Low life
Custard pies from God
Jeffrey Bernard
When I wrote in last Monday's Guardian that she was like Medusa, they cut it out. She should also try a new milliner. All of that is of little importance, but what is of importance to me is that Ian Wooldridge wrote in Saturday's Daily Mail that if he lost on the National he would become 'like Jeffrey Bernard in the Coach and Horses, bumming drinks off total strangers'. Nor- man and his staff, past and present, would not go along with that. The first time I met Ian Wooldridge was in the Red Lion in Lambourn 14 years ago, when he was down there to interview one of Fred Winter's owners. I bought Wooldridge a drink. The second occasion I met Wooldridge was in Scribes Club off Fleet Street, and I bought him a drink there as well. It would appear that I have set myself up for snide snipers because I don't mind admitting to the fact that I drink. But that piece in the Mail made me angry, and they shall know it. If the entire weekend hadn't been enough of a debacle, God hurled yet another of his custard pies on Monday, when a slightly disturbed woman, a Specta- tor reader, turned up on my doorstep and asked me if she could stay with me for three or four days. Being a sucker for pun- ishment, I let her in, cooked her dinner and wondered if I could make a comeback to my awful old ways — I do not have a spare bed. We got into mine and she went out like a light, having freely helped herself to some fairly ghastly pepper-flavoured vodka, and I lay awake all night wondering for, the millionth time, why I was being tar- geted by the Almighty for custard pies. In the morning, she said that she was hungrY and that she wanted to walk down to the market to buy some bananas. I gave her
some money, and she went off for the bananas like a monkey just come into pocket money. She returned an hour later having been to Marks & Spencer where she had bought herself four pairs of knickers, a bra and a suspender-belt. Of course, I reached for the bottle. Then, she suddenly said, 'Oh dear, I think I've got the curse.' I sighed wearily and said, 'Well, it's probably a blessing in disguise.' At that, she packed her things and went off in a huff which is at least cheaper than a taxi.
I sometimes think this column hasn't done me much good, although somebody got a play out of it. I do sometimes, though, meet some good people. Emma Forrest was one, and there is a very nice Welsh woman who sometimes comes up to London and visits me in the pub. But I get my fair share of nut-cases. A physiothera- pist has just called in to fit new ferrules on my crutches. Isn't life exciting? Who next? The more I think of the Grand National, and the banana and knickers woman, the more I think that my luck stinks.
If I met Venus she would tell me that she had the curse. I once spent two entire days down at Lambourn interviewing Jenny Pit- man for the Sunday Express. In the end she refused to allow them to print my piece, and they kowtowed. So what? But the Paper never gave me a kill fee which was much needed. She also once introduced me to one of her very best horses, Burrough Hill Lad. The bastard bit me. I should have Offered him a banana. I won't go anywhere Without one now. The skin of one must have been God's original custard pie.
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