Low life
Field work
Jeffrey Bernard
Anyway, the Peacock Inn wasn't what it is now. It was then run by a rather querulous, vaguely upper-class widow who had had a tragic war. In the days of the Blitz her husband managed to get hold of a bottle of whisky after weeks of searching. They found it in Harrods and she dropped it and smashed it on the way home. He hardly ever spoke to her again, went into a decline and died quite soon.
Another thing she used to talk about rather wistfully was her Newmarket experi- ence. She looked at two yearlings one day, one of them a chestnut and the other a grey. She opted for the chestnut and the grey, later named Airborne, won the 194.6 Derby. She barred me once for a couple of months and I had to walk to the next village, Bildeston, for a drink. Inconve- nient that but she was all right, I suppose. She was simply in the wrong business. Like Norman, you could say.
Now, the place has vastly improved. I do not work for Egon Ronay or any other guide organisation, but I do recommend the Peacock if you are ever that way. It is run by a streetwise man called Tony Marsh and his wife and it is run as a business not a hobby as it was for Gwen the dropper of whisky. Amateurs shouldn't be allowed to know the ball looks smaller — this is tennis.' tamper or play with life-support systems.
On Sunday a friend drove me over to Lavenham to have some drinks with old friends in the Swan and here I must address myself to Rocco Forte. Rocco, would you please tell the manager that cutting down on bar staff is a false economy? I tried to spend a lot of money, really I did, but couldn't manage it and I owe you one for your past hospitality at Longchamp. But hasn't Lavenham become touristy? And the residents are so ancient a friend calls it 'God's waiting-room'. I prefer the booze- loud glade of Chelsworth.
It is one of the few places where I have lived that doesn't depress me to go back to. Even when I think back to the day my wife left me, taking our daughter with her, I just feel mild irritation at the fact that she left in my car. Why didn't she get a bloody taxi? I was asleep at the time, of course. After that I tried to write the novel of the century but could get no further than the title, Reach for the Ground. I was discon- certed by the vicar's daughter who weeded my garden wearing only lingerie, and then by the barmaid in the Rose.
Finding her in the wilds of Suffolk was like striking gold. Whatever I did with her and to her she used to say, 'No one has ever done that to me before.' It struck me as being a very strange thing to say. After all there is very little original work being done in that field today. I am an arranger not a composer. Dalliance amidst the buttercups by the river's edge — so much better than a fumble in Soho.
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