Dear Lupin...

 

 

 

 

 

Constable & Robinson Ltd

55–56 Russell Square

London WC1B 4HP

www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011

Copyright © Charlie and Roger Mortimer, 2011

The right of Charlie and Roger Mortimer to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-7803-003-7
eISBN: 978-1-78033-013-6

Printed and bound in the UK

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This book is a tribute to my dad and a big thank you to him for never giving up on me despite my endless shortcomings, failures, disasters and general inability to live up to the high hopes and aspirations he and my mother had for me, which, as these letters show, over time became slightly more realistic. Initially there were hopes that I would get my house colours at Eton and become an officer in the Coldstream Guards. Ultimately my dad merely hoped that I would avoid ‘being taken away in a Black Maria' together with my then business associates, the now infamous John Hobbs (the colourful Chelsea antiques dealer to the mega-wealthy) and his brother Carlton. However, it is now twenty years since my dad died and I suspect he would be delighted that, now almost sixty, the same age he was when he wrote me the early letters, I had at least survived thus far and was moderately happy.

As he predicted it is only in later life that I have come to fully appreciate the affection and wisdom imparted by him to me. I am grateful that, despite what he described as my ‘unorthodox lifestyle', I somehow managed to keep the majority of the letters he sent me, which is somewhat of an achievement in itself. At an early age I was aware that they were something special and not at all like the letters that my friends' fathers sent to them. In fact, I used to regularly read them out loud, often after a few drinks, to whomever I was with at the time and there were always many laughs, mainly at my expense.

My dad was enormously self-deprecating. He saw himself as a patiently enduring and thoroughly respectable middle-class gentleman, much along the lines of Mr Pooter in
The Diary of a Nobody
, while I was the disreputable son, Lupin, who was always getting into frightful scrapes. Thus many of the letters start ‘My Dear Lupin' before launching into a thoroughly bleak assessment of my current situation and future prospects. The early letters were largely of concern and admonishment but, as time went by, a resigned acceptance of the way things were crept in. Despite everything, my father never showed me anything other than affection and tolerance.

I think in later years he almost used writing as a form of therapy to deal with his own ups and downs and this, together with his unique and sometimes devastating perspective on almost anything, made the letters real gems that have clearly stood the test of time. He was a great pricker of ego, self-importance and pomposity.

He was also a total original, as indeed was my dear mother, thus his descriptions and analogies of people, situations and such are both a breath of fresh air and highly entertaining. I clearly remember him summing up Yoko Ono, when she first came on the scene, as being ‘as erotic as a sack of dead ferrets', while in one of his
Sunday Times
articles (
c
.1971), he wrote, ‘At one time a little humdrum adultery could prove a barrier to The Royal Enclosure at Ascot but now something more spectacular is required, such as hijacking a Securicor van or taking too prominent role in a sex education film designed for circulation in the best preparatory schools.'

This little collection of literary snapshots in the form of letters is a celebration both of a long-suffering father's enduring relationship with his ne'er-do-well son and a humorous insight into the life of a mildly dysfunctional English middle-class family in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

My dad was born Roger Francis Mortimer on 22 November 1909. My grandparents were pretty well off and lived in a house in Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea, London. According to the 1911 census there were eight ‘live-in' staff members. My grandfather, Haliburton Stanley Mortimer, was a charming man but by all accounts not a great stockbroker. My grandmother, Dorothy (née Blackwell) was an heiress of the well-known food company Crosse & Blackwell. My father had one sibling, Joan, born in 1907.

He was educated at Ludgrove School, Eton College and Sandhurst. In 1930 he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards. He was a captain when his platoon fought a desperate rear guard action at Dunkirk in 1940 during which almost all of his men were killed and he was wounded. Unconscious, he was taken prisoner and spent the remainder of the war in prison camps running the camp radio. Many of my father's friends in later life were those he met as prisoner-of-war no. 481 in various Oflags and Stalags.

After the war he rejoined his regiment and, as a major, served in Trieste. However, in 1947 he resigned and took up an appointment with Raceform, the official form book for horse racing. He followed this by becoming racing correspondent of the
Sunday Times
until retiring almost thirty years later. He also wrote for various other newspapers, was a commentator for the BBC and became PR officer to the Tote. In addition, he wrote several classic books on racing, the greatest of which was undoubtedly
The History of the Derby
. His other books on racing included
The Jockey Club
,
Anthony Mildmay
,
Twenty Great Horses
and
The Flat
. My dad was also a keen gardener and quite an expert on military history.

He met my mother, Cynthia Denison-Pender, in 1947 and within six weeks had proposed to her. They were married in St Paul's, Knightsbridge, on 10 December of the same year. My older sister Jane was born in 1949, myself in 1952 and my younger sister Louise in 1957.

My mother: Cynthia Sydney Mortimer aka Nidnod (née Denison-Pender, born 28 February 1921).

My older sister: Jane Clare Torday aka Miss Cod-Cutlet, Miss Cod's Eyes, Miss Fisheyes, Miss Bossy Pants (née Mortimer, born 23 January 1949).

My younger sister: Louise Star Carew aka LL, Lumpy Lou (née Mortimer, born 12 January 1957).

My brothers-in-law: Paul Torday (married older sister, 1971; two sons, Piers and Nick); Henry Carew aka HHH, Hot Hand Henry (married younger sister, 1977; one daughter, Rebecca, and one son, Ben).

Father's mother: Dorothy Mortimer aka Gar (née Blackwell).

Father's sister: Joan Cockburn (née Mortimer, born 1907; married to Reggie Cockburn aka Uncle Reggie).

Mother's sisters: Pamela Darling aka Aunt Pam (née Denison-Pender, born 1915; married to Kenneth Darling aka General Sir Kenneth Darling); Barbara Denison-Pender aka Aunt Boo (born 1917; divorced).

Father's first cousins: Tom Blackwell; John Blackwell (my godfather).

Father's first cousins once removed: Tom Blackwell's son, Charlie, and daughter, Caroline.

Father's aunts: Shirley Blackwell (née Lawson-Johnson); Margery Blackwell (never married).

Mother's aunt: Phyllis Shedden aka Aunt Pips (née Fisher; married Norman Loder, then Lindsay Shedden).

Turpin (wonderful black mongrel); Moppet (the cat); Pongo (Dalmation); Soloman aka Tiny Man, Solly, Cringer (fox terrier); Peregrine aka Perry (chihuahua); Baron von Otto aka The Baron, Otto (chihuahua).

Mr Randall aka Randy; Keith Bailey.

Jenny and Audrey.

Colin and Sarah Bomer, and their two sons, Mark and William; the Roper-Caldbecks; Farmer Luckes; Lord Carnarvon; the Adams boys.

John Surtees aka Mr S. (and wife Anne); Desmond Parkinson aka Mr P. (and wives Heather, then Paddy); Freddy Burnaby-Atkins (and wife Jenny); Fitz Fletcher (my godfather); Francis Reed; Sir Frederick Corfield QC aka Dungy Fred.

Nick and Judy Gaselee; John and Liz Pope; Peter Willett; John and Jean Hislop; the Cottrills; Dick Hern; Peter Walwyn; the Wallis family.

Agnete Cameron aka Mrs Cameron (my godmother); Gerald and Helen de Mauley aka Lady de Mauley; Nancy and Richard McLaren; Rodney Carrott; Raoul and Sheila Lemprière-Robin; the Hambros; Joyce Walker; the Grissells; the Tollers; the Yarrows; Paul Majendie; the Thistlethwaytes; the Guinness family (bankers); the Edgedales.

Norman Addison aka CNCA (House Tutor); John Faulkner aka Ordinary Faulkner (Classical Tutor); Michael Kidson (Modern Tutor).

Probably the less said about them the better but including: Pete Breitmeyer aka Peter Carew; George Rodney; Jeremy Soames; Charlie Hurt aka Chicken Hurt, Le Poulet; Charlie Shearer; Joe Gibbs; Andrew Brudenell-Bruce; Tony Simmons aka Tony S.; Robin Grant-Sturgis; Charlie Higgins; Mollie Salisbury aka Lady Salisbury, the Marchioness of Salisbury; James Staples.

Simon Sandbach; the Greenwells; Jeffrey Bernard.

Barclay House, Yateley (1950–67); Budds Farm, Burghclere (1967–84); The Miller's House, Kintbury (1984–2006)

It all started for me on Grand National Day, 1952
.

My dad's job was that of racing journalist and radio commentator and he was up in Liverpool for the big race at Aintree. The following observations were written at the time in my blue ‘Baby Book' by my mother: ‘Charles Roger Henry kept us waiting three weeks to the day and then arrived at his home Barclay House at five minutes to eight on the morning of Friday April 4th. Jeanie his nurse (and mine!) only rang the doctor at 7.15 so he was literally scrubbing up in technical terms when Charles shot himself into the world. It was quite thrilling to hear I had a lovely son and see him on the bed beside me. The moment I had been revived by a cup of tea I rang up Roger at Liverpool and caught him still in his room. I knew he would never believe he really had a son. Charles himself was the happiest of babies, so placid and easy.'