Dear Lupin... (6 page)

Yours ever,

T. Tightwad

Dad wins an award but is self-deprecating to the last
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Budds Farm

27 January

Dear Lupin,

I expect business is as stagnant as the cesspit at the bottom of the garden so I enclose a small contribution which may assist you to pay your rent for a fortnight.

Yours ever,

D

Of course, it all goes on rent!

Budds Farm

I have got to go to the Newmarket Sales in filthy weather without my waterproof trousers and winter boots which I lent you six months ago and you have not had the courtesy to return.

If you wish to retain them permanently, the price to you as a special concession is £12.

Since you aspire to be a property tycoon in outer suburbia, you might practise businesslike methods in relation to borrowing my clothes; unless of course appropriation is an accepted part of the routine.

RFM

I am currently working for a rather down-at-heel estate agent in Ascot. Dad has worked himself up into a lather about some missing kit he reckons he has lent me
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Budds Farm

15 June

My Dear Charlie,

I hear you are moving to London and this may have certain advantages. I naturally don't expect you to exist like a constipated mouse there but please do not get heavily into debt or run into trouble. I like Jeremy Soames but he is probably far richer than you. He is also, I hear, fairly wild. Fatty Soames is doubtless better equipped to cover up his escapades than I am in your case. Andrew Brudenell-Bruce has charm but he is at present a waster with no occupation bar gambling. He comes into plenty of money soon and I can think of someone who will very soon help him to get rid of it.

I don't expect invariable wisdom or discretion from young men; on the other hand I reckon it ought to be possible to steer clear of the more egregious forms of folly. If you do find yourself in manure up to your eyeballs, you had better apply here for help. You may not get it but you can never tell.

In other words try and have a good time without making a fool or a shit of yourself.

Your affectionate father,

RM

My father spots signs of more trouble brewing. There is some validity in his concerns
.

I hope you are getting down to work and not wasting money playing the ass in London with George Rodney + similar types!

I think Prince Regent will win the Derby.

RM

In the event Morston wins the Derby by half a length
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Budds Farm

7 July

Dear Charlie,

I am told that you have been offered a new job by a reputable firm called Hamptons. No doubt you will be wise to accept it if the prospects for the future are reasonably good. I hope you will find somewhere suitable to live in London. I am not sure that I consider Maison Soames ‘suitable'. Personally, I rather like Soames but I am disturbed that so many of his own age-group rate him as ‘bad news'. I do not want you to be dragged into trouble or excesses. I hear that with a degree of folly that is hard to credit you permitted some child to drive your Fiat into a concrete wall. Doubtless Mr Addison in moments of exasperation used to quote to you: ‘Sunt pueri pueri; pueri puerilia tractant.' I think Miss Blackwell is to ride in a race at Ascot in a fortnight's time. Mrs Hislop went berserk at the Loyd's ball; she kicked Lady Dartmouth up the arse and called her a ‘dreary old bag' and then, after a brief argument, she punched poor old Dick Poole on the jaw!

Yours ever,

RM

To everyone's astonishment I am offered rather good job in St James's, London, with an upmarket estate agent
.

Dear Charles,

Last night I had two long conversations on the telephone with Mr Shearer. He agrees with me that this proposed jaunt to South America must not take place.

He spoke to me about his son with a candour that must have been painful to him. I gather that this boy of nineteen (or less?) has a lamentable record and was sent to an Approved School. He is still ‘under care'. He is unfortunately, according to his father, typical of young persons involved in the drug scene in that he is incapable of speaking the truth and is devoid of moral values.

Surely, unless you prefer to remain wilfully blind, you must see that the poor boy is totally unsuited in every way to be your sole companion on an ‘adventure' trip to South America? What do you know about South America? Can you speak the language? What are the political conditions existing there? What are the health dangers? Have you the money to transport yourselves and your car?

If you went off with this boy, I would be subjected to the constant worry of you both ending up in some sleazy South American gaol.

I am totally opposed to you going and Mr Shearer is totally opposed to the expedition, too. Of course, I cannot order you not to go and I cannot recollect any occasion when you have consented to take my advice. However, I regard this plan of yours as so undesirable and so potentially dangerous that it would be cowardly of me to wash me hands of the whole affair. If, therefore, you decide to go against my wishes on this occasion, you must be prepared to accept the consequences, which will not in the long run be to your advantage.

Mr Shearer told me a long and involved story about shares, I.O.Us and so forth. The impression I gained is that either you are some complete fool and allowed yourself to be used; or else, with your eyes open, you went perilously close to aiding and abetting a fraud. I found the whole story squalid and distasteful.

You are in many respects still very young for your age and I hope you will forgive me if I say you seem to have a regrettable propensity for picking up undesirable friends. You must try hard and steady down a bit. I know you were never any good at football but must you always try and kick the ball through your own goal? You are capable of working hard and effectively but since you were at Eton you have never been able to stick to anything. I am getting old and tired and I can't last forever. What sort of a head of the family will you be? Will you really be in a position to look after – or at least help and advise – your mother and sisters? You won't be much use if you are in Venezuela with a juvenile junky. Surely you are old enough to know that your mother is exceptionally highly strung and family worries can throw her off balance to an extent that is genuinely alarming. You must surely have known that you were going to upset her badly. The consequences are being borne by me, not by you.

I would be more sympathetic to your wish for ‘adventure' if you had not walked out of the Army like a housemaid taking affront at some fancied slight. Had you remained, you might have had plenty of adventures and might have perhaps experienced them in the public good. Perhaps it is my fault that you find it hard to be frank with me and I cannot forget that you told me you left the Army as you wanted to look after under-privileged children. Perhaps Charles Shearer comes into that category in your opinion?

All this is to me very painful, distressing and worrying. I need hardly tell you that your mother is in a thoroughly disturbed state. My advice to you is to take up your job at Hamptons and stick to it. I am sure that any close association with Charles Shearer will end in utter disaster.

Yours ever,

D

I have just started my new job but within a week I resign, full of ambitious plans to go to South America with one of my more disreputable friends – the only boy, I think, ever to have gone straight from Eton College to borstal
.

The Sunday Times

Dear Charles,

You certainly live up to the name of ‘Lupin' but I don't yet know who is cast for the role of Miss Daisy Mutlar.

However, many thanks for your letter which at least was not abusive as I am given to understand your letter to Mr Shearer was. Possibly I am pessimistic by nature, but so far your career has hardly inspired a demeanour of sunny optimism. If there are signs of panic, as you infer, it is because certain past experiences left an indelible mark.

As regards your friends, you are quite right to be loyal to them. You must permit me, though, to possess my own judgement as to their ‘desirability'. I do, though, like Chicken Hurt, who seems neatly cut out to be one of life's more agreeable failures. I know very little about Shearer junior. Perhaps one day you will have the leisure to explain to me why he went to an ‘Approved School'; and the details of this curious financial transaction that seems to annoy his father so much.

I am sorry you are already disillusioned with your work as an estate agent. The job, though, was your own choice. It is easy to find a trite phrase that will devalue any form of employment. I have heard my own described as ‘casting sham pearls before real swine'. I doubt if you will find any work rewarding unless you give thought as to what you can put into it; not just what you hope to take out. If the notion of sitting in an office repels you, why did you not go into the Army or the RAF or something like that? Presumably because any code of discipline, and that includes self-discipline, is abhorrent to you. I cannot see what Charles Blackwell's life has got to do with yours. I don't know if he is happy or the reverse.

If you wish to work (I repeat ‘work') in South America, by all means do so. Approach the matter in an adult and professional manner, though, and not like a Lower Boy. Go to night school and learn the language. Study the trade conditions and labour situation in the country you propose to favour with your presence. Go to the Royal Geographical Society and find out all you can about Brazil, Argentina etc. Above all go to S. America by yourself and stand on your own feet; don't just go on a motoring beano with some feckless companion. You could well afford to spend a year or more preparing yourself for this venture.

However, all good horses run true to form and no doubt in a few months' time you will want to be a jockey or manufacture cut-price tambourines for the Salvation Army. However, it is your life and I know nothing I say or wish will ever have the slightest effect on any course of action you propose to take.

Yours,

RM

The Brazilian adventure is put on hold. Dad good-naturedly resigns himself to yet another of my rapid career changes. I remember once saying, ‘I've got a great idea for a new business.' He replied, ‘For God's sake don't tell me what it is, sonny boy, or I shall probably laugh so much that I'll make a mess in my trousers.'

26 September

Dear Charlie,

Herewith £100, I suggest – I don't expect suggestions to be accepted – that you buy an overcoat, some watertight shoes and some warm shirts. You might also pay some rent in advance and put yourself – temporarily – on a good wicket.

I had lunch with your godfather F. Fletcher today, a very gentle person, essentially kind. His marriage is disintegrating, he is in poor health and v. hard up. Your mother is v. tiresome at present and by 8.30 p.m. seems to have reached the point of no return.

If Aunt Joan asks you to supper, please go. She is not a very hilarious character but fundamentally benevolent and you could be the heir! She's much richer than I am.

D

(R. F. Mortimer)

Budds Farm

28 February

Here is some treacle for your petrol. If there is anything left over, stand plump Miss Fisheyes a drink.

RFM

I have just opened an estate agency called Tips Butler and Co in Kensington High Street. The backing money is provided by some highly suspect continental gentlemen. Due to the miners' strike and the three-day week, this turns out to be possibly the most unpropitious time in living memory to open such a venture
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Dear Charles,

Aunt Shirley, accompanied by her nurse-companion, had to stay three nights in a hotel in Dorset last week. Unfortunately Aunt Shirley had to get up several times in the night. Each time she went back to the wrong room and the climax came when she climbed into a bed already occupied by a honeymoon couple. The manager asked her to leave the next morning.

Yours ever,

RM

I am invited to my Great-Aunt Shirley's eightieth birthday celebrations at the Dorchester. I say, ‘Hello, Aunt Shirley, it's a great party.' ‘Yes it is, isn't it?' she replies. 'Whose is it?'

I fear I opened this boring communication to you by mistake. How do you like humping bricks? I expect it is more fatiguing that constructing halma boards but more profitable. Come and have a rest here soon.

RFM

After my estate agency goes bust I try my hand at labouring on a building site and making backgammon boards which, rather surprisingly, I sell to Asprey, purveyor of luxury goods
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Budds Farm

3 April

My Dear Lupin,

I enclose a small birthday present with my best wishes. I'm afraid it won't get you very far nowadays but you may be able to buy a gallon of petrol and a meal at a Chinese restaurant near the Tottenham Court Road.

It is regrettable that your twenty-second birthday finds you out of work and with scant prospect of employment. I did talk to Mr P. on your behalf. Unfortunately his organization will not consider anyone who does not possess a university degree. Furthermore, out of the thirty graduates selected, only one or two survive the preliminary training.

It is unfortunate that you possess no qualifications of any sort, not even a single humble A level. Furthermore, you have never stuck to anything long since leaving school, which hardly encourages a potential employer. I know you are capable of hard work and you have the useful ability of getting on with people, but up till now you have been, in racing parlance, a non-stayer. However, it is the way of life you have chosen and there is nothing that I can do about it. I am afraid that the construction of sets for Ludo, etc. will not get you very far. Do you know anyone in North Sea oil? That is where the big money is going to be before long. My own business, journalism, is in a sad plight and it is quite possible that Beaverbrook newspapers will fold up before the year is out. Have you considered the Church? There is much to be said for the quiet life of a country curate. Fortunately in the Church of England an ordained priest is not committed to any but the vaguest beliefs. Mrs Hislop wants a jobbing gardener at £l an hour. I don't know if any other duties would be expected! How about butler to a rich Kensington widow? You can never tell how things will work out in a job like that. Possibly that well-known Hampshire plutocrat, ‘Chicken' Hurt, needs a chauffeur-valet. Would you mind sorting out his smalls? Anyhow, I think (and hope) you have a capacity for survival but don't push your luck too far. The charm of youth does not last forever – or even for a very long time.