Low life
A gas
Jeffrey Bernard
If myfather had been a major in the Waffen SS and not as he was a major in the Royal Engineers I would feel more than a little put out, but I shouldn't blame myself. I am now wondering how my daughter will take it when she finds out that I was in the South Kensington troop of the Boy Scouts in 1948 for six months until I was dishonourably discharged for smok- ing and stripped of my lanyard and cooking proficiency badge. So far there has been something of a cover up but these things will out. Until a couple of years ago I had always denied knowledge of the Spectator but one day her maths mistress said, 'Your father's that man who writes "Low life", isn't he?' Since then it has been nothing but wink, wink and nudge, nudge for her and it has made her rather uncomfortable.
But still I suppose we are all faintly embarrassed by if not ashamed of our parents. I was lucky enough to be proud of my father but my mother made me squirm on occasions and not least when she used to come down and visit me at school at half terms. Her arrivals were like the entry of the Queen of Sheba. All the other boys knew that she was on the stage — tanta- mount to being a tart during the war years — and they also knew that we hadn't got a penny and that my mother hustled various charitable trusts and charitable friends to pay for my school fees. So much more embarrassing then when she'd appear looking like a cross between Ava Gardner and Maria Callas. Mums are supposed to be silly little greying hens, or they were in those days anyway. The vision that arrived like Lady Metroland was a moment to be dreaded even though there was a handout at the end of the day after a ghastly tea in a Pangbourne tea shop.
But I know other men who are ashamed of their parents who ought to be proud of them. I know one old man who hates the fact that his father worked for the gas board and used to empty Doctor Crippen's meter. People have become televison 'per- sonalities' on flimsier grounds than those. When I was a foreman backstage on the Folies Bergere some years ago I employed a young man who was like a son to me although we were roughly the same age. One day, when the police came to arrest him for murdering his wife, I felt tremendously let down and I'm quite glad I haven't got a grown-up son who can similarly betray me. As he was bundled away through the stage door I suddenly realised how my mother must have felt when I got slung out of the first Outward Bound establishment at Aberdovey for smoking again. Of course, it is ridiculous that one should automatically love and like one's own flesh and blood. In a different context how many people would pass the time of day with their parents? And God save us from more distant relatives. I had some fairly horrid uncles by' my mother's account but she was a terrible snob and I know she hated one of her brothers be- cause he was a bus driver in Felixstowe. Not as glamorous as emptying Crippen's meter I know but something of a cachet, I should have thought, in days of inverted snobbery.
But come to think of it I may have sons after all and be able to render them some embarrassment one day. When I asked in the New Statesman as to my whereabouts and behaviour between 1960 and 1974 I received a strange letter from a woman in Toronto informing me that I was the father of twin boys who were conceived in a box at a Chelsea Arts Ball. Two boys and two mysteries here. Firstly, how did I manage to get a box or into a box and secondly, how was I capable of performing the act? I think this may well be a come on and a stupidly misguided way to try to get some money out of me. I was also approached about four years ago in the Coach and Horses by a woman of about 27 who simply stated that I was her father and no two ways about it. I told her that if she needed a father that badly then she was welcome to help herself although I was certain that she wasn't my daughter. I suppose I missed an opportunity here and could have made someone proud of me. I should have told her that I emptied the several gas meters used by Christie, Haigh and Heath who all operated in the Notting Hill area where I lived after the war. But emptying Crip- pen's gas meter almost smacks of romance. I wonder if he ever met Mrs. Crippen and did she make him a cup of tea? Such a parent should not be hidden under a bushel. So far I fear I can offer my daughter no such picturesque stuff although I did once have a few drinks with Ronnie and Reggie Kray, but who didn't? I'd have no hands if I had emptied their gas meters though. Meanwhile, I shall pay a flying visit to my daughter soon at Holland Park Comprehensive. What excuses I won- der will she make for me.
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