My generation is divided into those who went to see Maureen Potter in panto at the Gaiety and those, like me, who went to see Jack Cruise at the Olympia. Miss Hickey, a spinster friend of Mrs McGinn, gave me an autograph book. She thoughtfully stood at the stage door to christen it with JC’s signature. I still enjoy a Christmas show – last year Company (Sondheim) – this year Otello at Covent Garden. It was a Sunday matinee; the audience were more attentive than on weekday evenings when culture lovers have been at their desks and are weary.
This must be the most eye-wateringly ghastly production to have been visited on Verdi’s opera for a long time. At this first revival, it is better just to close one’s eyes and take in what is a decent musical performance, and sometimes more than that. (Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 10th December 2019)
Why are critics so dyspeptic? He is Dicky Unfairman. The production was acceptable, only once distracting and the costumes were admirable. As my friend, wig-maker Richard Mawbey, laments – “they only ever mention the wigs when they are bad” – so he doesn’t get much publicity. Desdemona, Ermonela Jaho, looked so demure and comely I wanted to take her home and her frocks were to die for. Actually she looked young and vulnerable from Row K; not quite so youthful in this photo. By the way, Gregory Kunde is my age and looks a lot younger.
A Time of Gifts
My friends know me well; not a novel among my Christmas presents. Hard to choose which one to read. I’m reading The Club because I was given it first and Kenneth Rose’s journals because I can dip in and out. The latter covers 1979 to 2014 so, for once, I don’t always have to read the explanatory footnotes. Already I have read about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
31 July 1979
Lunch with Harold Wilson at the Travellers’ Club … Some talk of anti-Semitism, especially Ernest Bevin’s. Wilson has heard of the relish with which Bevin, on becoming Minister of Labour and National Service in 1940, boasted that he would call up all the East End Jews. “Real working-class anti-Semitism”, says Wilson. I suggest it is more a characteristic of the lower-middle class, and he agrees.
It is worth remembering Kenneth Rose was a Jew and suffered bullying and anti-Semitic prejudice when he was at Sandhurst, prior to being commissioned in the Welsh Guards. His calibration of Bevin’s class is typical of KR who set store by such fine distinctions. To digress, The Spectator Christmas Crossword has this clue: “Labour chief not quite accepting support of Jews? (7)”
Forty Years Ago
Each year’s entries are preceded by a summary written by D R Thorpe, editor of the journals. Only two things have changed in the last forty years: the scourge of inflation and unemployment.
1980: Industrial problems continued in the UK. Workers at the British Steel Corporation went on a nationwide strike on 2 January. Margaret Thatcher announced on 14 February that state benefits to strikers would be cut by half. Robert Runcie was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury on 25 March. Zimbabwe became independent of the UK on 18 April. On 5 May the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy after it had been taken over by Iranian Arab separatists, freeing all the hostages. Inflation rose to 21.8 per cent on 16 May. The economy slid into recession in June. Death of CP Snow on 1 July. Former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan criticised Mrs Thatcher’s economic policies on 15 October. Ronald Reagan was elected President of the US on 4 November. On 10 November Michael Foot was elected leader of the Labour Party. On 18 December opinion polls gave Labour a lead of twenty-four points.
By 1984 unemployment reached 11.9%. Lady Thatcher’s monetarism was tough love. I was lucky enough to be employed and was unaware of inflation as my City career was in the ascendant in the 1980s.
Precocious Children
13 October 1977
Peter (Carrington) tells me that he and several other frontbencher Tories were nauseated by the much-heralded speech of a sixteen-year-old schoolboy called William Hague. Peter said to Norman St John-Stevan: “If he is as priggish and self-assured as that at sixteen, what will he be like in thirty years time?” Norman replied: “Like Michael Heseltine.”
27 July 1980
William Rees-Mogg tells me that his boy Jakie, aged eleven, plays the stock market and is a very real holder of shares in GEC. He went to the annual meeting and voted against the accounts on the grounds that the dividend was not big enough. The Chairman did not notice his hand was up, but Arnold Weinstock did, and solemnly announced that the vote in favour of the accounts was not unanimous: “Mr Rees-Mogg dissents.”
15 March 1981
William Waldegrave tells me that at Eton, sitting under the board recording the names of the winners of the prestigious Newcastle Scholarship, he conceived two ambitions: to win it and to be one of the few winners whose name took up two lines on the board. He achieved the first, but Chenevix-Trench omitted the “Hon” before his name, so it could all be crammed into a single line.
A few years ago I found myself beside Lord Carrington at Garsington Opera. I hope he wasn’t offended when I swapped seats so that Robert could sit beside him but I reckoned it was the only chance R had of sitting beside a minister from Churchill’s and Eden’s governments. My meeting with William Waldegrave a couple of years ago was unfortunate. After the port had been round more than once I thought it imperative to tell him how much I enjoyed his memoir, Glittering Prizes. He looked only fairly genial. Hardly surprising since that is a memoir by Frederic Raphael and the Provost’s is A Different Kind of Weather, the title perhaps alluding to Alec Douglas-Home’s memoir, The Way the Wind Blows – a nod to his love of fishing. I have yet to meet Jacob Rees-Mogg. I respect his fecundity, ability to make money and not much else.
New Year Countdown
I am trying to work out why your new format, excellent in all other respects, is failing to attract the level of audience participation of the previous format. Is it perhaps that many of your readers are of a certain age causing us to forget our incisive comment or witticism by the time we have read all your different strands? Now where was I?
“John”, if that is indeed your name, I know that you often express trenchant opinions here – thank you. I think readers are discouraged from posting comments – eg shy “Andy” in Westminster – because they simply want to read. On an amateur’s website it is rude to be critical and it is fawning to flatter, so usually no comment suffices (NB Hoof Hearted/Hibernophile). Francis in Wimbledon, when he comments, always upstages the post – terrific and much appreciated.
Presumably the Different Kind of Weather of the Provost’s book is the non-Jolly Boating variety.