Low life
New leg in the post
Jeffrey Bernard
Ihave been out twice this week, once on a nice gentle little tour of Soho being pushed in my wheelchair by my daughter and one of my nieces, and that was pleas- ant enough, it having been a glorious day.
The other occasion was my last ghastly outing to the limb-fitting centre at Charing Cross Hospital. I had to wait at home for three hours before the ambulance turned up and then it had to pick up another patient, a nice old Irishman, who lives in a caravan underneath the flyover to the M4. The site is a wasteland of sorts near Latimer Road and almost next door to what was once Rillington Place. I some- times wonder whatever happened to the man who bought John Christie's house and discovered his walled-up victims when he began to redecorate the property. What lay behind the wallpaper he stripped away must have unhinged the poor man.
Anyway, eventually we arrived at the hospital. The prosthetist watched me walk 15 yards on my practice limb and then sent me home saying that he would send on the finished article. It took four hours, no less, for all this to happen and all but five min- utes were spent sitting in a corridor waiting for transport to take me home. So now I await the strange contents of a box, which is somehow coming through the post.
But the day my daughter and niece came round to take me out was almost like high life after the past awful three months. February 8 is a date that will forever stick in my mind, but when I liken that day to a slice of high life, I mean that simply sitting at a table on the pavement outside a café was almost a big deal. The café is in the market, bang next to my front door and it was marvellous, after weeks of reclining on this sofa, to see real human beings walking to and fro doing their shopping. It was in a . rich man, poor man, beggar man, much sought-after media personality.' way like going to the theatre for the price of a coffee; but the play is slightly odd con- sisting, as it does, of a cast that are all char- acter actors.
And, talking of actors, I have an idea to write a play using one of those Middlesex Hospital landings where the smoking and banal chat goes on. The three lifts would be a marvellous way to get people on and off stage. However, the crazy dialogue I have heard in those places would be quite unbelievable to some people.
Anyway I got home from the hospital yesterday just in time to see Robert Sang- ster's Las Meninas winning the 1,000 guineas at Newmarket by the shortest of short heads from Balanchine trained in the United Arab Emirates. You might have thought that the sunshine around Dubai might have given Balanchine a slight edge, but it was not to be. I am glad that Robert Sangster should have owned the winner because he is one of racing's better men and, in spite of his money, he is not a mean man. His hospitality to me and my then wife in Barbados 15 years ago was magnifi- cent. A very civilised man. He did actually sell Balanchine to Maktoum Al Maktoum, and how lucky for him that he sold the right filly. I shall never forget Saumarez winning the Arc de Triomphe and about £150,000 just after dear old Charles St George sold it to France. He took that bit of bad luck on the chin but it must have made him feel as sick as a dog. I won £1,000 on Saumarez and am patiently wait- ing for something else that I fancy that may be a mite of a surprise to other punters. Sadly, I don's see anything today like that, so I shall bide my time and go downstairs next door for an exciting cup of coffee among the masses.
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