JOTTINGS FROM MY NOTEBOOK

Alec Guinness recounts some of the

events which have moved, interested and amused him over the past year

Almost within sound of the chimes of St Fortnum and St Mason stood, east and west, two hospitals; recently both have been converted to hotels, each of them, I suspect, rather too expensive for the aver- age Londoner or provincial family to put a foot through the door. And now we hear of plans to close another ten London hos- pitals. Unreal city. Of course it isn't only hospitals which are made into hotels; vide the Miami Herald for 25 October this year, which informs us that in 1993 rooms 'with good quality robust antiques' can be rent- ed at Hampton Court Palace. Prices from £240 for a four-day winter break. No promise of breakfast with the Queen.

Venice, we are told, is literally sinking under the weight of its daily visitors — 12 million a year, mostly crammed into the summer months. The city doesn't even benefit commercially (except from the sale of souvenirs) as most of the visitors bring their own packaged meals and leave their rubbish to be collected by the civic refuse cleaners.

The Sistine Chapel is nowadays a horrif- ic experience. You can boast you squeezed in and managed to squeeze out, bruised, breathless and deafened; but you can no longer boast that you have actually seen the Sistine Chapel.

Early in 1939, when I first visited it, there was only one other occupant — an elderly lady in tweeds, unmistakably English, lying on her back on a bench studying the ceiling through opera-glasses. She was a genuine sightseer — apprecia- tive, respectful and silent.

The Taj Mahal, in spite of clearly visible pleas for silence written in half a dozen languages, shudders under the impact of human voices and slippered feet. It sounds, even from outside, like a demented bee- hive. Needless to say, the whole structure is now in danger.

Stonehenge — magical, inviting and almost deserted when I was a boy, with nei- ther fencing, carparks nor kiosks — is now an eyesore in its necessary fight against vandalism.

Next week my wife and I will put on our boots to add our tourist weight to Vienna and probably ease some Austrian bums out of their opera seats. So we are all victims and oppressors alike, caught up in some incomprehensible market force (May The Force Never Be With You), throwing our- selves like lemmings into some overcrowd- ed, over-publicised cultural sea. (Oh, the weight of travel brochures which thump weekly through the letter-box like logs from felled trees.)

Thirty years or so ago, the West End theatre was self-sufficient; the audiences were almost entirely home-grown (as they still are in the provinces). The block-bust- ing bookings, made so often from overseas as part of package deals, were unheard of. Now, it seems, the London theatre has to cater to 30 to 40 per cent tourists to pay its way. The tourists, of course, are welcome for their cash — and for keeping the old, successful, perennial shows in situ for almost decades — if that is seen as lively and desirable.

Recently, in answer to a sudden ques- tion about all this while being interviewed about something else, I replied tactlessly (not for the first time in my life) and this was treated as if it was some a cathedra pronouncement from the Vatican. The flippant tone in which I spoke was entirely misjudged by those who heard me, as a casual glance at their over-serious faces should have warned me. The point I laboured was that it is hell for actors to play light comedy to an audience if there exists an acute language barrier. It is noth- ing new. There was an old theatrical joke, current before the second world war, about a comedian playing to a dead, unre- sponsive house. Exasperated, he advanced on the footlights to address the audience. 'Anyone here speak English?' he asked. 'Yes, I do,' came a voice. 'Well, f — you for a start!'

Iwitnessed a cheering Christmassy sight in Bond Street: a vast metal angel — either the Angel Gabriel or one of the heavenly host who hovered over Bethle- hem — was being manhandled by eight stalwart workmen. They were carrying Gabriel, if it was he, face down. They were very inconvenienced by his huge wings as well as his weight and could only manage a step or two at a time towards the waiting lorry. Breathless and sweating, they stopped for a moment and then, with renewed vigour, they burst into song and heaved the statue aboard.

They didn't sing 'I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas' or the nauseating 'Jingle Bells' but a deep bass version of 'The Volga Boatman'. The biggest, toughest and jolliest of the heave-hoers wore a tan- gle of gilded tinsel in his grizzled hair. He was no fairy at the top of a Christmas tree but he scattered charm and goodwill on all passers-by.

Aweek ago at my bank I watched a tall, fine-boned elderly gentleman cash a cheque. `I'd like two fives and a ten, if you would be so kind,' he said. He wore a light tweed overcoat with a velvet collar and a large, expensive-looking black hat with a brim which had been steamed into various extravagant curlings. 'Oh, thank you so much,' he said when given the money. He waved the notes at the smiling cashier and slightly raised his hat. 'Too kind, too kind!' he said; then he tripped and slid to the floor. 'Of no consequence,' he re-assured us all as he picked himself up. Someone retrieved his banknotes for him. 'Mine?' he asked, and seemed astonished. Some- how it could only happen in London, I thought.

In the men's trouser department at Simpson's in Piccadilly I heard a foreign- sounding salesman of about 50 say into a telephone, 'Phyllis, can you give me the words for Auld Lang Syne? I know the tune.' He hummed it unrecognisably. 'You can't? What am I do do?' I said, over my shoulder, 'We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, etc.' Another salesman, whom I hadn't noticed, spoke in my ear: 'I beg your par- don, sir?' No use explaining.

Recently I returned from filming in Normandy, where work and interest took me to some of the war cemeteries. The weather was foul. It was a moving experi- ence, not only because of the vast visible evidence of tragic loss but also because of the loving care with which the graves are tended. All honour to the War Graves Commission: they have found beautiful resting places, with the greenest grass, for our dead in France from 1914 onwards. American, British, French, Common- wealth and German soldiers lie, for the most part, within sight and sound of the sea they can no longer hear or scent. I saw a few of all sorts and conditions of men and women — some old, others quite young — stepping between the lines of crosses like gentle visiting ghosts, smiling with remem- brances of father, brother, friend or grand- father. There was perhaps a sweet sadness in the damp air, but no deep melancholy.

Normandy's most famous icon is the Bayeux Tapestry. When I first saw it, nearly 40 years ago, it was poorly presented in harsh light and looked almost drab, like some endless (well, 70 yards long) crude strip cartoon. Now it has been handsomely rehoused and beautifully lit. It is a dramat- ic knock-out. The five-year-old son of the film producer of A Foreign Field was taken to see it by his grandfather, who had land- ed on one of the Normandy beaches in 1944. The boy gazed with fascination at various characters decapitating each other. 'Grandpa,' he said, 'did you have a long sword like that?' From 1066 and all that to 1992; perhaps there is not as much differ- ence as we sometimes think. I hadn't known until this visit that Napoleon had removed the tapestry to Paris, where it was put on display to whip up interest in the idea of invading England.

London continues to surprise me. One day in the summer I turned away from the souls of Oxford Street towards Soho Square. There was a screech of brakes behind me. I twisted round and just glimpsed a man fall, hit by a van. He struck his head on the kerb with a sickening thud. It was probably instant death. Oxford Street was, as always, an ebbing and flow- ing mass of people and several must have seen the accident. What surprised me was the curious sound people made: no shrieks, shouts or cries but a sort of twittering, like a flock of frightened small birds. Very eerie. We were all thinking, I imagine, of sudden accidental death. Images of death stayed with me for the remainder of the day. When I got home I casually picked up, while shifting some books, the Apocrypha Old Testament and flicked it open. My eye fell on the passage about Death being sent by God to Abraham which ends: 'Abraham said, "I understand what you are saying; but I will not follow you." And Death was silent and answered him not a word.'

Well done, Abraham.