Low life
Customary
Jeffrey Bernard
It's been a pretty bad year for being able to dish out any Low Life Orders of Merit, but at last I'm able to pop one in the post to Judge Bruce Campbell QC. The on- ly thing that makes it something of a sad oc- casion for me is the po-faced attitude of so many people about the caper. Sir David Napley, for the judge, said he had suffered an 'unmitigated catastrophe'. I think that's going over the top a bit. For a man who 67 not out with a country house, London flat and a motor cruiser called Papyrus --- named, I hope, after the 1923 Derby winner — the only thing that could be called an un- mitigated catastrophe is death. No, the marl has some style, as did Judge Jeffreys in hay' ing the sense to populate Barbados. It's tile quantity of goods that tickles me. My Owt1 pathetic attempts at smuggling are positive' ly shameful but there's a sort of grand " abandon about 125 litres of whisky and 9,000 Government Health Warnings. The only offensive thing about the offence wa,,
that Judge Campbell apparently has a second-hand car dealer for a friend. But that's probably unfair to say. Alan Foreman might be a terribly nice chap and certainly a handy one to have around if you own a Rolls Royce, as do, I suspect, several contributors to this journal.
I went to Germany once, would you believe, to interview Ronny RenaIde who once earned a living by whistling and specialising in bird songs. Enough to drive anyone to 125 litres of whisky. I came away
with nothing. On another occasion I went to Jersey. Someone told me — I was 16 at the time — that you could earn £20 a week picking tomatoes, a princely sum. 1 got there to discover that they hadn't planted the wretched things yet. So I wandered around for a bit, went skint and eventually landed up on the beach. I got arrested for having no money — I think it's called vagrancy — and put in a detention centre to await trial. After a couple of days, I escaped and went into a pub wherel was befriended by a rich poof and he had a Rolls Royce too. For a week he tried to get me drunk to have his evil way with me and every night I had to pick him up off the floor and drive him home in his Roller. I tired of that and he, seeing he was going too far up the garden path, eventually bunged me an air ticket home. Once there, some local idiot heard the story and a few days later there appeared in the Kensington News, or whatever it was called, a story headed '16-year-old boy deserts widowed mother in her Earls Court flat to pick tom- atoes'. My mother, like Sir David Napley, thought it was an unmitigated catastrophe and trotted out her favourite phrase, 'La- bour exchange you in the morning.'
Of course, if I was a Customs and Excise man I'd search every single boat coming from the Channel Islands. You don't exact- ly go there for the culture. But it's a funny business this going through customs. I've never been stopped and I'm told it's because I look so suspicious. It seems that most smugglers look frightfully respectable and get nicked for looking so. Dodgy look- ing travellers are simply nervous wrecks or supporting hangovers. Bernard Levin and Richard Ingrams would make terribly bad smugglers if that is a fact and could get away with no end of cream cakes and tracts of an uplifting nature.
But I still don't quite know what it is that People expect of judges or people. I don't ' expect a lot from anyone except that they don't stub out cigarettes on the faces of babies as some pig did this week. I suppose I hope, more than expect, that MPs don't lie. But I don't see why an MP shouldn't take it in turns with a Russian agent. I'd be frightened of more things than secrets being Passed on. There can't be many left anyway except for the one Norman's mum told me last week, which is to heat the pot before You make the tea. I just hope Judge Bruce is brave, doesn't do anything silly and lives happily ever after. Thank God my brother Bruce isn't a judge. I'd be doing life, and I suppose I am in a way. His fist is a natural gavel, but I want you all to buy his book at Christmas.
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