Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (15 page)

A few thousand miles south, the American hostages
³⁴
are flying into Algiers Airport and a few thousand miles west, Reagan is being sworn in as President. Now the enormous humiliation of the hostages is over will Reagan extract some vengeance – just how will he practically live up to his big talk of a Great, Respected America? Watch half in excitement, half in real fear.

After lunch I drive down to Wapping to see Chris Orr. Wapping High Street is the most unlikely high street left in Britain. Some fine houses remain, but mostly it’s corrugated iron and mud and warehouses turned into wine stores.

To Chris’s room at New Crane Wharf. I look at his latest etchings. The humour and the style and skill and originality are all there. Now, instead of illustrating prose he’s putting words as commentary onto prints.

We walk downstairs and along cobbled streets past warehouses which other artists have moved into, but not greatly changed. Reminds me of Covent Garden just after the fruit market left. To a red-brick building opposite the Prospect of Whitby pub which announces that it was built in 1890 for The London Hydraulic Power Company.

I’m shown around by a young man and an older character, who is quite marvellous and would be a superb TV presenter – a working man’s Kenneth Clark. Very articulate, tells a good story, is never lost for words, ideas and references – all presented in a light and original fashion. He tells me about the use of hydraulic power in central London, pumped around a network of ten-inch cast-iron pipes below the ground which would now cost a fortune to lay. When the Hydraulic Power Co finally closed down – only four years ago – it had 3,000 subscribers, controlling the rise and fall of theatre safety curtains, lifts, the vacuum cleaners in the Savoy Hotel and, its star client, Tower Bridge.

Home to hear that
Parkinson
want me to do their show on Wednesday. I’ve never felt any great loss at not being on Parky – in fact Python as a group refused the dubious honour twice – but the guests with me are to be Sir Peter Parker
³⁵
and Robert de Niro. These two, representing the best of railways and acting, are both men I admire, and out of sheer joie de vivre I accept.

I have to ring Ken Stephinson about something too and I tell him with jovial innocence that he’s been scooped by
Parkinson
. There follows a chill of disappointment from the Manchester end of the phone.

I, of course, have completely and clumsily underestimated the office politics of the BBC (not being one who normally experiences such things). I had agreed to go on
Russell Harty
at the end of February and,
from what Ken says, the impact of such an appearance would be lessened if I were to turn up on
Parkinson
less than a month before. The rivalry obviously matters deeply, so I retract and ring the
Parkinson
office and decline to appear.

A rather irritating little episode. All I feel is that, on looking back on it, everyone’s reactions will seem ridiculously over-done and quite unnecessary. Including mine. That’s enough of that molehill anyway.

Fine, dry, mild day. Confined to No. 2 for most of the time, varnishing the table for the railway. But the great outdoors beckoned and I felt in such a relaxed and unrushed state that on the spur of the moment, having read the Sundays and discovered what a ‘structuralist’ was, I decided to take Willy and Rachel into town.

We ended up at the practically deserted Tate Gallery. Both Willy and Rachel excellent company. Willy remarked on how few women artists were represented (a quite amazing disproportion – could only find Gwen John) and, as if by telepathy, just after I had the distinct feeling that the Rothko room reminded me of Stonehenge, Willy said it reminded him of a circle of stones – Stonehenge, he said. Rachel thought all the bums and titties a bit rude, but we all three had a thoroughly enjoyable time – without getting bored or feeling that we were appreciating art out of duty.

Work on the railway again – and try and solve the sidings problem. I find I become so involved in trying to unravel the complexities of it all that it’s hard to tolerate any interference. Which tonight comes in the shape of T Gilliam, who brings round some tapes of the sort of music Denis wants George to put into the film. It’s average to good George Harrison quavery trillings, with some fine guitar, but seems to be quite at odds with the rather crisp, brittle, neurotic pace of the movie. Well, tomorrow we shall have all this out at a viewing and later chat with George.

I lure TG (quite easily) into playing trains.

The days have become so warm, what with this balmy, recycled Florida weather washing over us, that wasps are waking up and flying into my workroom. The garden is coming alive too, eager shoots poking out in trepidation then, sensing it’s spring, pushing boldly on. They’re probably going to have a terrible time in February.

To Wardour Street for the
Time Bandits
viewing.

I’m very pleased with the way the film looks. The sound effects have revived my enthusiasm, which had waned a little over the last two viewings. Felt today like I did the first time I saw it – that between us we have put together an adventure story full of curiosities.

Still more music to go on, however, and afterwards I go with Terry to Ray Cooper’s flat in Wapping to discuss this very matter.

24 Narrow Street, Wapping. Quite an address. We walk across the threshold and into another world. From poverty and desolation to wealth and taste. There is bare brick everywhere – much of it, I gather, the original wall sand-blasted. The brick is of mellow, autumnal gold and very restful and elegant.

Up in the lift two floors and step into a breathtaking open-plan room, with three big windows giving onto a balcony and then the Thames. Wide and impressive at this point, on the base of the U-curve between the Tower of London and the Isle of Dogs.

Everything has its place and the room is carefully and orderly set out, with coffee table books on the coffee table and a round dining table full of salads and delicately set platefuls of taramasalata and things. Crowning the whole a magnum of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou ’69.

George arrives (in brand new Porsche), having driven from Cadogan Square in about 15 minutes. He brings Derek Taylor, whom I’m most pleased to see. Derek thrives on chat and good relaxed company and we’re never at our best in the artificial world of meetings.

George gives, either coincidentally, but I think actually quite deliberately, the current Denis O’Brien line on
Time Bandits
– that it should be 90 minutes. There’s rather a lot George doesn’t like about it and I wonder if he really is the best person to be doing the music. But he seems to want to do it, though he does reveal a little petulance over the fact that Denis is constantly asking him to dip in to finance films.

‘What the hell, it’s only a tax-loss picture,’ says George at one point. He laughs. But the laughter must grate on TG.

Try to reach Richard Loncraine
³⁶
to explain my decision not to do
Brimstone and Treacle
. Can’t reach him.

To Methuen to see Marilyn Malin, the children’s editor. I feel on very safe ground with her. She has the Methuen caution. Like Geoffrey. But it transpires that she really does like
Small Harry
and wants to publish it and is happy with Caroline [Holden] as designer.

It all seems to fall into place. I promise to push through the contract with minimum fuss (if terms are reasonable). Methuen undertake to print at least 15,000 copies. So I do feel rather pleased with myself as I walk out and up Holborn to the shops. Thanks to Mel Calman and Ballymaloe!

Home. Reach Loncraine. He’s very disappointed, he says kindly. Fox were very interested and both Ken Trodd and Potter himself had been in favour of the casting. But it must be third on my list this year – after my film and my word to Thomas Ellice about ‘Wheels of Chance’. To go to the top of my list it would have to have been something that was totally and unequivocally unmissable. And it wasn’t that.

To Charing Cross Station to catch the 10.45 to Hastings to have my portrait painted by John Bratby. I’m looking forward to it, in an intrigued sort of way.

We clatter through the labyrinth of South London. There are no non-stop trains to Hastings, which is perhaps the most indicative clue to the nature of the town itself. A seaside place without the style of Brighton or the industrial and economic usefulness of Southampton or the travelling status of Folkestone or Dover. The train approaches it with an ever-increasing number of stops. As if reluctant to ever get there.

There aren’t many getting off this February morning. As I walk down the steps to the booking office and what they nowadays like to call ‘the concourse’, I catch sight of two figures, peering like co-conspirators in an
English ‘B’ movie of the ’50’s from behind the window of the refreshment room. They collude, then start to move out.

Bratby is round, small and beaming shyly. He reminds me of Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas. He doesn’t say anything or shake hands, but not in an unfriendly way. Dark-haired, dark-skinned wife with good-humoured eyes. She indicates an ordinary, untidy, red station wagon. Of English make, I think. We drive through Hastings, I making my cheerful, mundane observations about the place, their reactions not quite predictable. She doesn’t like Hastings.

Their house comes up sooner than I’d expected. A rambling Georgian mansion with a tower on top linked to the house by a glass conservatory in the sky. It’s set in quite unpretentious surroundings overlooking the town of Hastings and the sea.

She lets me out then discreetly drives the red car away and John Bratby takes over, showing me the way along a scruffy passage into a studio. Dominating is a big oil painting of Paul McCartney, dated 1967. Paul looks like a sad little waif – and it seems very much at odds with the capable, super-businessman I hear he is. Maybe that’s why he left his portrait here.

Bratby, who seems more at ease now he’s in his studio, points me to the chair where I must sit. It’s like visiting the doctor’s. The same relationship between myself, the object, and the professional. On my left side a window, not very clean, on my right a spotlight turned towards me. A big paraffin heater of modern design considerately set for me.

For the first half-hour he doesn’t touch the three foot by two foot canvas on a stand in front of him. He compliments me on my healthiness; he is amazed that I’m 37. I find as we talk that he is much concerned with death and ageing. He is also glad to hear that I don’t take life too seriously. Only when he reached the age of 50, he said, did he realise that life didn’t have to be taken seriously and he wishes he’d discovered this earlier! He is quite ready to laugh and laughs rather well. He amused me too when we both were comparing notes about the fascist tendencies of Kenwood House attendants. Once they accused Bratby of having added a daub of paint to Rembrandt’s nose in the self-portrait there.

Patti, his wife, keeps us well filled with coffee. He drinks it in vast mugfuls, as he squeezes more and more tubes of oil paint on to an already thick, full palette. Occasionally he stops talking, which I find disconcerting until I realise that he is concentrating so hard that he has ceased to regard me in the conventional dialogue relationship.

He likes to work in England. He loses his identity when he travels. He works very solidly. He prefers to work in his studio. He is much impressed by people like myself whom he regards as ‘the last people’ – individuals who stand out from the herd. He’s concerned by creeping Bennite egalitarianism, stamping out all quality in life – all the odd ones who by their own great talents stand out … again this slightly alarming elitist theorising.

After about three and a half hours he asks if I want to see it. And there, amazingly, it is. The canvas is full, with short, thick streaks of oil paint – dozens of colours and shades – and there is me as Bratby sees me. It is done. I have to admire it, because he seems to have achieved so much with such apparent lack of effort. His painting is a complex process, yet he’s achieved quite a simple image. He says that while I’m there it’s difficult to let the painting speak for itself, but it will, he says, over the next week.

And then the car is ready outside and we’re back into the ‘B’ movie. Patti drives me away to the station and onto the train back to Charing Cross.

Wake, most reinvigorated. Breakfast at half past nine. Scan the
Observer
. A really encouraging report that the Minister of Transport, Norman Fowler, is giving his support to a sensible investment plan for the railways – sensible because it plans to inject twice as much government money over six years or so as it does at the moment. Sounds bold. Could all the ads and the publicity skills of P Parker, and even our series of railway documentaries have helped?

On either side of a succulent roast beef lunch I and the boys clear round the pond. Heavy, muddy, but satisfying work. Willy dredges out all sorts of old bits of rubbish – roller skates, tennis balls and bits of old pram – with his usual uncontrollable glee. He falls in eventually.

G. Chapman rings. Obviously pushed by Denis, he rather quickly blurts out that he wants me to be in
Yellowbeard
. Just as quickly I repeat my rejection of the offer. Then he talks about Telepictures. What is my attitude? Against, I say. ‘Oh dear,’ says the doctor, ‘it’s going to be a bad week for Denis.’

To Cadogan Square to meet Denis O’B. I tell him that I’m against any Telepictures deal which involves decimation of the Python shows. This causes Denis some concern, as he says we have made a deal in good faith (though Telepictures have been granted the good faith rather than Python) and he’s extremely worried about going back on his word. My suggestion is that we let Telepictures have Python product on the stipulation it isn’t cut at all – and see if they want us badly enough to be able to accommodate such a demand.