Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (78 page)

Bluntly honest that he has a problem with staff recruitment. Many of his drivers (the majority) are over 50 and it takes five years to train them. Blunt about the unions, overmanning – messianic about one-man operations. But he does talk more than just containment – he talks of expansion, he talks of new lines – to London Airport, to Stansted – and hints at the prospect of a new NE SW Underground line for London.

Up to the Forth Room for a lunch of tough meat, but some good talk. Will Camp is there in lieu of Richard Faulkner. He has a wonderful nineteenth-century face, with twinkling eyes and a fuzz of dark hair garlanding his baldness. He has a languid manner – talks softly, but persistently.

He reminds me that the Labour government’s attitude to railways, in the days when Tony Crosland was in charge, was unhelpful. They regarded railway users as pampered and subsidised and Conservatives were much more pro-rail. Quite glad to hear this, as I have just written in my ‘On the Move’ article that we should not presume that a change of government will put things right automatically.

Veryan rings to say that the pipes are leaking at Chilton, but that Angela is out of hospital and could she come to us at the weekend?

Angela comes on and my heart falls. She sounds very low – quite different to her perky self of two weeks ago. The hospital didn’t work out well, but she has taken the blame for that herself – ‘a failed patient’.

I am shaken and affected in a way which surprises me. I think it’s because I have been confronted with the fact that Angela is not cured, that the hospital has been ineffectual. And, with Angela in the state she sounds to be in at the moment, I fear that anything we can do will be ineffectual too.

I keep my worst fears from Mother, when she calls, and Helen when she gets back, and when we eventually do talk about it together it is constructively and reassuringly. Angela will be with us on Sunday.

Into a rush of a day. To BAFTA to be present at the press show for
East of Ipswich
.

Arrive a little late owing to inane cab driver. ‘Not your lucky day, is it?’ he remarks cheerfully as he takes me on some unerringly disastrous detour. Then, out of the blue … ‘Did you know diesel fuel isn’t inflammable?’ He is full of observations on the nature of diesel fuel … ‘If you inhale diesel …’ (pause) ‘… it makes you violently sick.’

I scurry away from him, across Piccadilly and up the gloomy stairs to BAFTA.

I tell Tristram the outline of ‘No. 27’, the story of the lady being evicted by Eton College.

Home by 5.30. Adrenaline buzzing. The prospect of completing ‘No. 27’ after the second draft of
American Friends
suddenly seems the best option for the rest of the year. Less well paid, but infinitely more rewarding in other ways than doing a ‘cameo’ for some American film.

We are about to go to bed when the telephone rings. It’s 11.25. The rather apologetic, frightened voice at the other end is from the
Daily Mail
and wants me to give him Terry Jones’s number. Of course I refuse. But that is not the end of it. The hack calls again, fifteen minutes past midnight. This time he asks if I will ring Terry Jones and ask him to call them. I refuse with a little more asperity.

On the
Sun
’s front cover … beside the bold, black headline ‘TV Python Comic At Sex Orgies’ is a rather camp photo of my writing partner and bosom friend of 22 years! ‘Jones, 44, is said … ’ (wait for it) ‘to have chatted to … Cynthia Payne – who faces charges … at the foot of the stairs.’

It is an astonishing piece of comedy come true. The sort of headline Python and
Private Eye
have been making fun of for years. Now, as ever, the paper has the last word. The full report of the police ‘stool-pigeon’s’ evidence is within. And very high-farce it is too, with tattooed ladies from Leamington Spa and transvestite bottoms being pinched.

To Chipping Barnet for André J’s wedding. An old church, Victorianised.

Terry J slips into our pew with Alison at the last minute. I think it’s quite something to know someone who’s appeared on the front cover of the
Sun
. To have shared a pew in church with them on the same day is beyond the realms of the hoped-for.

Much standing around outside. Trevor Jones, alias John Du Prez,
cheerfully refers to TJ as the Sex Beast, and Terry, who seems to have taken it all with equanimity, is resigned to the fact that nothing he can say will make any difference to what they print. He is now resigned to trial by innuendo. (I must say, it does seem a bit weedy, Anne and Steve being quoted as saying he went to the sex parties for ‘research’.)

Another anonymous day of cloudy skies. A windless, unshifting Eastern European blankness. Grim stories of Wapping riots. Both sides blaming the other for violence.

Thatcher will not talk, listen, understand or concern herself in any way with those individuals who do not entirely submit to her way of regenerating Britain. In the end, if their protests continue, they are ‘marginalised’ (vogue word of the mid-80’s) by her, her ministers and most of all by her greedy, subservient press, and then, quite simply, roughed up.

Jeremy delivers Angela about five. She looks well; slim figure and well-cut, thick, dark hair, and a woollen two-piece tracksuit sort of thing.

We watch
Screen 2
on the BBC. A very funny Simon Gray play, ‘After Pilkington’, but – good old BBC – it ends up with a disturbing portrayal of a mad woman who sticks scissors into men’s necks. Just when we wanted something uncomplicated and jolly.

As she goes to bed, Angela voices the desperation that is frighteningly close to the surface. ‘What’s it all
for
?’ The unanswerable question. Leaves Helen and me to go to bed in a sober mood.

Pleasant evening – supper with Rachel and Angela, then a game of Trivial Pursuit by the fire. Angela as bright and convivial as I remember her at the best of times.

The evening, though, ends splendidly, with me reading some of Wordsworth’s
Prelude
and Angela really appreciating it – whereas the family always disappear when I start to recite. Quite spontaneous silliness – I put on an accompanying record of train noises and read John Betjeman, then Angela reads Joan Hunter Dunn and we all go to bed.

Bad news of the Maudsley Hospital is the only cloud on the horizon. Mrs W, whom Angela was seeing last year, will not be able to see her until next week and Veryan, ringing this morning, could not improve on this. Rather a nuisance, as renewal of contact with the Maudsley was to be the focal point and purpose of this week.

There follows a gloomy lunch and repeated declarations of worthlessness. Physical manifestations like shaking and sweating make both of us alarmed. Helen goes off to her piano lesson, I determine to talk to someone on Angela’s behalf and try and break this deadlock of inaction. She desperately wants to be taken into the Maudsley.

I arrive ten minutes late at squash and TJ says I look white. I suppose it is shock.

Collected by car at six to go to the
Wogan Show
. Jeffrey Archer is just being ushered in as I arrive. The black-uniformed commissionaires greet him effusively, then turn to me looking blank. I explain who I am and why I’m here. They look confused. Whilst they’re ringing for clearance, Wogan, looking relaxed and tanned, appears, greets us both warmly. Archer, like a sort of gusher of ingratiating enthusiasm, grasps both our hands and lays into the familiarity straight away.

As we walk upstairs he tells us how he’d been seeing ‘Alasdair’ (Milne) only this morning and noticed the letter E was missing from the words ‘Director General’ on his door, and ‘D’you know what?’ (pause to allow audience to appreciate story-telling technique), ‘I went straight round to the nearest Woolworth’s and bought him ‘one of those awful, mock silver letters you see on the front of people’s houses, and sent it round to him!’

Archer is awfully pleased with the story. We pass Donald Soper, modest in his cassock and looking quite incongruous in this company; Jeffrey cannot but be the first to grasp the great Methodist’s hand.

Pass into make-up, then up to the Green Room. Jeffrey Archer is re-telling his Alasdair Milne’s door story.

Soper is on first and is, as usual, fluent, balanced, articulate and provocative. Archer is next and straight away there is bristle and drama. Wogan
nudges him into a remark about ‘the scandal’.
¹⁴²
Archer, to his great credit, doesn’t side-step. But he begins to warm up and soon is clearly displeasing our Terry by embarking on long, hectoring monologues about the virtues of free enterprise and the Western way.

Archer, to be fair, plays the game well. I talk about Mr Heeley’s
¹⁴³
sex talks and Lord Soper has the impeccable last word when he says that when he was given a sex talk at the age of 14 he had the distinct impression that he knew more about the subject than did his teacher.

Wogan, amiable as ever, is the only host who seems to actually want to stay and have a drink with his guests afterwards. While he and I are talking about TJ and Cynthia Payne, Jeffrey Archer comes up and tells us both the Alasdair Milne story again!

Back home. Am about to settle down to stew and dumplings with Angela when Charles Sturridge calls. I suppose it wouldn’t be too dramatic to say that it’s the call I’ve been hoping for, but virtually given up expecting, ever since I knew that he had taken over the
Troubles
screenplay, or, indeed, ever since I read the book during my second stint at Belfast in 1983.

Over a long phone call it transpires that he has always had me in mind as a possible Major, but the crucial factor is now the age of the actress to play Sarah. After six months of auditioning Irish actresses he has only two front runners. One is 27, the other … ‘Well, I hardly dare tell you how old she is.’ Fifteen, coming on 16, but like a young Helen Mirren.

So, Charles is not yet decided which way to go; if it’s the 27-year-old then I could be the Major, if it’s the 16-year-old the age gap would be too obvious. Would I like to see the script? It is sent round to me within the hour. Two fat two-hour episodes.

With Denis [the cat] and shots of Armagnac for company, I sit down and read the entire four-hour adaptation, finishing by 2.30.

Up in time for the eight o’clock news. Still don’t feel tired. Too much going on.
Time Out
has a very favourable piece on
East of Ipswich
– ‘a considerable delight’.

I sit down and write captions for
Happy Holidays
.
¹⁴⁴
In the middle of dictating to Alison, Sturridge rings on the other line. Maybe
because
the call is so important, I press the wrong button and Alison stays, but Sturridge disappears and I have no number for him.

Sit there feeling foolish for about three minutes. Then he rings back, I tell him that I have liked the adaptation and, subject to a few date difficulties, am happy to do it. I warn him I can’t play the piano or dance, and he laughs. Says he is delighted and, though he’s still cautious, he sounds genuinely pleased – or is it relieved? He has to see the actresses again, though, and will ring me tomorrow to talk further about the part.

To Kenwood with Angela. Pleasant walk inside and outside. Put it to her as gently as I can that she should find somewhere else to stay from next weekend. She understands. But she is still enclosed and tense – even at a time like this when place and company should be congenial and conducive to unwinding.

Later in the afternoon she packs, then drives the car down to Veryan’s office (no mean achievement for someone feeling terminally depressed). She is to spend the weekend at Chilton.

Sandy L rings from Atlanta. His reaction to
American Friends
is one of wary admiration for my bravery in going for a story and treatment so far away from what he’d expected from me. On detail he wants Brita to be warmer and more sympathetic and Ashby to be less one-dimensional. I know that both will be in the playing, but it obviously isn’t coming across from this script.

Leave for TJ’s – Rachel, Helen and myself – at eleven. As ever, 9 Grove Park is already full of people. There’s always a foreigner or two, and twice as many children as Al and Terry have. TJ breathlessly scurries about, muttering genially about the number of people expected vis-à-vis amount of food available. Somewhere a telephone is always ringing.

A meal appears. Sancerre flows. TJ goes round the table embracing. He introduces Jill Tweedie as the woman ‘whose book changed my life’.
¹⁴⁵
There is so much noise, chatter, occasional howlings of attacked children that I’m almost relieved when 3.30 comes round and I have to hurry back for a four o’clock meeting with Charles Sturridge.

Charles arrives in dirt-encrusted black Citroën as we are unloading. I make coffee for both of us and we adjourn to my workroom. Two hours of discussion later, as the sun sets and I reluctantly switch on the light, anxious not to interrupt a cogitative atmosphere, it’s clear that I have the part of Major Archer in ‘Troubles’ if I want it.

What a commitment – on both our parts. I hope I can deliver his high expectations.

[
East of Ipswich
] Reviews ranging from complete ecstasy (the
Daily Mail
, invoking Wilde and Noël Coward as my peers!) to virtual dismissal – Nancy Banks-Smith.

Angela arrives back from Chilton in seemingly good form, but I have little time to chat as have to get myself down to Transport 2000.

We walk over to Unity House to meet (after many cancellations) Jimmy Knapp to talk over salaries. Jimmy remarks on
East of Ipswich
. Yes they both watched it and ‘it was greatly appreciated by my wife’. Nuff said.