Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings (44 page)

At one point, though, he does make a memorable remark. The Duchess has just complimented him on the splendid architecture she has seen over the past ten days. ‘Our buildings will make more magnificent ruins than the Greeks,’ he replies, eerily.

On their way back to Munich, the Duchess waits until they are alone before asking her husband whether he had an interesting talk with Hitler. ‘Yes, very,’ he answers, riffling through the pages of a magazine. ‘Now darling, you know my rule about politics. I’d certainly never allow myself to get into a political discussion with him!’

‘You were with him one hour. What did you talk about?’

‘He did most of the talking.’

‘Well, what did he talk about?’

‘Oh, the usual stuff. What he’s trying to do for Germany and to combat Bolshevism.’

‘What did he say about Bolshevism?’

‘He’s against it.’

For his part, Adolf Hitler comes away with a high opinion of the Duchess of Windsor. ‘She would have made a good Queen,’ he remarks later that day of their fleeting one on one.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Robert Lacey for his patience and expertise and to Gervase Poulden for help with digging up information. Thanks also to my US agent Zoe Pagnamenta and my UK agent Caroline Dawnay and to Bob Bender, Johanna Li, Olivia Hunt, Nicholas Pearson, Johnny and Mary James, Robin and Liz Summers, Francis Wheen, Susie Dowdall, Hugh Browton, Susanna Gross, Clare Gittins, Terence Blacker, Matthew Sturgis, Andrew Barrow, Anna Herve, Ian Irvine, Rebecca McEwan, Jonathan and Kalyani Katz, Hugo Vickers, the late Hugh Massingberd, and to everyone who remembered, however hazily, once reading something about someone meeting someone else.

© PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN PLAYER

CRAIG BROWN
has been a columnist for
Private Eye
magazine in London for 22 years. He writes a twice-weekly column for London’s
Daily Mail
and is a frequent contributor to
Vanity Fair
. Well known as a parodist, he has been called “a genius” by Auberon Waugh, “the most screamingly funny living writer” by Barry Humphries, and “a national treasure” by Helen Fielding (author of
Bridget Jones’s Diary
). He recently became the first journalist ever to win three different awards at the annual UK Press Awards.

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JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS: Michael Jackson © David Corio/Redferns/Getty; Mark Twain © The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty; Queen Elizabeth © David Hume Kennerly/Getty; Elizabeth Taylor © Anthony Cake/Photoshot/Getty Images; Helen Keller © PhotoQuest/Getty Images; Nancy Reagan © Ron Galella/WireImage; Alec Guinness © Hulton Archive/Getty Images; The Duke of Windsor © Keystone/Getty Images; James Dean © Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Jacqueline Onassis © S010/COLLECTION SALINGER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images; Andy Warhol and Martha Graham © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; Madonna © Jim Spellman/WireImage/Getty

Copyright © 2012 Simon & Schuster

Other books by Craig Brown

The Lost Diaries

The Agreeable World of Wallace Arnold

Rear Columns

A Year Inside: Parliamentary Sketches

The
Private Eye
Book of Craig Brown Parodies

Hug Me While I Weep for I Weep for the World: The Lonely Struggles of

Bel Littlejohn

The Craig Brown Omnibus

1966 and All That

Fame, Sex, Money, Power: A Beginner’s Guide

This Is Craig Brown

The Little Book of Chaos

The Marsh Marlowe Letters

Imaginary Friends: Collected Parodies 2000–2004

The Hounding of John Thomas

Craig Brown’s Greatest Hits

Welcome to My Worlds!: The Dread Decades of Wallace Arnold

The Tony Years

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