The Doors Open (16 page)

In the spring of that year the crowds who listen to London’s street-corner speakers began to notice a new figure.

He appeared on Tower Hill and in Finsbury Square, and once, but once only, he addressed the Sunday audiences in Hyde Park. His favourite pitch seemed to be the south-east corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

The employees of the Land Registry, who have a dress-circle view of this latter forum, christened him the Lion of Scotland: and the name was so obviously appropriate that it stuck. For there was the thick tawny mane of hair, the pug nose, the pendulous, slightly unshaven jowl, and above all there was the great roaring voice, which would not have disgraced the King of Beasts at his kill. The accent was a sort of Clydeside.

The Lion of Scotland made a spectacular first appearance on this stage.

By a species of gentleman’s agreement not uncommon in public oratorical circles, the platform had been reserved on that particular day for a speaker from a religious brotherhood – (the ones who believe in the transmigration of souls and the ending of the world at midnight on the thirty-first of December in the year ad 2000).

The Lion, arriving ten minutes before the Prophet, took possession of his rostrum and began to speak.

The prophet, when he did show up, proved to be quite a militant type, and proceedings opened with a free fight, won by the Lion on points. A police constable who was called on to intervene showed that British genius for compromise by relegating religion to one end of the platform and politics to the other.

Since the platform in question was simply a small stone pediment (designed to serve as the base for a drinking fountain) it was obvious that victory was going to depend, in the long run, less on audience appeal than on plain lung-power. And here, as we have indicated, the gentleman from Glasgow had it every time.

The crowd at his end of the rostrum grew accordingly, whilst the prophet’s audience shrank, until in the end it comprised only one professional supporter (with a banner), one small girl, and a Chancery judge who happened to be passing and appeared to be much attracted by the prophet’s theories on the Book of Isaiah.

The Lion of Scotland, in contrast, based his appeal on the broadest popular lines. For appeal he undoubtedly had, though it was difficult to define exactly where it lay. To a certain extent it was noticeable that he suited his style to his audience, being incendiary on Tower Hill, plausibly financial in Finsbury, and verging on the forensic in Lincoln’s Inn. But those who listened to all his utterances – and to a small band of the faithful appeared to follow him from place to place – remarked one idiosyncrasy which many more reputable demagogues might well have copied. He never wasted very much time over theory.

“Get at the facts,” seemed to be his motto, “and if you can’t find facts, go hard for the personalities.

“Twa’ days syn at Clurkenwell polis court,” he informed his audience at Lincoln’s Inn (it would be hopeless to attempt really to reproduce his accent phonetically, so we will abandon all but the barest indications), “a puir office boy was sent to preeson. And what was his offence? Not working? No sir, though I can well imagine that such a suggestion would come verra readily to your mind” (Discomfiture of interrupter). “His offence was that he stole twa’ shillin fra’ the cash box. If justice had been done that lad would have been rewarded, whilst his employers would have been sent to jail. And why? Because they were making – at that verra time – an undeclared profit of more than twelve thousand pounds per year. They were defrauding the revenue in surtax and profit tax of more than twelve thousand pounds per annum. In short they were stealing a thousand pounds a month fra’ the pocket of the working man. They were picking my pocket and your pocket, yet they remained free to live in luxury, to eat of the fat of the land, to ride to their offices each morning in their Rolls Royce motter cars, whilst this puir lad, the representative of the working man, was sent to jail for the crime of taking back twenty-four pence. And in case you think I’m leeing,” roared the Lion in a voice which fluttered the pennants over Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, “I’ll tell you the name of that firm – and I have no objection if you write it down and make a note of it–”

Whereupon he proceeded to slander in detail a well-known firm of fountain-pen manufacturers, to the enormous delight of the crowd, who, of course, lapped it up and asked for more out of the same dish.

Which, in days to come, they duly got.

(It is, on the face of it, obviously improbable that the Lion could have any real sources of inside information. Nevertheless, a few days later, newspaper readers noted a paragraph which indicated that the Investigators of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue were asking for a special audit of the books of the firm in question, and that developments were expected. Fluke or not, this did nothing to decrease the growing reputation of the Lion of Scotland.)

But the misdoings of commercial firms was by no means his only topic. Many of his favourite illustrations of the inequality of the capitalist system and the tyranny of the man at the top were drawn from service life. This was not in itself unpopular with his audience – most of whom had suffered at one time or another in the ranks of the Army or Air Force and were by no means averse from hearing their recent lords and masters taking a knock. But when, inevitably, he descended from the general to the particular, a degree of partisan spirit began to manifest itself.

One of his favourite examples was a certain Corporal Collins, of the RAF, who had apparently suffered martyrdom in various stations in England and abroad, his only offences being the trifling ones of insubordination, sedition and incitement to mutiny.

The first occasion on which the Lion encountered any serious opposition was over Corporal Collins.

As soon as he mentioned his name a small group of ex-servicemen in the front row of the crowd began to show signs of interest.

“Well I remember him,” said one of them loudly.

The Lion never objected to a discussion with a member of his audience. His talks, in fact, were usually well spiced with these dialogues.

“So you remember Corporal Collins,” he observed. “One of the unsung heroes of the war. What do you remember about him?”

“I remember him getting thrown out of the Corporals’ Mess – the wee runt.”

The crowd shouted their unmistakable delight, and the Lion moved on hastily to less delicate ground.

But it did not always pass off so easily.

One morning he was letting himself go on what he described as “Sairtain widespread and well-justified revolts” which had taken place in the previous year in a well-known RAF station in the Middle East, and had, in fact, caused a good deal of embarrassment to all concerned.

As usual he drove straight for the personalities.

“The gentleman,” he announced, “who happened at that time to be officer in command of this station – if such a man had any right to call himself either an officer or a gentleman, was a sairtain – bullying – swaggering – foul-mouthed – tyrannical – beast” (on sequences like this, the Lion achieved a very effective sort of drumbeat rallentando), “who would have been more fitting had he been adorning the dock at Nuremberg than ill-treating and blackguarding men whose boots he was hardly fit to pullish–”

“And that’s a lie,” observed a loud voice from the front row.

The Lion said something that sounded like “Harrarsch” and enquired “A friend of yours perhaps?”

“And what if he was, you long-haired, bandy-legged son of Ananias,” said the voice affably.

The Lion of Scotland now took time off from the subject of the Commanding Officer and begged to tell his interrupter – whom he quickly identified as “an agent-provocateur of the upper middle class” – a few home truths about himself. To which the Voice, who appeared to be quite unabashed by his sudden prominence, replied in kind, even gaining a point or two in the exchanges by describing the Lion as a blaggarding down-at-heels keelie.

Stung possibly by this salvo – for ‘Keelie’ is a word which no Glaswegian loves – the Lion made the fatal mistake of stepping down from his platform.

It was not that the Voice – who turned out, on closer inspection, to be a very small man with a very large “Flying Officer Kite” moustache – showed any undue signs of truculence. Nor, indeed, that there was ever any real likelihood of violence. The crowd were enjoying this unrehearsed interlude far too much to permit of any such crude exchanges, particularly between two opponents so ill-matched in size. A number of the brighter spirits on the fringe shouted “Oh, I say, I rather go for that, what,” and a few of the Lion’s old friends advised the Lion to “eat him up”. But tempers were well under control.

What was unfortunate was that by stepping down from his rostrum the Lion had, as it were, shifted the centre of gravity of his audience outwards, away from the quiet corner formed by the fountain and the pavement, and out into the main road.

Thus there was presently added to the cries and counter-cries of the crowd, the roaring of the Lion and the trumpet tones of his adversary, the hooting of angry horns as motorists going about their lawful business found themselves unable to pass.

This, of course, at once put a very different complexion on matters.

Constable Burt was by nature a tolerant man. In the course of his duties he had to listen day by day to the most revolutionary, incendiary, not to say nonsensical discourses from a succession of orators and usually did no more than smile at the odd passions which Theory seems to excite in the mind of man. He was a practical believer in the freedom of speech. But this was quite different. This was a Common Nuisance on the Highway, and an unwarrantable obstruction, too, of the Flow of Traffic. He was not at all sure that it did not verge on a Disturbance of the Peace.

Removing his thumbs from his belt he strode vigorously forward and the crowd parted in front of him. “Now then,” he said firmly. “We can’t have this. I’ll have to ask you to move along.”

The Lion said something which sounded like “Move your Aunt Fanny”, but passion combined with a Glasgow accent made it difficult to be certain. The sense, however, was plainly negative.

“Then I’ll have to ask you to come along with me,” said Constable Burt.

Which was how the Lion happened, next morning, to climb into the dock of a Central London police court and face the candid gaze of Mr Blinkhorn, the kindliest and wisest of our Metropolitan magistrates.

The Lion, whose name appeared from the records to be James Watson, glared round the court in the manner of a practised actor assessing the reactions of a first night audience and pleaded not guilty.

Mr Blinkhorn invited Constable Burt to take the stand and to put him in possession of the facts; which Constable Burt obligingly did.

Mr Blinkhorn then turned to the prisoner and asked him if he had anything to say.

“Sairtainly,” said the prisoner. “It’s a lee.”

“What is a lie?” asked Mr Blinkhorn patiently.

“What that pullisman says. It’s nothing but a lee. I’d be black ashamed to tell such a lee in a court of law. I never caused any obstruction. If the crowd obstructed the traffic,” concluded the prisoner reasonably, “is it my fault?”

Apparently Mr Blinkhorn thought it was, and proceeded to explain to the prisoner some of the intricacies of the English Law of Nuisance.

At the end of which he formally found James Watson guilty as charged and enquired of the prosecution whether anything was known about the prisoner.

It was then that something rather unexpected happened – unexpected by Mr Blinkhorn, to whose experienced eye Mr Watson had not the look of an habitual criminal; equally unexpected, apparently, by the prisoner himself.

A quiet man, hitherto unnoticed, got to his feet, entered the box, took the oath in a practised manner, and introduced himself to the court as Colonel Smith-Wright, attached to the Adjutant-General’s Department. He said respectfully:

“In view of the fact, sir, that this man’s previous convictions have been by Courts Martial, I have been asked to produce the records. So far as I know he has no civil convictions.”

“I see,” said Mr Blinkhorn; he was clearly at a loss. “Yes. I suppose I can hear this. If it’s relevant.”

“That’s for you to say,” said Colonel Smith-Wright non-com-mittally and without further ado he proceeded to relate the story of Private James Watson as derived from his army records.

It was quite an impressive recital.

“I see,” said Mr Blinkhorn. “Three times under section forty. Then three times for assault – and once for mutiny.” He turned to the prisoner and said, “You don’t seem to have had a very happy time in the army, do you? I think I’ll remand you in custody for a week.”

“I protest,” said the Lion in his most leonine voice.

“Your protest is noted,” said Mr Blinkhorn gently.

For a moment there was a curious little battle of wills. Then the Lion turned round and allowed himself to be led back to his cell.

Harry Hyde, who wrote a column on the Courts for one of the left-wing weeklies (in imitation of the sort of thing produced by the evening papers), scribbled desperately. The scene had appealed to him. And he sniffed at the story behind it. It had news value. And would appeal greatly to his particular editor. Something odd about that, he said to himself. I’ve never heard military convictions used in a police court before. And old Blinkhorn isn’t a country JP. He knows his stuff all right.

Also he had a conviction that he had seen the prisoner before.

The surprises of the morning were not over.

As the journalist was leaving the court, one of the policemen who was acting as usher tapped him on the shoulder and said,

“Step in here, would you Mr Hyde.”

“Certainly. What is it, Groves? A pinch.”

“No, no, Mr Hyde. A gentleman wants a word with you.”

He led the way into the clerk’s office.

Inside was a medium-sized, heavily-built man, with a grizzled moustache and light-blue eyes, who introduced himself – quite unnecessarily as it happened. He said: “Just a word in season, Mr Hyde. We always get on very well with you gentlemen of the press. We do our best to help you and you do your best to help us.”