Why my dad made me sign so many cheques when I was nine years old; the day a florist's van caused mayhem; and the old story about Gerald Duckworth fumbling Virginia Woolf
When I was nine years old my father asked me to sign some cheques. I did so without question; I rather liked showing off my handwriting. Twelve months and many cheques later, I began to wonder why my name was needed. I'd been reading Dickens - something to do with shady dealings in a lawyer's office - and I suddenly thought it was possible I was an heiress and that my dad was squandering away my inheritance. I told him of my suspicions and refused point-blank to add my signature to anything else until matters were explained. At the time he was wearing his General Montgomery beret, along with his ARP armband, and as he jumped up and down in a frenzy his hat fell off. This dance of rage was quite usual, so I wasn't dissuaded, and he never handed me his chequebook again.
He wore a beret in the style of Montgomery because we had an iron mantelpiece over the fireplace in the kitchen; every time he bent down to poke the fire he forgot what was above him, an oversight which resulted, when he rose upright, in a permanent open sore just above his left temple.
Twenty years later, I discovered he had been declared bankrupt in 1929, something which in his day was considered sinful, and that he wasn't allowed to be in control of any money. Such a happening is the stuff of tragedy, particularly for creditors.
Some eight weeks ago I took part in a radio programme to do with Robert Falcon Scott, he who reached the South Pole - though not before Amundsen - and froze to death on the return journey. I left the studios at midday to meet a dear friend, the philosopher Brian McGuinness, for lunch at the Athenaeum Club. He put me in a taxi at about three o'clock, and off I sped to Camden Town. Three houses away from my own, a florist's van zoomed from a side street and rammed into the taxi. Either the window behind the driver's seat flew into me, or I flew into it. All I remember was trying to spit out what I thought were my teeth - fortunately these were only fragments of glass - and the blood cascading across the floor and on to the pavement.
The staff were very kind at University College Hospital, apart from asking me to rinse away the bloodstains. My daughter was on the way, and I rather objected to having such red signs of injury flushed down the plughole. If you're going to suffer pain you might as well have something lurid to show for it.
Owing to six stitches in my mouth, I had to cancel various talks I was about to give up north. Two days later, a florist's van came to the house with a bunch of flowers kindly sent by the Arts Club in Liverpool. The man who delivered them was the same chap who caused the collision.
Last week I went to the Westbury Hotel to attend a meeting of creditors involved in the receivership proceedings of that great independent publisher, Gerald Duckworth. Now there's a tragedy if ever there was one! I was the only author there, although Cecil Woolf, husband of Jean Moorcroft Wilson, the biographer of Siegfried Sassoon, was present. Robin Baird-Smith was there, too, as a shareholder. He took over Duckworth when Colin Haycraft died, and was later sacked by the new owner, Stephen Hill, possibly because Robin wasn't too keen on linking Duckworth with Hollywood.
I didn't understand half of what was said, and I didn't want to ask any questions because my mouth was still funny from the accident with the florist's van. Did I mention that a piece of glass had been left in my lip and that I'd had it cut open again?
Owing money to people is a very tricky business. It helps if you were brought up to think that being in debt is one of the seven deadly sins, even worse than lechery. That's what I was taught, but after finding out my poor dad was a bankrupt, I rather fell out with the idea. In the bar of the Westbury after the meeting, Cecil, Robin and I talked about the old days. Cecil is related in some way to Gerald Duckworth, half-brother of Virginia Woolf, but we didn't mention the allegation that Gerald fumbled Virginia when she was a child, possibly when she was halfway up a ladder. I did bring up the fact that in the list of monies owed there was the sum of £345 for hiring the meeting room. They could have had my kitchen for free.
On Saturday I went out to dinner. My host is always so generous with the whisky that I felt I must buy him a bottle. Coming down the alleyway near my home, I met mad Dickie. He's an educated man and kindly, but he does like his heroin or whatever it is and is sometimes a little the worse for wear. He insisted on escorting me to the off-licence, which was nice of him, but we were in Camden Town and no sooner had we emerged on to the High Street than several of his fellow sufferers greeted him with delight. They came into the off-licence with me; we were all cut and bruised about the face. I shall never be able to go to that particular shop again.
Coming out, I desperately tried to flag down a taxi. One almost stopped, then sped off after taking in the condition of "my friends". Half an hour later, clutching my bottle and hiding my face, I managed to catch one halted at the traffic lights. In my haste, I banged my knee and laddered a stocking. You could say my feelings went through a form of bankruptcy.
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