Dearest Jane... (21 page)

Love

xx D

Hypothermia House

Burghclere

[1970s]

Yesterday I took the coach to London and went to the Hyde Park Hotel for the Horserace Totalisator Board’s Annual Lunch. Many self-important individuals, including MPs and union bosses. I had the ill fortune to sit next to an arrogant, pompous old bore Sir Gladwyn J. He took a quick look at me, decided I had nothing to offer (true, possibly) and turned his back for the entire meal. On my other side was a racing character I don’t much like. The Chairman, Woodrow Wyatt, was once a leftish Labour MP but is now a jolly ‘Establishment’ man. His speech was not unamusing.

Budds Farm

6 May [late 1960s]

Charles came both days to Ascot and rather enjoyed himself. He has a pleasant life here; he rises at 9.45 a.m., plays the gramophone and smokes till lunch; smokes and plays the gramophone till tea; watches the cornier programmes on TV till the labours of the day overwhelm him at 9.30 and then retires to rest.

Budds Farm

10 February 1968

My Sports Editor on the ‘Sunday Times’ is leaving. I shall be lucky if I ever get anyone so indolent and disinterested again. In twenty years not one word of praise or blame. Only the wage packet on the dot each month. What more can you want?

La Maison des Deux Gagas

Grand Senilite

France

[1973]

My relations with the Sunday Times continue to deteriorate. The Sports Editor, John L., who believes what he reads in the New Statesman, proof of his puerile intellect, told me he was not in the least interested in racing. I replied that it was rather akin to the literary editor saying that all biographies bored him. I also pointed out in plain terms that the top brass at Thomson House is distinguished chiefly for bad manners and incompetence. There the matter rests at present.

My colleague Tom D. of ‘The People’ (do you remember him telling crime stories to you and Charles during a rough crossing to Le Havre?) committed suicide the other day, the pain from his spinal cancer having worn him down. Because he accelerated the inevitable end, his employers are endeavouring to reduce the amount payable to his widow. I would gladly strike for a case like this; I fear though that journalists are only stirred by threats to their personal affluence. Quelle cochonnerie!

I am battling with two books at present, one for Cassell, one for M. Joseph. I keep on getting them muddled up but no one seems to care. I hope the Cassell book will appear in October; in my opinion it is a rare bargain at £8. Whether anyone else will think so is by no means certain.

On Sunday I lunch with Jim Joel at Childwickbury. He is a bachelor, nearly eighty, worth at least £40m. The son of a desperado who made a fortune by questionable means in South Africa, he is the mildest, kindest and most generous of men.

In World War I, Jim Joel was a dashing Hussar. Shortly before the great battle of Arras he was short of a charger and his father sent him out a horse that had been placed in the Middle Park. Despite lack of military training, the horse survived the battle, was taken back to England and won a couple of small handicaps there.

I have been invited to see his horses but I expect we shall look at his pictures and china. He is my favourite millionaire and in a diffident way tells hilarious stories of his youth.

Best love,

xx D

Budds Farm

23 July 1973

I lunched with Jim Joel yesterday in full Edwardian splendour. Four of us to lunch and a butler and 2 footmen in attendance. Israeli melon; lobster mousse with lobster claws and a rich sauce; choice of chicken pie or lamb; gooseberry fool; peaches, cherries and raspberries.

Schloss Buddestein

Worms

1973

The Sports Editor, John L. has made overtures to me re writing a leading article for the ‘Sunday Times’ on the malaise of this country at the present time. My recent expostulations seem to have made an impression. However, I have declined. Ancient cobblers should stick to their last (whatever a last is).

Budds Farm

31 October 1969

I may have had a bit of good fortune as some optimist wants to produce an American edition of one of my books so with luck I may be able to buy myself a couple of new shirts and a packet of Wills Whiffs. I look forward to seeing you soon and hope you will entertain me by hamming the part of the up-and-coming female tycoon.

Love

xx D

Budds Farm

Thursday [1970]

Nidnod and I went to Oxford to see William Douglas Home’s new play ‘The Jockey Club Stakes’. Of course it is not noticeably avant-garde – rather derrière-garde in fact – but it is not unamusing and the audience received it well. It opens in London on Wednesday. I can’t go to the first night as I shall be at Newmarket but I can get a couple of stalls any time I like. Do you want to come? You are welcome to but I think it would hardly be your cup of Horlicks as it is all ‘establishment’ jokes about the Jockey Club and Eton. William D. H. is very kindly giving me a percentage of the profits for my help so I hope to God it runs. It will get ghastly notices from the trendy critics who prefer themes on lesbianism and incest in draughty cellars but I can only pray that it gets by as ‘The Secretary Bird’ did. I have just received rather a fat cheque from my publishers plus the news that my last book is being reprinted so I enclose a v. small sum for you to have a drink or buy some new smalls.

Love

xx D

The Turf Club

January 1969

Typical business lunch. Two men from Cassell’s, one from the Jockey Club, my agreeable literary agent + myself. Endless drinks, too much to eat, and total avoidance of topic for which we had met. Result: two wasted hours in uncouth W1 district and nothing accomplished. I concluded by saying that at the current rate of progress we might meet in the geriatric ward of an ‘Eventide Home’ at Woking. This was reckoned poor taste!

Chez Nidnod

14 Rue Prinker

12 September 1973

This afternoon I have to go and see a bearded man at Cassell’s. He likes me as much as the head of El Fatah likes Moshe Dayan; his sentiments are reciprocated in full.

Maison du Vieux Crapaud

Burghclere

1 January [early 1970s]

Yesterday I went racing at Windsor but found I had arrived a day too soon! Surely a portent of impending gagadom; or perhaps déjà arrive. I went to a pub and ordered an expensive ham sandwich which to my disgust was smeared with margarine of a revolting nature. When I timidly expostulated, the genial host threatened to send for the chucker-out. Later I saw an elderly man trip and fall when trying to catch the Slough bus. I recognised him as an individual called Gunner Bennett (real name Joseph Stavinski), a heavyweight boxer who came and taught boxing at Windsor Barracks in 1936. I called out to him and he was pleased to be recognised and to have a drink and a chat. He looked, unlike so many old boxers, happy, healthy and prosperous. My next step was to visit the rather posh Windsor and Eton Art Gallery. Having £250 to invest as the result of some work done, I thought I would buy a small picture. I had a long look round and narrowed the choice down to three of the type I used to buy from Harry Sutch for £50–£150. Their respective prices were £5,400, £4,700, £3,700. Thanks awfully! With a light laugh which might have been interpreted as a distinct sneer, I pissed off into the January gloom.

Love to all,

xx D

The Crumblings

Cowpat Lane

31 January [early 1970s]

I had to sign three copies of my book at Newbury on Saturday and was instructed to write a very embarrassing little message in all three, rather suggesting I loved the owners of the book, who in fact were all men I had never set eyes on before. It’s awful the things I have to do for money; I wish I drew the line somewhere.

Budds Farm

14 October [mid 1970s]

I have just had an article published dealing with the law of libel (Chapman v Jockey Club) and only hope that I got some of the facts right. Libel is not a subject on which I claim to be well informed. I am a bit nervous myself as recently owing to a misprint in my copy a certain individual was described not as a well-known breeder, but as a well known bleeder.

Budds Farm

March 1974

We had an enjoyable stay at Tetbury with the Popes for Cheltenham. The browsing and sluicing is of the highest order. It is a man’s world there. After dinner the ladies are herded into the drawing-room and the men sit round the fire in the hall, swilling port. The sexes only meet again to bid each other goodnight.

The Popes – military John (a terrific tease) and charming Liz – were a most handsome and hospitable couple. They were superb riders and true friends of my parents
.

The Old Tudor Doss House

Burghclere

[1970s]

The Sunday Times have given me a 33 per cent pay rise. I wish they had thought of it earlier. A book I was editing for George Allen and Unwin has been cancelled due to the enormous cost of coloured photographs. However, I have got some assignments from magazines I had never previously heard of.

La Domicile Geriatrique

Burghclere

Sunday [June 1980s]

And the rain comes pitter patter, pitter patter down, beating flat the few flowers in the alleged herbaceous border and soaking my Japanese-made-special-offer shirt from J. Levine of Atlee Crescent, Chingford. I went to Ascot all four days; in these hard times the dresses would not have been too smart for a rural dean’s garden-party in the remoter part of Lincolnshire. I lunched twice at Ascot with Mr K. Abdullah (oil tycoon) who has a private lunch room at Ascot and is rather apt to dish out Arab appetisers that look like dog turds. Mr Abdullah comes with a friend who owns half Bombay and always has such a terrible hangover that his lunch consists of mineral water and a digestive biscuit. I don’t suppose either gentleman is all that interested in women; unlike the African Chieftain who visited Queen Victoria and informed her he had thirty-one wives. The Queen graciously asked how he occupied their time and received the answer, ‘I fok them.’

Peter Willett’s younger son, Stephen, was a chef in the Grundy Stand and I saw him in a tall chef’s hat (or more accurately a chef’s tall hat) and sporting a heavy dragoon’s moustache.

I use the Abergavennys’ private stand at Ascot, much frequented by elderly members of the racing ‘establishment’. Cheeky juniors refer to it as the Intensive Care Unit! We have been asked to the Queen Mother’s 80th Birthday party and of course your mother wants to go.

Love to you all,

RFM

Chez Nidnod

27 September [early 1980s]

I am getting rather chummy with a certain Mr Khaled Abdullah, a dusky sportsman who has a few dozen oil wells at the bottom of his garden in Saudi Arabia. He gave me lunch the other day and he has asked me to write a speech for him. Can I ask him in return to settle my central heating bill for 1980/81? Also present at the lunch were an armed ‘minder’ and a plump Mr Hazar who is richer than Mr Abdulla and behind a mask of buffoonery never misses a trick. He prefers racing in France as it is ‘More elegant’!

The Bog Garden

Burghclere

[Early 1980s]

Very odd people go to Ascot these days and I would not be surprised to meet Crippen and Myra Hindley in the Royal Enclosure.

Dr Crippen – my father’s favourite murderer – surfaces a few times in his letters
.

The Grumblings

Burghclere

[1970s]

There is a pompous man called Boucher who, though very rich, always sells his best mares. He was rather annoyed at the Newmarket Sales when someone said to him: ‘Lucky Mrs Boucher has not got four legs or she’d be in the sale ring, too.’

Q. If a jockey wears a jock strap, what does a jockette wear?

A. A fan belt

Budds Farm

23 April [1980s]

My horse was beaten by 6 inches at Wincanton on Monday, a difference of £500. I shall now have to delay buying a new hat.

The Shiverings

Burghclere

[Late 1970s]

I am glad to see my latest effusion is included in Truslove and Hanson’s Christmas catalogue of the best books recently published. I only hope some sucker will be enticed into buying one. Oddly enough the book got a long and flattering review in the ‘Irish Press’ which I think is the organ of the Sinn Fein party.

Love to you all,

xx D

Budds Farm

[1970s]

‘Oh give me a man to whom nought comes amiss, one horse or another, that country or this.’

That was of course written about hunting but it is the general attitude towards women adopted by a fair number of males of my acquaintance. I think the author was Adam Lindsay Gordon who was always sloshed and broke, was exiled to Australia and committed suicide there. He remains Australia’s national poet. I wrote about him years ago for some magazine.

c/o Marquis de Sade

Chateau de Belvoir

14 b Kitchener Road

Holloway N14

[1970s]

I received a very disobliging letter today from a Sunday Times reader. It began: ‘I suppose you think you’re being funny.’ There were other accusations besides, not all of which were totally justified. We are a very odd race. No Englishman will admit he is deficient in humour or ability to appreciate it; yet how many nasty arguments, even rows, begin ‘I suppose you think you’re funny’ or ‘Are you trying to be funny by any chance?’

Budds Farm

November 1974

I finish work with the Sunday Times tomorrow. A very agreeable young gent came and took at least 177 photographs of me, all in the rain and with me wearing a cap two sizes too small. Your mother was very busy trying to fit all the animals in. The photographer stayed till 2 p.m. talking to your mother but as I left at 12.45 that did not greatly worry me.

The Merry Igloo

Burghclere on the Ice

[Mid 1970s]

When I joined the Sunday Times the circulation was about 400,000; it was quite pleasant to work for if you did not mind exiguous pay; fuddy-duddy, paternal, and a cosy family atmosphere. Lots of staff parties at which the sports writers all got pissed and the literary and artistic contributors started feeling each other.