ANOTHER VOICE
Oh dear, what can the matter be?
AUBER ON WAUGH
Ihad just finished my piece for this week's Spectator — quite a good piece, about the Way Ahead for People Like Us — and was about to send it off on Saturday morning, when the telephone rang. It was the young Editor in a state of great excitement. Had I seen that morning's Sun? Of course I had, and was about to pen a few tasteful lines on the subject for my Way of the World column in the Telegraph, complaining about the front page, which showed as its main news revelation of the day a large photograph of my old Oxford acquaintance, Lord Gow- rie, now the Chairman of Sotheby's, at the door of a massage parlour in Camden Town. The photograph, it must be admit- ted, looked rather strange — at first glance, I thought they had made a terrible mistake and it showed my revered mother- in-law. This might have explained the 'Thought' which accompanied the picture: 'Curious a-peer-ance'.
But I decided it was probably a reference to Lord Gowrie's dusky hue which has often been the subject of comment. If so, it was hitting below the belt, and called for some sort of rebuke. As Great Agrippa explained to the naughty boys in Struw- welpeter: For if he try with all his might
He cannot change from black to white.
Whether or not some sort of racial slur was intended, I was certain that Lord Gowrie would think it was — as we all know, these people are tremendously sensitive — and decided on quite a hard-hitting riposte. I decided it might be a good idea to illustrate it for Way of the World with the picture of a little 'Indian minstrel' figure, dressed only in underpants with furled umbrella and an earl's coronet on his head, walking up to a massage parlour. But my illustrator, Mr Rushton, thought he might be accused of racism, and agreed to do a portrait of Max Hastings talking on a portable telephone in a restaurant instead.
That, then, was the situation when young Dominic Lawson telephoned on Saturday morning, demanding that I write about Gowrie and the massage parlour. Why so? I asked, explaining my predica- ment.
`Oh I rather think it would be a good idea,' he said vaguely, 'because so many Spectator readers are the sort of people who know Gowrie.' I wonder if he was being entirely honest in this answer. How many of the Specta- tor's 94,500 readers does he imagine to be acquainted with the dusky art dealer? Is it a good thing to be the sort of person who knows him? What does this tell us about young Dominic's assessment of the average Spectator reader?
It is true that I have known Gowrie for over 30 years, and this scarcely seems the right time to disown all knowledge since for many years I set myself up as a close student of the London massage scene and was, indeed, an expert on its Soho rami- fications, just as Wheatcroft is an expert on the country's slimming establishments. But since those balmy days a notorious prod- nose on Westminster Council called, I think, Brooke-Partridge, or something of the sort, has made it his business to drive most of the best massage parlours out of the area — aided, needless to say, by endless lubricious exposés in the gutter press — and I have rather lost interest in the matter. Now Westminster City Council are trying to stop people feeding the pigeons.
But Editors, however young, are not lightly to be gainsaid. What, then, are we to decide about the Sun's decision, having been tipped off by a member of Sotheby's staff, to make its main news story on Saturday out of the fact that Lord Gowrie had been seen outside a massage parlour in Camden Town?
First, we must decide why the Editor of the Spectator wanted me to discuss Gowrie rather than Iraq, starvation in Russia, or the Way Ahead for People Like Us. Could it be that he supposes Spectator readers share the prurient interests of Sun readers, surely the lowest and vilest people in the country, at any rate as their tastes are interpreted by the journalists who cater for them? Under those circumstances, perhaps the best thing would be simply to reprint the Sun story: `GOWRIE IN SEX SAUNA: Spotted making three visits . . . At 4 p.m. yesterday the distinguished Earl calmly strolled up to the parlour, where girls offer hand relief for £20 and full sex for £100 . . . .
Gowrie himself behaved with dignity, saying he had no comment to make and that he might be consulting his lawyers — which he has now done. Since the plain innuendo in the Shn's account is that he may have availed himself of the sexual services on offer, and since it will be hard, if not impossible, for them to prove it even supposing for a minute that he did, I should have thought it would be worth a couple of hundred thousand, tax-free, if he chooses to pursue the matter. The judge may have changed, but his case would appear to have remarkable similarities to Jeffrey Archer's, and it should be possible to remove self-confessed Sun readers from the jury, since hard things might be said about them.
Should we, in addition, feel indignation on Gowrie's behalf? I think we probably should, and not just because Gowrie, despite his dusky appearance, his strange enthusiasm for 'modern art' and his abys- mal poetry, is (very nearly) One of Us. Personally, I could not give a hoot if the Sun photographed me going into a massage parlour (although I would not hesitate to sue any Murdoch paper if the report contained a libel), but I might be peculiar in that respect. It would make my enemies happy and give my friends a giggle. Others, of a more secretive nature, might be more deeply wounded. It is the idea that Mur- doch's thugs have an absolute right to ride roughshod over anyone's most private activities that sticks in the throat.
Time and again we read of television soap celebrities — almost always unknown to me and to most People Like Us — who have been betrayed by call-girls or rent boys, and it would be easy to decide that this is part of the price of being a popular celebrity. If you make your money by sucking up to these animals and catering for their base appetites, you must accept the risk that they will devour you. But even soap celebrities are human. Prick them hard enough, and they will probably bleed. When we allow Murdoch to send his rats swarming all over their private affections, their marriages, their relationships with their children and friends as well as with their public, we are debasing the whole of English life. I am surprised that Spectator readers should wish to consider such mat- ters. In a fortnight's time, I shall reveal the Way Ahead for People Like Us — unless a newsflash intervenes, with the startling intelligence that Mrs Thatcher has been found stuck in the lavatory.
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