Low life
Self-styled
Jeffrey Bernard
It gives me great pleasure to be able to tell you, just in case you didn't spot it in the national press, that England has once again thrown up a truly great man. About a month ago. we had the chap who shattered the world alcoholic intake record and who laid down his life with the achievement, and now we have Derek Podmore, 43, a self-styled professional poacher who sent a hoax bomb to the governor of Shrewsbury prison last Christmas and who was sent to the same jail last week for six months for his efforts. I have a hunch that Podmore, given full rein and freedom to his creativity, could be ranked on a par with Blake. Cromwell and Byron.
Let me quote the Daily Telegraph to give you some idea of this marvellous man's compulsions. 'Podmore, wearing a red carnation in his buttonhole, pleaded guilty 'to sending the dummy explosive to Mr Stephen Pryor. A card said "Start Christmas with a bomb." The previous year, Podmore — known as "Poddy" — scaled the prison walls dressed as Santa Claus and threw cigarettes to the prisoners.'
Apparently the hoax bomb was made of an alarm clock, electrical apparatus and two green candles, looking like explosives. Now I wouldn't say that Poddy's bomb hoax by itself would have been enough to put him firmly in the hall of fame, but, reading on, we find that Poddy has an interesting past. He once nailed himself to a tree with a six-inch nail in a protest outside Stafford court, and appeared in court in various modes of dress; and, furthermore, he was once acquitted of causing unnecessary suffering to a frog during an attempt on the world live-frog swallowing record.
In the same paper we read about the trivial happenings in Iran, Uganda and our own wretched country — election coma — and beneath the piece on Poddy there was even a four-line item about some old Japanese bird who had at last snuffed it at the age of 109 — I'll bet that she reached that embarrassing age purely by not having the nerve to send bombs to the governor of Tokyo's main prison or to protest with a drawing pin, never mind trying to break the world's live-shrimp swallowing record.
These news agency people have got their priorities all wrong. I should have thought that Poddy, described by his defending counsel as being a 'harmless, fun-loving character with a Walter Mitty mentality, who was regarded with affection in his locality', merited a leading article, but then I'm firmly convinced that there's a tremendous, even world-wide, shortage of genuine nut-cases. Oh, for the days of Squire Mytton or even the old harmless Duke of Wellington. Come to that, there's a noticeable dearth of eccentrics closer to home. All I've got in Lambourn is a stud manager who races his boss's cat to the animal's breakfast saucer every morning' The boss in question loves the cat so much she has smoked salmon sent down frora Fortnum's twice a week and the manager reckon's he's so badly paid that he has to Yie with puss for grub. It's sad. Mytton, once warned of a mastiff guard dog's feroeitY; approached it on his hands and knees ano bit it so hard that the brute never barked again. But then you might expect that of a man who drank a bottle of port everY morning while shaving. No. they're all gone. There's just the odd unappreciated handful like Mr Podnaore who end up eating porridge simply because judges and magistrates haven't bee° brought up properly. It's Podmore vvh° should be savoured and not prison cocoa, What is a little sad about eccentricity is that, if you've got money behind you then it's all O.K. No loot and a bit of daftness is a sure way to the bin. Podmore's poaching activities put me in mind of the Regale)! gentleman who used to invite his guests to shoot the gamekeeper and beaters wheri they ran out of pheasants and partridges' No one seemed to mind him although' admittedly, there doesn't seem to be all,Yd record of the gamekeeper's reactions. very much like to visit Podmore lal before he's released but I expect that, bY the time this appears, he'll have escaped. Prob ably through a tunnel in the roof.
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