece appeared as two-and-a-half columns of re-interpreted text, the reason being that the features editor had apparently decided that there wasn’t enough space for the length of the original article. It was this last interview with David Wigg that deterred Freddie from giving any interviews from then on even though David had showed him the original text which Freddie approved. But that’s the power of editors… Although Freddie logically accepted that it was not David’s fault, the experience nevertheless put a spanner in the works of their friendship. Freddie never gave a newspaper interview afterwards.

  With regard to photographers, rather than going out of his way to avoid the then king of the British paparazzi, Richard Young, Freddie actually had photo sessions with him. Freddie liked the photos which Richard took and considering that Richard was a dedicated member of the press corps, Freddie and he had a very good relationship. When Freddie was attending any function where photographers were present, Freddie appreciated the fact that Richard’s friendly face would be at the forefront which would make him that little bit more at ease knowing that he had an ally to play to. He even invited Richard to the house specifically for a photo session and allowed Richard to include the resulting photographs of himself and his cats Oscar and Tiffany in one of Richard’s exhibitions.

  Critics fell into an altogether different category in Freddie’s estimation. He lumped them more or less all together. He believed that all critics were failed performers. Freddie was firmly of the opinion that performers are well able to criticise themselves. The performer knows what he or she is capable of producing and they will know when that performance wasn’t up to scratch. Freddie would not accept that a drama critic would see numerous performances and be able to put himself in the place of all the actors. To his mind, it was impossible – so how could a critic furnish a constructive criticism? All a critic could be left with at the end of any performance, in Freddie’s opinion, was a jealous perception of a phenomenon that the critic himself was unable to achieve. Freddie lumped all
critics in that category, a view with which I sometimes tend to have some sympathy. A critic/reviewer will always have to find some fault, something wrong with a work or a performance. Ninety-eight per cent of the review might be praise but there will always be that jarring criticism.

  For almost everything he went to see in the performing arts, Freddie believed that most performers gave a hundred per cent and therefore anything less than a hundred per cent praise was unbecoming. He was very generous as a performer and he knew what the person on stage was putting themselves through and so therefore could appreciate the blood, sweat and tears.

  By the same measure, Freddie also knew when a performer wasn’t giving a hundred per cent which is why he walked out of the theatre at the interval of Little Foxes in New York. He remembered Elizabeth Taylor being quoted about, “I have never claimed to be a great actress. I am a great movie star…”

  I think Freddie rather felt that if you weren’t a great actress then better not to be on the stage. While saying this, he, of course, adored her as a movie star.

  On this subject, as this is a very rambling section for which I crave your indulgence, there was an A-list of actresses whom he revered. Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg were almost at the top of this list because they essentially bridged all the media, something he himself started to do with his work with Montserrat. Although there were many, many other names on Freddie’s A-list, those which spring to mind now are Ava Gardner whose autograph he desperately craved and which, sadly, I failed by a matter of moments to secure. She left the Crush Bar at the Royal Opera House just a few moments before I could reach her clutching my ever-present paper and pen. Another one, whose autograph I did manage to get, was Honor Blackman.

  “Can you sign this for my friend Freddie,” I blurted out when I saw her by chance at a theatre pub in Maida Vale where my friend Adele Anderson was performing her one-woman show. She did and he was delighted and he stored it away in his bedside cabinet with all his other treasures in all those little silver boxes.

  He had a thing for little boxes, later in his life jewelled, enamelled boxes. In the bottom bedside drawers he stored the boxes that some of his Japanese porcelain had come in. Wooden boxes such as the ones used for sake bottles and cups. Little bits of favourite jewellery like brooches which he’d both bought and been given… Those personal documents and photographs that weren’t in the many frames dotted around the house which he would keep near him and which he would look at frequently. A few letters and a lot of cards which he’d received over the years and which had a special significance. I suppose they must still all be there somewhere because they were all so very personal to him and who else would realise their significance?

  But to return to the top of the day, if Freddie had a set time to be woken up on a specific day, one of us would take him a cup of tea, rather than a laid tray. Generally we’d find him lying in bed awake, planning his day. At this point either we would ask or he would let us know what he wanted for breakfast. This could vary from a couple of slices of toast and English marmalade to kachori, a sort of Indian version of scrambled eggs. Food was the only topic I ever heard him voice regarding the forbidden territory of his childhood. Other than kachori, there were several favourites; one was the drink falooda which was more like a milk shake, made of milk, rose water and a sort of red tapioca-sized confection balls which turned gelatinous when immersed in the milk; dhansak made with chicken, vegetables and dal was another favourite. I also made a few attempts at kulfi, the frozen ground almond dessert which is served in many Indian restaurants.

  Before he became ill, he adored spicy food, be it Indian, Mexican or Chinese, realising of course that because it is spicy does not mean it’s full of chillis. With his breakfast he would usually continue to drink tea. He was never really a coffee person. Occasionally he would have fruit juice but at any time during the day, not specially for breakfast.

  Any mail specifically or personally addressed to him would be left by his place at the kitchen table, the first sitting on the banquette. He would open mail carefully with a knife as he loathed paper cuts. He divided up the mail into that which required Mary’s attention as a secretary, copy mail from management or accountants we would file for him in paper folders which were kept in the big commode in the sitting room.

  Also in this drawer we would have to keep mail from ‘fans on the edge’. Let me explain…

  On two or three specific occasions, Freddie received a series of letters and cards from ‘fanatics’ as opposed to fans. We had been advised by the police to keep all such mail should any of these people attempt to carry out their threats. “I’m going to get you if you don’t acknowledge me…” was the general tenor of the contents. He would read them silently and then hand them over for us to read, saying as he did so, “Look, here’s another one…”

  It’s only thinking about it now while writing this that makes me realise that it’s another excess which he had to deal with in his personal life. It’s something I hope none of you will have to go through. Outwardly he handled the situation very well but who knows what was going on inside? He never burdened us with the problem.

  Regarding the mail which he wanted to answer personally, he would have a selection of cards which we had bought for him covering all occasions and the cards themselves ranged in taste and style from indescribably rude to those which were ‘suitable for mothers’. When he was in Japan, he would always buy a huge selection of cards for his own use and keep them in his bedside drawer. We would remind him of upcoming occasions amongst his friends and family which he needed to remember. He himself had a birthday book which included dates of birthdays and anniversaries of family and close friends which he always kept meticulously up-to-date.

  During or after breakfast he would inform us of his day’s schedule. Terry Giddings usually arrived between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock each day. On days when Freddie had appointments which we would all have known about in advance, Terry would be in much earlier but usually we all knew that Freddie would not be out of the house before eleven o’ clock.

  If he wasn’t going out, he would do very little. If it was a warm, sunny day he’d wander round the garden and then, at the eleventh hour, decide to invite people over to lunch. So, while one of us would get on the phone to the various people he’d want invited, the others would run out and buy the food he’d elected we were going to eat. Thor Arnold has reminded me of one luncheon occasion when Freddie demanded an al fresco lunch in the garden in honour of the American guests who were vacationing with us. One of the tables had been specially commissioned in sections and completed inside the kitchen, and had to be manoeuvred to get it outside. It proved impossible and so in the end, the large dining table which Freddie had brought from Stafford Terrace with the huge top of sheet glass was carried, heaved and manipulated out through the back door and on to as flat a place as we could find beneath one of the magnolia trees.

  On the subject of the garden, Freddie was a very keen amateur gardener although I must admit that his idea of gardening was looking through all the garden books and deciding what plants he wanted Jim Hutton to go out and buy. Jim was a passionate gardener and only wanted to make the grounds of Logan Place beautiful for Freddie. He was, after all, the official gardener and had no reason to be ashamed of the magnificent job he did despite Freddie employing a general jobbing assistant to do the weekly tidying. But, make no mistake, Jim’s was a real job. It was Jim who mowed the lawns and did the weeding. Jim who effected all Freddie’s designs and schemes. Jim adored gardening. He spent hour upon hour outside in it and did everything he could to keep it looking beautiful.

  Freddie and Jim once had one of their huge arguments which had something to do with the garden and Freddie said after Jim had stormed off, “Right! I’ll show him. I’m not useless!”

  I was duly dispatched to Rassell’s, the Kensington nurserymen, to pick up a vast assortment of petunias in colours which wouldn’t clash. Freddie had decided that he himself was go
ing to plant two urns of these bedding plants to stand outside the French doors of the Japanese room.

  Whist Jim was strategically absent, cooling off his frustration, Freddie and I spent a good two or three hours planning exactly where each plant would go almost like a battle-plan of lines of soldiers. Freddie then actually used a trowel and filled up one of the urns. But he soon got bored.

  “Right, dear, that’s enough. Perhaps you’d better do the next one,” and off he went inside for a cup of tea. He did emerge twenty minutes later, carrying a watering can just to ensure his planting was properly watered in.

  Freddie had made his point.

  Back to the lunch which was one that he knew his guests would enjoy and which would vary from a simple fish pie, a favourite of Francesca Thyssen’s, to a four course banquet to which he would invite as many people as were free to come. As you might have gathered, Freddie knew quite a few people who were very happy to drop what they were doing and come when beckoned. There were also others amongst his friends who were genuinely close but who would come when he really needed them. They knew the difference between “lunch” and “help!”

  Freddie didn’t pay for all of his friendships.

  The world of entertainment is a strange milieu. You can get very close to a person in a matter of days when you’re spending up to twenty hours a day in their company but because of the nature of the beast, you can then be separated for a year or two before you see each other again. Also, working in the entertainment industry is not a nine-to-five Monday-to-Friday job and therefore Freddie used the opportunities of his lunches to reunite the friendships he knew he had formed in this ever-moving arena. And, of course, being performers, musicians and artists, a lot of his friends had the time free to come when he called.