AND ANOTHER THING
It's not so easy as the envious suppose to flaunt your riches
PAUL JOHNSON
There is a whiff of envy in the air again as continuing prosperity focuses eyes on the antics of the rich. In Germany, for instance, there is a demand for a supertax. It is said that the 'new rich' are 'flaunting their wealth' and must be fiscally punished. But the news- paper which reported this, feeling obliged to give an example of such flaunting, could do no better than to cite millionaires congregat- ing on the 'exclusive German island of Sylt'. Leaving aside the fact that Sylt is no more exclusive than Canvey Island, the flaunting centre appears to be a restaurant 'set among sand dunes', where `fine food and wine [are] served on white linen tablecloths with solid silver cutlery and elaborate displays of fresh flowers'. Big deal! Old rich rather like white linen tablecloths too, and so do plenty of other people. For 40 years I have been fight- ing a generally losing battle for white linen napkins. But on the rare occasions when I win my point, I do not feel I am flaunting. Old J.B. Priestley, whose image of social dis- tinctions had been formed before the first world war, used to say to me, disparagingly, that So-and-so had 'a private-income voice'. I saw what he meant, just. But to accuse someone of having a linen-tablecloth voice' would definitely get funny looks today.
It is not so easy to flaunt wealth as the envious believe. Beyond a certain, easily achieved, point, animal appetites offer little scope for extravagant expenditure. It is a curious fact that in the 20th century the rich eat less than the poor. For the first time in the history of humanity it is the poor who are obese. The rich are thin. Virtually all those I know are on diets, and many have anorexic wives and daughters. They spend far more on not eating — health farms and the like — than on food, much more on detox clinics than on carousing. The prime concern of the really rich nowadays is avoid- ing excess. That can be expensive. An Indian plutocrat who bankrolled Gandhi once com- plained, 'It takes a lot of money to keep the Mahatma in poverty.' A personal trainer now costs a weight-conscious billionairess more than an old-fashioned lady's maid. But a trainer is not exactly flaunting material. It is hard to arouse envy by boasting that you never eat lunch. Told that the people had no bread, Marie Antoinette would reply today, `How lucky they are!' It is true that wealth can bring ease of movement and privacy. I have often thought that the last trip of Bob Maxwell was an example of the power of money. He went from his flat in his personal lift up to the top of the Mirror building, whence a helicopter lifted him to Heathrow and his private jet, which in turn deposited him in Gibraltar to step aboard his yacht. But at the end of all these princely motions he drowned himself, something which the merest plebeian could have done with equal facility in the Padding- ton Canal. Wealth tends to create as many problems as it solves. One of the compul- sions of the rich is to acquire numerous homes. Their lives are thereby enormously complicated by endless staff admin, etc. Everything is always in the wrong place when you want it. Often you are in the wrong place yourself. It is agreeable to travel in comfort, but one of the reasons why the rich travel so much is to get to and from the various prop- erties they have felt bound to acquire and feel they ought to enjoy. Mediaeval monar- chs were similarly on the move all the time, often in huge discomfort. Henry II owned so much territory that he complained he was never off his horse. Travelling first class by private jet lightens the burden but it is far better not to have to travel at all. Riches and restlessness go hand in hand. Often • the super-rich force themselves to go to places merely to be with other super-rich who are similarly jet-lagged and resentful. It is horrid to miss an international party, worse still not to be invited, but often the most disagree- able thing is to have to go at all.
You may buy privacy but the papara77i are still waiting for you outside the security gates. The more staff you employ to guard you from intruders the more likely it is that one of them is in the pay of a gossip columnist. As you move continually between one well- guarded home and another, you are at the mercy of the media or anyone else. Billion- aires fight back by hiring minders, but that is the most irksome invasion of privacy of all. In the end, they come to see the biggest luxu- ry as just being alone, or going somewhere by themselves without fuss. That is what Diana, Princess of Wales used to tell me. She said she was driven to summoning a taxi to Kens- ington Palace, cleaning the floor with a dust- pan and brush, then lying on it so that the media cordon waiting in the High Street saw nothing but an empty cab. Then she was free, for an hour or two. I was never in any danger of envying Jimmy Goldsmith his wealth because I could see how irksome he found it always to be surrounded by people he had to pay to protect him. I pitied him in his last days, feeling himself obliged to leave his beautiful house in France to travel in great agony to another beautiful house in Spain so that he could die under one set of testamen- tary regulations rather than another.
I once wrote an article in these pages say- ing that the only rich man's toy I would care to enjoy was a big yacht, because you could go aboard and tell the captain to go exactly where you wanted. I got a lot of letters from people who had enjoyed this delight inform- ing me that it was overrated. In the first place, they said, the captain always had excellent nautical reasons for not taking you where you wanted to go. 'The captain's main aim', wrote one disillusioned owner, 'seems to be to stay in harbour and save himself trouble. The crews are overpaid, overprivi- leged and spoilt. You start to mutter, "Bring back Captain Bligh." As for taking a party of friends on a cruise, you end, after a week of enforced proximity, with a party of enemies — either they hate you or, more likely, you hate them, the ungrateful sods. Owning a boat is a sure way to be taken for a ride literally.' So I have followed, even in my imagination, the counsel given me 40 years ago by Lord Beaverbrook: 'My advice to you, Mr Johnson, is to hesitate a long while before you buy yourself an expensive steam yacht' (pronouncedyat).
So where does that leave us? It is true that being very rich, you can do extraordinary things. Thus Sir Paul Getty has spent a for- tune on creating what is probably the most perfect cricket pitch in the world, and in his- tory. And it is indeed beautiful. But the only time I went there, to see Harold Pinter's eleven play on it, the heavens opened — for the rain it raineth on rich and poor alike and not a ball was bowled. You can collect things, too. A fortnight ago, I lunched with a delightful old gentleman, Arthur Gilbert, who went to America, made a fortune, amassed the finest private collection of gold and silver objects in the world, and now has the satisfaction of giving it to the Old Coun- try, where it will be displayed in splendour in Somerset House. But such joys are rare. Most collecting, as Lord Rosebery used to complain, ends in boredom and disgust or, as I have found, in lack of shelf- and wall- space. The greatest thrill I get from having enough money is to be able to pay bills by return of post. It is not what you would call an exquisite pleasure but it is a genuine one.
Previous page
