REPORT 61 OCTOBER 2007
Tim's more or less monthly blog since May 2003
There is a limit to the amount of Noel Coward and Gershwin you can take even from a church choir as good as St. Bride’s . . .
PENNY'S BIRTHDAY present, booked in May and using what I fear may be
my final air-miles, was a short break to Budapest. It was a busy month
and lots happened but this trip was the sort of thing I would normally
write about but which I signally failed to pre-sell for once. So
you’ll only read it here and being a blog it will be, well, different.
We were blessed with fine weather throughout and spent most of our
stay ambling around the city which seemed to us a compelling mixture
of the busy and functional with the beautiful and pleasurable. For me
the highspot was our Sunday out with Jill Trew’s cousin, Brian Maclean,
who has lived here for most of his adult life and has just written a
quirky little guide book to Hungary and its culture and customs. He
took us out on the “rickety” train to Godallo which is the site of the summer palace of the ill-fated
Empress Elizabeth, mother of the suicide at Mayerling who was herself
stabbed to death by a republican in Geneva. Any old royal would have
done and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Anyway, the palace was lovely and the charming little baroque theatre
round which we had an individual tour led by a delightful young
student was lovelier still. In between the two we adjourned to one of
the ubiquitous pizzerias and ate, of all things, a club sandwich
outside under a vine while Brian and I drank a “Uticom” which is the
Hungarian national liqueur – a sort of fiery herb infusion. Later in
the evening he took us to a restaurant called Kispipi where a
lugubrious pianist played “Gloomy Sunday” composed by a predecessor
for Frank Sinatra and we drank some of the house palinka which was
delicious and nicer than the Uticom. The really enjoyable part of it
all was that not only was Brian interesting and educated and we had
enjoyable discussions about politics and books and so on he was also a
local and a native and we felt we were off the beaten tourist track.
This may have been illusory but it felt good!
We left, vowing to return for fish soup and goose liver, and the mad
parliament building, and the touching symbolic bridge memorial to the
martyred Imre Nagy and the statue of Gresham of Gresham’s law in the
smart hotel and the general air of slightly careworn sophistication.
I was back at St. Bride’s Church in Fleet Street in time for Nigel
Dempster’s memorial service. We were at school at Sherborne together
though he was about two years my senior so I don’t think he knew who I
was at the time. We were on the Daily Express together, bumped
into each other from time to time, attended the improbable Sherborne
media lunch at the Groucho Club and were good acquaintances I suppose.
We’d known each other most of our lives. He had been suffering from
some ghastly brain disease (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy – PSP) for
a year or so and was confined to a wheel chair and not making much
sense to anyone. The church was packed out and, as Geoffrey Wheatcroft
and I agreed afterwards, there is a limit to the amount of Noel Coward
and Gershwin you can take even from a church choir as good as St.
Bride’s. And the acoustics are surprisingly fuzzy. The only person who
was completely audible throughout was our fellow-Shirburnian Charles
Collingwood (Brian Aldridge of the Archers) who was word-perfect.
Charles read a piece about squash from Basil Street Blues by Michael
Holroyd who, by coincidence, was at the Folio Society party at the
British Library that evening so I was able to tell him. He seemed
gratified.
It was an odd occasion though, the Dempster bash. Nigel would have
enjoyed the fact that the church was packed and the champagne flowed
freely at the Howard Hotel reception afterwards. On the other hand
he’d have liked wall-to-wall aristos and what he got was a sprinkling.
I saw Charlie Brocket on the other side of the church and Jeffrey
Archer was said to be there. Likewise the Marquis of Blandford,
according to the Telegraph, though he was in the nick and not
allowed out. Lady Montagu was present but not Edward who was
presumably too unwell. Had they all showed Nigel would have had four
peers who had done or were actually doing time. Some sort of record I
would have thought though not necessarily one he would have relished.
Anyway the church and the hotel were both full of once familiar faces
grown older and sadder though not visibly wiser.
The first challenge was that we had a very early flight from Heathrow
which seemed a good idea. Not so clever in the end because we sat on
the tarmac for an hour and a half while the lethal combination of
baggage handlers and the post-striking Royal Mail got their act
together. Or didn’t! And I’m not sure airport hotels are particularly
good news. A friend who once worked in one confided that he had sold
rooms at ten different prices and once, when demand was high, sold a
quite ordinary one for £450. Too much demand, not enough supply. I
think, in future, I’d rather stay somewhere else and splurge on a taxi
or hire car. We now hear that Newquay Airport is expanding and feel we
should investigate further as well as trying harder with places such
as Exeter and Bristol.
We loved Budapest. The taxi driver – we wouldn’t have taken one if we
hadn’t lost almost two hours on the flight – was a complete madman who
swore in Hungarian, switched lanes without warning and signal and made
me (who gets a lot of flak from the side-seat driver) look like an
angel with an Advanced Drivers’ Certificate. Anyway we arrived safely
but shaken at the Art’Otel on the Buda bank of the Danube and got an
upgrade to a ginormous room in one of the converted fisherman’s houses
at the back of the hotel. It was lovely with a view on to a little
square at the foot of the Castle hill.
Left to our own devices we failed to make it to one of the thermal
baths. Penny wasn’t feeling a hundred per cent and doesn’t care for
that sort of bathing. Next time perhaps. We went to two concerts – one
was a touristy feeling event with loads of Hungarian lollipops, the
Radetsky march and a general air of nothing too difficult. The other,
in the magnificent state opera house, was a full symphony performace
of two Mendelssohn pieces followed by a Rachmaninov symphony. We sat
close to the front and I was transfixed by the look of hatred (I
thought) on the faces of the orchestra’s lead violins as the solo
violinist went through his virtuoso paces. I was fascinated too to see
that the soloist and the conductor both wore shiny patent leather
shoes while the rest of the orchestra only ran to slightly worn
ordinary leather ones. We were probably too close for the best hearing
– strings too close and overpowering the brass and wind. But it gave
us a great sense of being virtually on stage and involved in the
inevitable tensions and disharmonies of orchestral life.
Otherwise it’s been a busy period. A TV interview connected with crime
writing in Birmingham; a session on royal princesses with Matthew
Dennison at Cheltenham. Matthew wrote a book about Queen Victoria’s
youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice. I thought we worked well
together and we had a good (160 sell out) audience including Deirdre
Chappell who worked with me on the Atticus column at the Sunday
Times and Vanessa Beale whose brother, Nigel, was at school with
me. Vanessa was at the girls’ school. Deirdre and I realised we had
known each other over forty years and I told Vanessa that we had seen
her brother present a greyhound cup at Wimbledon on behalf of Beale’s
the family store in Bournemouth. I sent him a note from the bleachers
but never got a reply. Probably didn’t get through!
After our return from Budapest Michael, the agent and I, went to see
Methuen to finally exchange the contract on the Jardine book (India
1933) and that evening we celebrated his birthday with a dinner at the
Garrick where I was lucky enough to sit next to Robin Dalton to whose
book, “Aunts up the Cross”, I had been introduced by Penny and about
which I have been trying to write for “Slightly Foxed”. I hope,
fingers crossed, you will be able to read it there so won’t drone on
about it. But Robin was as terrific as I had hoped.
We also made a long trip to North Wales to attend the blessing of a
bench and tree in memory of my cousin David who died earlier in the
year. This was a poignant occasion. It didn’t last long. Geraldine who
became his friend and runs the home, Bryn Eithin, at Colwyn Bay
couldn’t attend due to a migraine but her husband came, and the nice
vicar conducted a brief touching service. Steven, his carer, was there
too and half a dozen or so elderly inmates sat on the very comfortable
bench and its fellows, complaining about the cold and remembering
David. It was the end of a chapter and sad.
It’s been a bad year for death. Alan Coren, who I didn’t know
personally, but had been part of the furniture for years died aged 69
and now Anthony Clare, the psychiatrist, who had a fatal heart attack
at just 64. The day before Birmingham, Budapest and Cheltenham, we
went to the cremation of our friend Rosemary Crawshaw. She was well in
to her eighties and died quite suddenly and peacefully but she leaves
a hole. The family have asked me to give an address at her memorial
service at Golant just up the river. This is at once terrifying and
flattering. I am writing and rewriting and hoping I get it right.
We shall see. But, as I say, it has been a bad year for death.
Tim Heald
