Low life
Fallible
Jeffrey Bernard
protected major pubs and parsimon- r ious banks are being blamed for the fall of Soho layabout Jeffrey Bernard. But a closer analysis suggests that the principal architect of the disaster was Bernard himself.'
Last night at 4 a.m. the candles were gut- tering in the windows of the Lambourn branch of Barclays Bank as the staff strug- gled to find ways of salvaging what little they could from the collapsing empire of Jeffrey Bernard. Outside the bank, reporters from the Morning Advertiser and Sporting Life waiting for crucial news stamped their feet in sub-zero temperatures while a constant stream of hot toddies from the Red Lion opposite kept them from liter- ally freezing. At 4.30 a.m. I managed to get into the bank and was able to speak to
Lambourn's financial supremo, Graham Taylor, who'd been tin the phone to Lad- brokes, the Coach and Horses, the French Pub and the Dog and Duck for the past 48 hours. Pausing to sip from one of the endless stream of mugs of cocoa provided by his tireless and beautiful assistant, Valerie, he told me, 'Things are worse than we first suspected. At the close of business this morning Bernard was £20 overdrawn. We now believe it could be as much as £25.' Meanwhile, in the main office of the bank, amid the machine-gun-like clatter of elec- tronic calculators, a red-eyed cashier look- ed up at me and said, 'We hate to lose a cus- tomer like Bernard. It's come as one hell of a shock. Only last week he sent for a new cheque book and we thought he was on the crest of a wave.' She spread her hands and shrugged in total disbelief. 'We're going to stick by him though and already the staff have raised 6p in an effort to bail him out.'
The following day, back in London, I called in on Norman Balon, landlord of the Coach and Horses: scene of some of Ber- nard's biggest deals. 'It's always sad to lose a good customer,' he said, 'but I saw the writing on the wall some time ago. He never had a clue about economics. I'll give you an example. We charge 50p for a single vodka but only 95p for a double. He actually thought he was putting 5p in the bank every time he had a drink.'
In Doughty Street they were saying much the same thing. In his spacious office at the Spectator an ashen-faced, chain-smoking Alexander Chancellor told me, 'In the beginning, five years ago, I thought Ber- nard couldn't go wrong. The cheap column was a revolutionary idea and I thought he had a great future in writing rubbish for peanuts. Certainly the fact that he got most of his material from hanging about in pubs contributed to his downfall but we never thought it would come to this.' Over the road in the Duke of York 'Spectator landlord' Dave Potten was busy painting a Save Bernard poster he hopes to be carrying to 10 Downing Street. '1 doubt very much whether I'll ever see the £20 he owes me and it's the money that counts, not the principle,' he added wryly.
But few of those who know Bernard believe that this is the last chapter. He has never invested more than £25 of his own money in the Coach and Horses in one day and there is nothing in the licensing laws to stop him from setting up in the Golden Lion tomorrow. People who apparently lost money because they held IOUs or were owed drinks by Bernard may be able to recoup their losses by suing their psychiatrists. Eventually last night I manag- ed to catch up with Bernard, who has changed his address three times this week in an attempt to escape his creditors. I found him in the corner of an obscure East End pub sipping a modest light ale. 'I'm as sick as a budgerigar,' he told me. 'But I'm really moved by the public's response. Unfor- tunately I can't return their kind donations because the favourite's just been stuffed in the 2.30.'
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