Dearest Jane... (20 page)

Love to all,

xx D’

Aspects of Lord Wigg’s character can be discerned in my father’s
Sunday Times
column in 1972, where he wrote with some irony:

It would be nice to write that Lord Wigg’s term of office as chairman of the Levy Board is drawing peacefully towards its close, but the old warrior, bellicose to the last, is not only engaged in bitter controversy with the Jockey Club, but has succeeded in making unwise statements in uniting owners, trainers, jockeys and officials in angry opposition against him.

Individuals who tread the corridors of power are often surprisingly sensitive to opposition and criticism, but the extent to which Lord Wigg, normally a most likeable and entertaining character, over-reacts, is astonishing.

Racing journalists who have the audacity to express views contrary to those of Lord Wigg know just what to expect by way of telephone calls, letters to themselves and letters to their employers as well.

Wigg again loomed up in my youth when he harassed my father for expressing views that did not concur with his own. My father wrote to me in the 1970s from yet another of his ‘addresses’.

‘c/o Clarkson’s Winter Sunshine Cruises

Runcorn Wharf

Manchester Ship Canal

Lancs

Lord Wigg is very mad at present and is threatening to sue me. Foolish old gentleman; or more accurately, evil tempered old megalomaniac sod.’

I can remember Lord Wigg and Roger ‘talking’ on the telephone and hearing my father through his closed, study door, his voice raised in anger. To hear my father shouting was unusual – he had a very attractive voice with an even tone.

Similar blasts were sometimes issued to another racing character, a friend and sparring partner, Jean Hislop. Statuesque Jean was married to a smaller and quieter husband, John, a highly intelligent and accomplished racing writer, a former champion amateur jockey and a racehorse breeder. Jean was a very tough old bird whom my father was wont to carve up from time to time, when he felt she was pecking too fiercely. Following Ascot one year, he wrote to me:

‘La Domicile Geriatrique

Burghclere

[1970s]

Mrs Hislop was slightly pissed (surprise) and accused me of sending information about her to “Private Eye”. On the telephone she had terminated a long and tedious harangue by calling me a useless, stupid old man that had absolutely “had it”, a sentiment with which your dear mother would doubtless agree at times.’

Although rendered shy by the reserve of John Hislop and intimidated by the formidable nature of his wife, Lupin and I, as teenagers, were amongst fortunate guests at the Hislops’ Boxing Day parties. Whatever else, this couple were the most generous of hosts.

What has ensured John and Jean Hislop a gilded slot in racing history is their joint ownership and breeding of one of the greatest racehorses of the late twentieth century, Brigadier Gerard. He won seventeen of the eighteen key races in his career. The Hislops commissioned a handsome lifesize statue in bronze of their magic horse. It stood proudly on their lawn and it was said that John Hislop made a habit of sitting on his statue’s back for a minute each day.

Jean Hislop confirmed to my mother that women in racing were a tough species, and Cynthia’s opinion eventually expanded to include men in racing as well. ‘I go for the horses,’ she would declare, ‘not all those
racing
people.’ A 1971 article in the
Newbury Weekly News
confirmed ‘Mr Mortimer’s wife hunts with the Garth and South Berks but she does not follow her husband’s love of racing.’ She did love racing – but on her terms.

At one point my parents were part of a syndicate, sharing ownership of a racehorse or two. Hopes had initially been high for one horse called Weaver’s Loom, trained by their good friend Nick Gaslee at Lambourn. It soon became known as ‘Deepest Gloom’ for its signal lack of success on the course. My father would have been thrilled to know that another horse trained by Nick, Party Politics, won the Grand National in 1992.

Berkshire is a county green with racehorse gallops and gold with wealthy racehorse owners. Lambourn, a village of idyllic conditions for racehorses, boasts over fifty trainers’ yards and can have as many as 2,000 horses in training at any one time. It was not far from my parents’ Burghclere home. The district was well populated by racing alumni. The Hislops were just down the road at East Woodhay. Minutes away were Highclere Castle and Lord Carnarvon with his stud farm. The gentleman himself was also reputed to consider himself to be something of a stud – a trait noted in my father’s letters. His son, Lord Porchester, was appointed Racing Manager to the Queen. Highclere Castle is now well known as the location for
Downton Abbey
.

Nearby Kingsclere was the training ground for a national gem of a racehorse: Mill Reef, one of the best ever Derby winners, trained by Ian Balding. Aged almost two, Ian’s daughter Clare – who later would also capture the nation’s heart as a television and radio presenter – was photographed sitting confidently and without support on the precious bare back of Mill Reef. Roger’s piece in the
Sunday Times
, January 1973, commends this horse’s sweet nature.

When I went to Kingsclere it was Mill Reef’s last night in his old home before leaving for the National Stud. When walking he was rather like some gouty old colonel but happily his temper did not offer a similar comparison.

He is, in fact, a horse of angelic disposition. At his party on Sunday when several hundred local people came to say goodbye to him, he only once displayed even the faintest hint of resentment at being treated like dear old Pongo, the family dog who has never been known to growl. What other great racehorse would have stood there so patiently while small children literally crawled underneath him and every sort of friendly liberty was taken?

In the
Raceform Handicap Book
of 1989, my father wrote of a touching relationship between a horse, her stable lad – and a cat. Kincsem was a Hungarian mare, foaled in 1874, who won the Goodwood Cup. The nature of her life as a professional racehorse demanded much journeying by train and, for comforting companionship, she travelled with a cat.

Provided she was accompanied by her stable lad, Frankie, and her cat Kincsem thoroughly enjoyed her journeys. Only once was there trouble and that was at Deauville on the way home to Goodwood. Her cat was missing when she left the ship and she flatly refused to enter the train. For two hours she stood on the dockside calling for her cat. Eventually the cat heard her, and running to her, jumped on her back. Kincsem at once boarded the train and lay down.

Kincsem’s stable lad, Frankie, was in charge of her well-being and it seems, she of his:

One cold night Kincsem noticed that Frankie had no rug. She somehow managed to pull her own rug off and put it on Frankie. From then on, she never wore a rug at night. If she was given one she always managed to get it off and drop it on Frankie. Frankie boasted no surname and did his military service as ‘Frankie Kincsem’, under which title he was buried when he died.

That is the kind of story I love from my father. Here is another from the
Sunday Times
in 1990 where he weaves together some disparate strands to great effect:

November 27 was a big day for Huntingdon. For the first time it staged a £27,590 steeplechase. On the same day its parliamentary representative, Mr John Major, was elected Prime Minister.

Mr Major is the youngest Prime Minister since the 5th Earl of Roseberry, who was in fact a Liberal. Quite apart from that, the two do not appear to have a great deal in common. Lord Roseberry owned three Derby winners. I have no reason to believe Mr Major has any particular interest in the turf. Mr Major is a cricket enthusiast and perhaps there is a tenuous link between him and Lord Roseberry in that the 6th Earl captained Surrey and awarded the great Sir Jack Hobbs his county cap.

Mr Major apparently aims to establish a classless society and his admirers regard it as a point in his favour that he never went to a public school. Lord Roseberry was very happy at Eton, where he had a brilliant career, and as he lay dying at The Durdans, his house at Epsom, he had the Eton Boating Song played on a gramophone.

The non-conformist wing of the Liberal party was anything but keen on Lord Roseberry’s racing activities. He himself said that they did not seem to mind all that much when his horses lost; it was only when they won that a real fuss was kicked up.

Mr Major’s admirers will doubtless be pleased to learn that racing is becoming more and more classless. One has only to glance down a Royal Ascot racecard of 25 years ago and one of today to see that the aristocracy has largely opted out. Gone are the colours of Lord Roseberry, Lord Astor and the Duke of Norfolk, etc., etc., while those of Lord Derby are seen all too seldom . . .

I have always thought Huntingdon rather a dull town, perhaps rather like Bedford which was described by a US airman during World War II as resembling a cemetery with traffic lights.

The last time I attended Huntingdon races I ran a novice chaser there which I backed at 4-1. Approaching the final fence with John Francome in the saddle, with several lengths clear, he over-jumped, crumpled on landing and that was that.

The end of a perfect day came when we got lost going home. My wife was driving and I thought something was wrong when we passed Oliver Cromwell’s statue for the third time.

I have said that I rarely saw my father close to a horse. His own trusty steed was his typewriter. A few yards from my room at home, the hottest news in racing – as well as much of its history – would be compiled and dispatched to the nation from his study. Yet racing was an esoteric and rather intimidating world to me, full of people speaking an unintelligible language. However, I was aware of the huge pride at home when my father’s first major book was published in 1958:
The History of the Jockey Club
, which I have since read. It teems with as many compelling characters as a Charles Dickens novel.

It would be untrue to say I never went racing – very occasionally I had the fun of accompanying my father. The great perk was to have my father’s company to myself for the car journey back and forth, where my constant longing to be grown-up was gratified by the nature of the conversations I was able to enjoy with him.

For excitement, there was the occasional privilege of standing beside my father in the BBC broadcasting box. I regarded this as a huge honour, which could only have been improved upon had I been handed the microphone and invited on air to make a comment. Strangely enough, I wasn’t. For several years Roger was employed by BBC radio to provide commentaries on the line-up of runners prior to a race, and for the post mortem following the event. He worked alongside Raymond Glendenning initially and then the BBC’s first full-time racing commentator, Peter Bromley. These were the few occasions I was permitted to spend in my father’s company on the racecourse. It was his workplace so I would be left to my own devices – from the age of around eleven – but with a member’s enclosure badge pinned firmly to my lapel.

It wasn’t all fun and games. One boiling summer’s day, my father took me, aged thirteen, wearing my best frock and clutching my autograph book, to the ‘Celebrities’ meeting at Sandown. ‘Enjoy yourself and meet me back at the car at 5 o’clock, my dear child,’ said my father as he melted away into the crowd. The day was long, hot and, far worse, devoid of a sighting of a single star. I was hoping at least to see Adam Faith who was reputed to be a keen racegoer. Back at the red hot car at the appointed hour, thirsty and cross, another age passed before my father appeared. When he finally trundled cheerfully into view, he said: ‘Sorry I’m late, dear, but I got delayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the bar.’ It was one of our more silent journeys home.

If I have ever made a contribution to the joys of racing, it was in Northumberland. My parents came to stay and I escorted them to a icy, wind-blown winter meeting at the little country course at Hexham, way beyond Roger’s normal territory. We spent a lot of time imbibing whisky macs in the bar, roaring with laughter at a joke, the meaning of which I never quite discovered, but the hilarity was contagious. In a later article on the aesthetic aspect of racecourses, Roger concluded: ‘Goodwood and Hexham are the two most beautiful courses in the country.’

In 1972 my father won the Lord Derby Racing Writer Award. In the awards programme, Brough Scott wrote an perceptive profile of my father, concluding : ‘Roger Mortimer is modest about everything he has done, with one vital exception. When his elder daughter was at school, he used to write to her so often and so amusingly that she used to hand the letters around. Did he take pride in this? “Yes I think I write a very good letter.”’

My Dearest Jane . . .

The Maudlings

Heathcote Amory

Berks

[Late 1960s]

Four perspiring days at Ascot which I think your dear mother enjoyed, including dinner with the Majendies one evening; Paul with his socialist bird Miss Mallalieu who is trying to educate him. I fell for Miss Mallalieu whose socialist principles did not prevent her from having a merry drink with me in the Royal Enclosure the following day.

From Yateley days, my first real friend in the shape of a boy was Paul Majendie, then at Oxford and later a successful journalist. In 1991, my father wrote again, in an article, of Miss Mallalieu:

Of those individuals recently elevated to the House of Lords, the one in my view worth keeping an eye on is the charming and attractive Ann Mallalieu QC. Unlike many left-wingers, she is a keen fox-hunter. She contributes lively articles to the
Field
and is a dedicated follower of the Turf. Ann Mallalieu might one day make a very useful member of the Jockey Club.

Budds Farm

[1970s]

Great lunch with the swells before the Irish Derby – lobster, duck, strawberries, hock and a lively conversation with a tough, entertaining old bag whom Belper used to consort with in the 1920s. She has wisely abandoned sex for gardening. Lunch today with a charming old queen who has a marvellous garden; dinner with a lively widower whose one eye gleams with lecherous anticipation when he sees your dear mother – so good for both of them. Amusing lunch with millionaire Jock Whitney. He opened as follows: ‘I have just had a heart attack and am on a very strict diet. However if you will twist my arm a little, I will probably give in and we will consume a number of very large dry martinis.’