I sh*t ye not but Terry gasped in amazement as I ripped away the cardboard on package one and he was confronted by the grinning face of Nicholas Parsons. I went on to reveal a life-size figure of the great man. Of course, I was then obliged to explain to my new neighbour that I had "history" with Parsons and that I had asked Woolworths for one of these magnificent figures which had been used for promotional display bearing the legend, "Nick's Pick of the Day". (I had him in the doorway greeting guests at house parties as shown in the pic below.) Alas, only the disembodied head remains.
I then opened the second package to reveal a lovely letter from The Rt. Hon. Lord Jenkins of Hillhead O.M. together with a present from him of his biography of Gladstone. "Oh", I said casually to Terry, "it's just a present to me from a Lord." I gathered my booty and left him standing open-mouthed, wondering what sort of nutter was living next door.
The fact is that I have always been something of a fan of Jenkins, that grandest of political grandees in my younger days. Whilst he became a hate-figure of the, er, hate-filled "left" he was, of course, a great reformer and chalked up two major "wins", the decriminalisation of homosexuality and abortion.
In a single sentence he laid down what would now be called a "roadmap" for what used to be called "race relations" and we might have all been better off had we heeded his words: "I define integration, therefore, not as a flattening process of assimilation but as equal opportunity, accompanied by cultural diversity, in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance".
Jenkins certainly enjoyed the good things in life. He liked to describe himself as being of humble origins but his father had made good. A biographer famously stated of Jenkin's claim to be a miner's son that this was true, "but only in the way that it is true to describe Mrs Jackie Onassis as the widow of a Greek merchant seaman." The same writer said of his super-posh accent that he made Sir John Gielgud sound like "rough trade"!
I came late to his books but, for the most part, he writes in a breezy and very readable - if sometimes "High Edwardian" - style. In his political biographies his own considerable experience allows him genuine insight into parliamentary dramas of yore and to vouchsafe secrets of the dark political arts.
In 2001 I happened to listen - accidentally - to a ghastly phone-in, "Call Nick Ross". Nick (or his stand-in) lost their marbles and excitedly announced that "Lord Jenkins" was holding on the line. Of course, it was absurd to think that his Lordship would put down his fine glass of claret and bandy words with the hoi polloi on the "wireless". High farce duly followed. "Is that Lord Jenkins of Hillhead calling?", the presenter gasped. A bemused Welshman responded, "No, sorry - it's Lloyd Jenkins of Wrexham"!
I wrote to Roy describing this nonsense and making favourable comment on some of his writing. A lovely letter was returned with the book.
After the bouquet, the brickbat. During lockdown I read Jenkins's "Twelve Cities". It was a charity shop purchase as it had a chapter on Birmingham. But it is a terrible read which should never have been published. This lightweight tome - money for old rope - astonishingly bore an original retail price of £25! The work is a series of super-lightweight essays describing his sojourns in various places, the agreeable places he slept in and, of course, his fine dining experiences.
In the last few days I became aware that the incomparable Craig Brown in Private Eye had satirised this shocker in 2002 in his own brilliant style. As a devotee of the Eye for more than 40 years (and the supplier of occasional titbits to the "Rotten Borough" column) I wrote to them and in double quick time they have very kindly supplied me with the article. Craig Brown substitutes the "12 Cities" for tube stations and takes us a wonderful flight of fancy mocking Jenkins's patrician style. I particularly liked "Roy's" thoughts on Totteridge and Whetstone which includes this:
"I was never a Cardinal myself, though I cannot claim this omission causes me a very great deal of regret. In the late 1950's, I was for a short while Archbishop of Verona but, for all its splendid sartorial opportunities, I found the post in the main tiresome, and communication with the Lord Almighty for the most part haphazard and tiresomely one-way."
Note: Craig Brown STILL writes for Private Eye and there is a sparkling piece in the current edition on John Bolton. GO OUT AND BUY THE EYE NOW!
The "12 Tube Stations" piece marvellously mimicks Jenkins's style which does have the tendency to lurch towards the, well, pompous. Craig Brown's only "miss" is that Lord Roy rarely writes a piece without using the word "eleemosynary"! (Google it!)
We could do with a few more like Roy Jenkins in the political sphere now. We have recently lost Nicholas Parsons but happily Craig Brown is still strutting his splendid stuff.
By the way, Terry moved away shortly after the above incident......
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