The Light's on at Signpost (12 page)

P
ARENTAL-FILIAL
jealousy is a phenomenon worth studying. It’s natural, I guess, for a son to resent, or at least feel overshadowed by, a famous parent: I remember Maurice Macmillan, son of Prime Minister Harold, addressing a luncheon in Glasgow chaired by young Hugh Fraser, son of the celebrated old bandit who bought Harrods, and saying that he sympathised with young Hugh because he too knew, none better, what it meant to be the son of a giant. It is particularly hard when the son finds himself in the same field of endeavour as Papa, and is less successful.

But more interesting is the case of the jealous father—or perhaps I should say the father who sees his son as a competitor. Douglas Fairbanks, Senior, is said to have discouraged film producers from employing Douglas Junior because “there’s only one Fairbanks”. It sounds like desperation, and was rather pathetic, for the truth was that Fairbanks Senior, while highly regarded in his day, was a posturing little ham unfit to polish the sabre of his son, the one and only Rupert of Hentzau. And there have been others who have seemed uncomfortable at the thought that junior might outstrip them.

I believe this was the case with Amis père et fils. My first encounter with them was when Martin, then literary editor of the
New
Statesman
, asked me to do book reviews for him. I did, and we had a most happy relationship by correspondence. What was odd was that my work, not noticeably left of centre, was appearing in a famously socialist journal.

“Which is probably why my son is no longer literary editor of the
New Statesman
”, was Kingsley’s comment when we met for the first time at a
Sunday Express
literary thrash, and I mentioned that I had worked for Martin. The younger Amis was at that time beginning to make a name as a novelist, and I remember Kingsley remarking “I wish him well,” and adding, as he reached for another drink: “Not too well.”

An odd attitude, if you ask me. I wonder if, being a Scot, I have that Caledonian lust of ambition for my children, and want them to do well, and better than I have done. When my son was appointed Sheriff in Scotland, my only regret was that his grandfather—and my grandmother, to whom I always felt that I was a disappointment—were not there to see it. I fairly burst with pride, as I did when my other son somehow masterminded those enormous dinosaurs into the Natural History Museum. Ah well, it will be said, they weren’t in your line, they weren’t competing.

True, but hold the phone; my daughter is on her way to becoming one of the leading women novelists, with nine books behind her, a growing readership, and a professional talent which I didn’t have at her age. She owes me absolutely nothing except perhaps that because of my work she grew up with the idea that writing was the natural thing to do; her career has been a one-woman show, and if I have a hope in old age it is that she will knock the old man’s socks off and become a name in modern literature.

I’m not trying to make comparisons between my parental outlook and those of Fairbanks and Amis; I can’t help the way I feel, and that’s all there is to it. Indeed the subject has always been one for comedy in our family: let one of the children do well at school or in any intellectual pursuit, and somebody would invariably quote
A. J. Cronin’s Mr Brodie: “It’s a great thing for a man to see his brains come out in his own child.” The jest is compounded by the fact, as the little blighters well know, that I haven’t even a vestige of an official educational qualification to my name.

So I simply don’t understand Kingsley’s attitude—or the astonishing fact that he didn’t try to conceal it. To judge from his letters, he seems to have been above-average unpleasant, and even on brief acquaintance I saw examples of his rudeness and cantankerousness, but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have a soft spot for a man who was so enthusiastic about my work. At our last meeting, a lunch for
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord
, he surprised me by asking suddenly: “Which is the best of the Flashman books, then?”

I said I had no idea, and had no favourites; all I was sure of was that I always disliked the most recent one. I added that my former agent, George Greenfield, thought
Flashman at the Charge
satisfied the canons better than any of the others. Kingsley shook his head firmly. “It’s got to be
Flashman and the Redskins
,” said he, and proceeded to tell me why, in some detail—and if I seem unduly self-admiring in recounting this, my excuse is that it isn’t every day that you hear that kind of thing from arguably the leading writer of his time.

He was probably a man of unexpected enthusiasms. He told me that he had recently developed a mild passion for Scottish folksongs, “The Flowers of the Forest” in particular, and we discovered an interesting (to me, anyway) piece of common ground: neither of us had the foggiest idea what R. L. Stevenson’s
The Suicide Club
was about, and we weren’t too sure about
Jekyll and Hyde
, either.

All writers are proud and delighted to have kind things said about their work, but few things have moved me more than learning that in the last days of Kingsley’s life, Flashman was his favourite companion. That shook me, and led me to wonder what I would like to read when preparing to meet the Great Perhaps, and came to the conclusion that I’d be happiest with something funny, like
Leacock or Wodehouse, or perhaps a good robust piece of sensational fiction.
Synthetic Men of Mars
, for instance, or any James Hadley Chase.
*
No, even better, any back numbers from the 1930s of the
Wizard, Hotspur, Rover
, etc.…Who needs Proust when you can go over the edge and into the undiscovered country with the Wolf of Kabul and Clicky-ba?

I worried a moment ago about self-admiration, but how one is to write autobiographical material without a modicum of smirking swank, I’m damned if I know. So, just to get the vanity bit out of the way, I shall record that I have been proud to number among Flashman fans not only Kingsley but such celebrities as Charlton Heston, Johnnie Cash, Burt Lancaster, Wodehouse (how lucky can you get?), and a plump, smiling, white-haired old gentleman to whom I was introduced in Trader Vic’s by the late Bob Parrish, film director, many years ago. Bob presented me, the old chap cried: “Flashman!” and I realised I was shaking hands with Charlie Chaplin. I’m sorry mentioning it, but wouldn’t you?

Which brings me to memorable (to me) encounters with great men, the first being Field-Marshal (then General) Slim, of whom I have written elsewhere; we didn’t meet, exactly, but I was one of a rifle company whom he addressed in Central Burma, and he was unforgettable. I never saw a more honest, human, and indestructible man. My mate Grandarse, a walking mass of Cumbrian brawn, used to say: “Neebody’s tough. Ah could put doon Joe Louis, easy—aye, and he could put me doon, an’ a’. See what Ah mean? Naw, neebody’s tough.” He added, after seeing Slim: “Mind, Ah’ll mek an exception in that booger’s case.”

From “the greatest battlefield general since Wellington” to perhaps the best-loved funny man of the last century may seem an odd leap, but it was only a few years after seeing Slim that I was fortunate enough to meet Oliver Hardy. He and Stan Laurel were at the end of their joint career, touring British theatres, and in due course arrived at Her Majesty’s, Carlisle, where they were to be the penultimate act in the second half of the bill. As usual with Carlisle audiences, there was a pessimistic critic in the gents, observing glumly to whoever would listen: “They say Laurel an’ ’Ardy spoil this show. Aye, that’s what they’re saying.” To my delight, when the two great men took the stage and put on an act whose simple brilliance and comic timing were close to genius, the prophet of gloom was to be seen having hysterics of mirth.

I was a young reporter, but it wasn’t journalistic zeal that sent me backstage during the last act; I just wanted to meet Hardy. I knocked on his door, the well-known voice called: “Come in!”, and there he was, bowler on head, blue suit crumpled, sitting on a chair, looking rather weary in that resigned, patient way that all the world knew and smiled to see.

I told him that I just wanted to say thanks for all the fun and laughter of years, and would have withdrawn quickly, but he bade me to a chair, shook hands, and thanked me with old-world courtesy for coming in to see him. I must have asked him some question or other, for he began to talk, of his Scottish ancestry, and of two of his film colleagues whom I especially admired, Dennis King, that splendid baritone of
Fra Diavolo
fame, and pop-eyed Jimmy Finlayson, the master of suppressed fury. I didn’t want to linger, for he looked truly tired, but as I was making for the door he called
“God bless!”, and I turned to find that he was giving me the Hardy farewell, beaming and twiddling his tie with those plump fingers. Memories don’t come any better, and whenever I recall that stout, kindly figure sitting in that seedy dressing-room, I hear the words of the cinema narrator: “Laurel and Hardy, two very funny gentlemen. Two very funny, gentle men.”

No one would call Bill Shankly gentle; I have heard some of his Liverpool players call him the very reverse, and his manner was certainly brisk and frequently abrasive. But he was a merry man, too, loud and lively, with a good understanding and, on occasion, something suspiciously like a kind heart.

I knew him when I was a sports reporter on the
Carlisle Journal
and he was the novice manager of Carlisle United, the club with whom he had made his playing debut in English football, after an apprenticeship in his native Scotland with the splendidly named Glenbuck Cherrypickers. It is an acquaintance which has given Kathy and me enormous status on holiday cruises, with waiters who seem to come mostly from Liverpool; nothing has been too good for those fortunates who have actually
known
and
spoken to
one who in his day was the uncrowned king of Merseyside.

Kathy’s first meeting with him—she too was a reporter—was at some function which he was to open, and provided her first acquaintance with what I can only call the West of Scotland industrial accent. Bill beamed affably and asked: “Hoo ye gonnon?” and it took her a moment to translate this as: “How are you going on?”, a common Glasgow greeting. In fact, although his accent was strange to unaccustomed ears, he was an unusually clear speaker, with a decisive, rapid-fire delivery; Shankly meant what he said, after a moment’s thought usually accompanied by a drawn-out exclamation of the letter “a”, something like “Eh-h-h-h-” followed by a rapid patter of speech.

He spoke as he was, and as he had played: a bundle of energy who never let up. The first sight I ever had of him was in a newsreel
of the England–Scotland match at Wembley in 1938; it had been a dull game, and in the last minute, with a Scottish victory foregone, the players were moving lackadaisically—except for one, chasing the ball up to the final whistle: Shankly. I played against him once, in a knock-up game at Brunton Park, and was ill-advised enough to shoulder-charge him. It was like hitting a brick wall, and I doubt if he even noticed.

I have heard that he was a tyrant at Liverpool, and indeed he imposed a discipline at Carlisle which would probably seem excessive today. Football was his life, his abiding passion, and he expected (and got) a dedication to it from his players. I remember him seeing off a coach carrying the Carlisle team to an away match in the charge of his assistant; as it pulled away, Shankly had an afterthought, and ran after it, beating on the side and shouting “Fred, Fred, don’t stop at yon restaurant in Hellifield or the gannets’ll eat themselves stupid!” His training methods might seem primitive to modern eyes, but they were uncompromising.

He could be very human. At a reserve game a young trialist was playing deplorably, and apparently deaf to the instructions roared at him from the touchline; late in the game he put the finishing touch to his lamentable display by scoring an own goal, and when the final whistle blew I expected a Shankly explosion. But when Bill took his accustomed place at the tunnel mouth, patting each Carlisle player with a muttered encouragement as they trooped past (a typical Shanklyism), and the offender came off last, hangdog and plainly apprehensive, he too received a pat and “On ye go, son.” I must have shown my surprise, for Bill shrugged and muttered, “Ach, whit the hell, the boy wis daein’ his best.”

He retained an affection for Carlisle long after he had become a household name, and when the club won promotion to the First Division (now the Premiership), and topped the table after three games, he described it as “the greatest day in the history of fitba’!”

How nice a man he could be I discovered when Kathy and I,
having emigrated to Canada and worked as reporters through a freezing Saskatchewan winter, returned to Britain after a year. On our departure Bill had bidden me good-bye with a crushing handshake and an emphatic Shankly benison: “Eh-h-h-h, ye’re daein’ the right thing, Geordie! There’s far more opportunities in Canada than there is here! On ye go, son, and a’ the best!”