DIARY
JEREMY ISAACS My wife's brother cut the advertise- ment out and sent it through the post: 'If Jeremy is serious, he could try this.' And there it was, the answer to my problem: Had I had an unfortunate experience when young? Was I inhibited, had that held me back? Was I simply afraid of the water? Never mind, this was my chance. Now, at last, I could learn to swim. One- to-one tuition was offered in the privacy of an otherwise empty pool, no one to observe my flounderings. So I rang the next day and booked for three hours' coaching on two consecutive mornings. The three-day weekend in Suffolk, for once, would stretch to four. By Tuesday afternoon, crash course completed, the past would be behind me. All fears con- quered, I should emerge as master of the waves. That was the idea, at any rate. My sea bathing began on the west coast of Scotland. In spite of the Gulf Stream, we froze, coming out of the water, blue and shivering, to be wrapped instantly in a towel and comforted with 'a chittery bite', a slice of fruitcake or a biscuit. Once, on the Solway Firth, away from my parents, bigger ones horsing about picked me up and threw me into a not very deep pool on the beach. I can see it still. I have never liked the sea since. My father told me that someone once, at a pool, had turned a hosepipe on him from behind and knocked him into the water, out of his depth. He could not swim either. Could I beat all that?
The indoor pool was warm, blue, invit- ing. My enterprising teacher, whose flour- ishing business this is, could not have been more skilful, patient, encouraging. But it did not quite work. I did learn to float well, nearly. Wearing goggles, I put my face under the water, which I had never done before. Holding on to the side of the pool, I stretched my legs out behind me, and felt them rise to the surface — hooray, I float- ed. But when I was not holding on, they jack-knifed down again, too soon. I learned, separately, what to do with my arms, my legs and my breathing, but I could not manage to do any two together for more than a couple of strokes. So, although I tried and tried, I got some way across the narrow width of the pool but never all the way. Either the muscles were not there, or the co-ordination, or the confidence, or all three. I asked my admirable teacher what success rate she had with the retired ladies and gentlemen she mostly teaches. 'A hun- dred per cent,' she said firmly. I hate to let her down, and have promised to go on practising, building on foundations she laid. After failing several attempts at the driving test, I took a tranquilliser and passed. Perhaps a drop of the hard stuff, however early in the morning, would do the trick.
Iam trying, I hope with more success, to erect a statue in London to Oscar Wilde before the 100th anniversary of his death in 2001. We have been at it for three years now and more. My committee is broadly based: regular attenders include two politi- cians, Kenneth Baker and Michael Foot; a journalist, Matthew Parris; an actor, Ian McKellen; Tony Smith, the president of Magdalen Oxford, Wilde's old college; Merlin Holland, the writer's grandson. Others, including Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, lend moral sup- port. It helped, I think, that in 1995 they dedicated a window to Wilde in Poets' Cor- ner in Westminster Abbey. Seamus's speech on that occasion must be reprinted. We began to make real progress when we were joined by Joanna Drew, director of visual arts at the Arts Council in its halcyon days. Mary Soames advised me to get hold of her. I never had better advice in my life. We found a site, and now an artist — the right one from 12 who had a shot at it the bold and imaginative Maggi Hambling. The other day we got planning permission from Westminster City Council. Only final approval from the Department of National Heritage is still to come. We shall announce it all, and launch an appeal for the funds to pay for it, at the National Por- trait Gallery in May, on the anniversary, to be precise, of Wilde's release from Reading gaol. Wish us well.
To Cannes, for MIP, the television pro- gramme market, to report progress on Cold War — a 24-part documentary history I am engaged on — and, to our stunned delight, to announce to the world another, even grander project, a history of the last thou- sand years, loosely based on the enjoyable tome Millennium by Felipe Fernandez- Armesto. Both are for Ted Turner, founder of CNN, who has a passion for history and for putting it on television. He has big ideas, and persists until he gets his way. He takes only days to give the go-ahead when other broadcasters shilly-shally on lesser fare for months. There are not many like him about. As you come along the hotel corridor, just past the Roman Polanski suite, the noise rises to meet you at the stairwell; the lobby of the Carlton is babel, as dealer meets dealer and programme- makers hawk their wares. We plunge through it and along the Croisette to the Grand Palais, where Warner Brothers International will announce that they have the distribution rights. Turner is now part of Time-Warner. So our history will be brought to you by the folks who bring Bugs Bunny and Loony Tunes. Such is the mod- ern, media age.
February fill-dyke', I remember. And, `March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.' February filled no dykes this year. No need, walking in Suffolk, to skirt, as I have always previously done at that corner, puddles which block the path, or even to avoid the squelchiest mud at the hollow in the fen. This spring, lightly shod, I skim over it all, sliding on the worn turf of the heath, polished dry. High on the road that crosses the airfield, the wind has piled dry soil like snow in winter, or sand in the desert. Has it ever been so dry in England, in April? The birds are nesting high, I am told. It is going to be a hot summer. There will be water restrictions for sure in a few months' time. 'Don't flush the loo unless you have to. Share a bath with a friend.'
Will next week see an end to this spell of Tory rule? Is it time for a change? In the winter of 1950, I went up to Oxford to sit a scholarship exam, snow on the ground, icy cold. A large man fell off his bicycle on Magdalen Bridge. As his bum hit the road he called out, 'Blast and damn this bloody government.' Labour, in power since 1945, lost the election, just.
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