3 Racism, Revolution and Limitless Sex in London

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RICHARD HARRIS

The young Richard Harris also loved music. And in 2001, for a radio show we did, he remembered that the Harris household was always filled with music.

‘Poor Audrey, God rest her soul, adored Glenn Miller’s music. She’d go into her room, wind up the gramophone, and we’d hear Glenn Miller blaring all over the house. It was wonderful. And my brother Ivan loved, and he would play those old 78s by Stan Kenton. But, in my room, I’d prefer to listen to early Sinatra, early Tony Bennett, the softer stuff.’

It is telling that Richard, the sensitive child who secretly wrote poetry and hid it under his bed, preferred ‘the softer stuff’ when it came to music. That preference remained for the rest of his life.

Tragically, the age of innocence for Richard and his family ended in 1945. Audrey Harris, at the age of only twenty-one and engaged to future Fianna Fáil minister Donogh O’Malley, was diagnosed with cancer. Richard responded by writing two poems. Neither mentions cancer, Audrey, by name or allusion, or his parents’ names. Nor does Richard explain why in both poems, one about his mother and the other about his father, they are crying. Instead, attesting to his feeling that he was an outsider, even within the family, the fifteen-year-old Richard watches it all from afar. And he captures beautifully and truthfully the sense of utter helplessness that a teenager might feel watching his mother and father in tears.

In the first poem, ‘Limerick 245’, Harris describes his mother on the phone. ‘Her green eyes/Pouring out/Some sorrow.’ He wanted to ‘shield her’ but didn’t even try to because he knew that her sorrow was private, and ‘Sharing it /Would only make it doubly worse.’

In the second poem, ‘Limerick 245 (Reverse Charge)’, Richard describes watching his father crying. He ‘Wanted to touch him/And close his mouth/From the things he was saying,’ but after he was waved away, Richard acknowledged he was ‘Too young to be of any help.’

In 2001, I asked him why Mildred Harris and Ivan Harris had been crying.

‘If I remember right, both those phone calls came when my mother and father were told there was no hope for Audrey. And I did feel

ANGELA’S ASHES VERSUS RICHARD’S ASHES 15

helpless, not only watching my mother and father cry, but because of the horrendous thought that my poor sister was dying. I didn’t know what to say or do. Audrey may have been a few years older than me, but we were very close, and I loved her very much. And this was not only my first experience of death; it was also my first experience of someone from my immediate family dying. It was wicked losing Audrey. It hit me very hard. Until that point, I had never known what depression was, but by Christ, I felt it after Audrey died. It took me years to recover from that if I ever really did. But that definitely was when shadows descended upon my family and our family life.’

In one seminal sense, which Richard didn’t reveal to me until a year before he died, he never recovered. Audrey’s death, but even more so her funeral, would haunt him for the rest of his life. It even dictated that he was cremated, not buried in the family tomb.

Richard Harris, 2001: ‘That’s where all my dreams lay as a young man, I wanted to play rugby for Ireland.’ Richard Harris 1949, with his brother Noel. Also included in the picture are some of Richard’s closest friends in Limerick, Geoff Spillane and

Gordon Wood. (Courtesy of Noel Harris)

‘There was great security in being part of a family of ten.’ Back row, l to r: Noel, Richard, Mildred, Harmay, Ivan, Jimmy and Ivan. Front row, l to r: Dermot and Bill. This photograph was taken in 1949 at Harmay’s wedding in Bunratty Castle Hotel, County Clare.

(Courtesy of Noel Harris)

‘I would not have gotten the role of King Arthur were it not for Kirk Douglas.’ Richard

Harris in Camelot, 1967. (A WARNER BROS/SEVEN ARTS FILM/Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Left: The dedication Richard wrote to Joe after the first interview. Right: A portrait taken

during the interview. (Courtesy of Colm Henry)

Joe Jackson and Richard Harris during the second session for their first interview in

October 1987. (Courtesy of Colm Henry)

‘Excuse me while I disappear.’ Richard, back in Limerick, c. 2000, and looking back.

(Courtesy of Noel Harris)