The Chap Issue 100

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ANNIV

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ISSUE 100

SUMMER 2019

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

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“ You’re an absolute shower!”

A tribute to

the greatest Chap of all time, Mr. Terry-Thomas

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

Leslie Phillips, Humphrey Bogart, Sebastian Horsley, Ben Schott, Lauren Bacall, Kevin Rowland

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ISSUE 100

£7.50

WWW.CAVANI.CO.UK

Editor: Gustav Temple

Art Director: Rachel Barker

Picture Editor: Theo Salter Circulation Manager: Keiron Jeffries

Designer: Carina Dicks

Sub-Editor: Romilly Clark Subscriptions Manager: Natalie Smith

Contributing Editors: Chris Sullivan, Liam Jefferies, Alexander Larman

CONTRIBUTORS

OLLY SMITH

LIAM JEFFERIES

CHRIS SULLIVAN

GOSBEE & MINNS

ALEXANDER LARMAN

Olly Smith is an awardwinning wine writer and broadcaster. He has been International Wine and Spirits Communicator of the Year, and Drinks Writer of the Year at the 2017 & 2016 Great British Food Awards.

He is a regular on Saturday Kitchen and BBC Radio 2.

Olly hosts his own drinks podcast www.aglasswith.com

Liam Jefferies is The Chap’s Sartorial Editor, in charge of exploring new brands, trends and rediscoveries of forgotten gentlemanly fashions. Liam’s expert knowledge covers the dark heart of Savile Row to the preppy eccentricities of Ivy Leaguers. You can follow him on Instagram @sartorialchap.

Chris Sullivan is The Chap’s Contributing Editor. He founded and ran Soho’s Wag Club for two decades and is a former GQ style editor who has written for Italian Vogue, The Times, Independent and The FT. He is now Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins School of Art on ‘youth’ style cults and embroidery.

Peter Gosbee is a jeweller, antiques purveyor and keen disciple of the sartorial arts, often to be found at markets, briar in hand and suitcase brimming with treasures.

John Minns was brought up in what is commonly known as the rag trade. He cut his sartorial teeth working with ‘the King of Carnaby Street’ John Stephens.

Alexander Larman is The Chap’s Literary Editor.

When neither poncing nor pandering for a living, he amuses himself by writing books: biographies of great men (Blazing Star) and examinations of greater women (Byron’s Women). He also writes for the Times, Observer and the Erotic Review, back when it was erotic.

HOLLY ROSE SWINYARD Holly Rose Swinyard is a reporter and fashion experimentalist. In between hosting sci-fi podcasts, Holly writes and speaks about contemporary revolutionary ideas such as gender equality and a post-gender society, along with the equally important topic of clothes and costume.

DAVID EVANS

SUNDAY SWIFT

DARCY SULLIVAN

David Evans is a former lawyer and teacher who founded popular sartorial blog Grey Fox Blog seven years ago. The blog has become very widely read by chaps all over the world, who seek advice on dressing properly and retaining an eye for style when entering the autumn of their lives.

The Dandy Doctor writes on dandyism, gender, popular culture and the gothic. Her writing has appeared in academic journals such as Gothic Studies and in popular books on cult television. Sunday is currently working on a book about fictional dandies in film and television.

Twitter: @dandy_lio

Darcy Sullivan writes about comic books, aesthetes and algorithms. His articles have appeared in The Comics Journal, The Wildean and Weird Fiction Review. He is the press officer of the Oscar Wilde Society and the curator of the Facebook pages ‘The Pictures of Dorian Gray’ and ‘I Am Mortdecai’.

Office address The Chap Ltd 69 Winterbourne Close Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1JZ

Advertising Paul Williams paul@thechap.co.uk +353(0)83 1956 999 07031 878565

Subscriptions 01778 392022 thechap@warnersgroup.co.uk

NICK OSTLER Nick Ostler is an Emmywinning and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter of family-friendly entertainment such as Danger Mouse, Shaun the Sheep and the upcoming adaptation of Tove Jansson’s classic Moomin novels, Moominvalley. He is also co-author, with Mark Huckerby, of the British fantasy adventure trilogy Defender of the Realm, published by Scholastic.

E chap@thechap.co.uk W www.thechap.co.uk Twitter @TheChapMag Instagram @TheChapMag FB/TheChapMagazine

Printing: Micropress, Fountain Way, Reydon Business Park, Reydon, Suffolk, IP18 6SZ T: 01502 725800 Distribution: Warners Group Publications, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH T: 01778 391194

- 20 Years of -

THE CHAP MANIFESTO 1 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WEAR TWEED. No other fabric says so defiantly: I am a man of panache, savoir-faire and devil-may-care, and I will not be served Continental lager beer under any circumstances.

2 THOU SHALT NEVER NOT SMOKE. Health and Safety “executives” and jobsworth medical practitioners keep trying to convince us that smoking is bad for the lungs/heart/skin/eyebrows, but we all know that smoking a bent apple billiard full of rich Cavendish tobacco raises one’s general sense of well-being to levels unimaginable by the aforementioned spoilsports.

3 THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO THE LADIES. A gentleman is never truly seated on an omnibus or railway carriage: he is merely keeping the seat warm for when a lady might need it.

Those who take offence at being offered a seat are not really Ladies.

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4 THOU SHALT NEVER, EVER, WEAR PANTALOONS DE NIMES. When you have progressed beyond fondling girls in the back seats of cinemas, you can stop wearing jeans.

5 THOU SHALT ALWAYS DOFF ONE’S HAT. Alright, so you own a couple of trilbies. Good for you - but it’s hardly going to change the world. Once you start actually lifting them off your head when greeting passers-by, then the revolution will really begin.

6 THOU SHALT NEVER FASTEN THE LOWEST BUTTON ON THY WAISTCOAT. Look, we don’t make the rules, we simply try to keep them going. This one dates back to Edward VII, sufficient reason in itself to observe it.

7 THOU SHALT ALWAYS SPEAK PROPERLY. It’s really quite simple: instead of saying “Yo, wassup?”, say “How do you do?”

8 THOU SHALT NEVER WEAR PLIMSOLLS WHEN NOT DOING SPORT. Nor even when doing sport. Which you shouldn’t be doing anyway. Except cricket.

9 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WORSHIP AT THE TROUSER PRESS. At the end of each day, your trousers should be placed in one of Mr. Corby’s magical contraptions, and by the next morning your creases will be so sharp that they will start a riot on the high street.

10 THOU SHALT CULTIVATE INTERESTING FACIAL HAIR. By interesting we mean moustaches, or beards with a moustache attached.

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CONTENTS 8 AM I CHAP?

A look back at the successes and failures of this publication’s attempt to right the world’s sartorial wrongs

12 H ISTORY OF THE CHAP

The tables are turned on Gustav Temple, as he submits himself to an interview about the founding of this publication

FEATURES 22 TERRY-THOMAS

An in-depth look at the man behind the gap, with some insights and never-seen family photographs from Terry-Thomas’s niece

32 T HE FILMS OF TERRY-THOMAS

We pick the top five films starring T-T and explain why each one of them should feature in a Chap televisual library

34 L ESLIE PHILLIPS INTERVIEW

Chris Sullivan meets the debonair actor at his London home to look back at the suave one’s 100-film career

SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY EDITION

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SUMMER 2019

Cover photograph: © Rex/Shutterstock

ISSUE 100

SARTORIAL FEATURES

LONGER FEATURES

44 CHAP PHOTO PORTRAITS

106 S EBASTIAN HORSLEY

We photographed some chaps and chapettes whose sartorial élan has helped define this publication’s style

52 THE HISTORY OF SAVILE ROW

Chris Sullivan takes a meditative stroll along the checkered history of the home of bespoke tailoring

60 S OUL BOY SOCCER

Dermot Kavanagh on Laurie Cunningham, the first black player to play for England, who also cut a stylish rug in 40s threads

Alexander Larman’s tribute to the last of the true dandies

116 T HE 100 BEST THINGS ABOUT DRINKING

Olly Smith lists one libatory joy for every issue of this publication

122 B IRDING

Nick Ostler on how the avian species pierced his soul as a child

126 D ANDIZETTE

The style, talent and seductive allure of Lauren Bacall

66 S ADDLE SHOES

132 CHAP TO THE FUTURE

68 A SARTORIAL PRIMER

REVIEWS

One chap’s quest to locate a pair of these surprisingly elusive 1950s suede two-tone shoes

Liam Jefferies recaps 99 issues-worth of sartorial advice, to see if readers have been paying attention

74 H UMPHREY BOGART

Nick Guzan reminds us why Bogie defined 1930s menswear by sartorially surpassing all other actors of his era

82 G REY FOX COLUMN

David Evans of www.greyfoxblog.com gives salient tips for living the analogue life by rejecting the digital fripperies of our age

88 S TYLE TRIBES

Olivia Bullock on Future Nostalgia and how street fashions nearly always look to the past before creating the future

94 T HE STRAW BOATER

Matt Deckard advocates the return of this oft-maligned item of headwear to the wardrobe of a gentleman

96 C HAP PORTRAITS PART TWO

Our second selection of notable chaps and chapettes who cut the sartorial mustard

The enduring appeal in popular culture of this style we call Chap

138 A UTHOR INTERVIEW

Miscellanist and Wodehouse homagiste Ben Schott

138 B OOK REVIEWS

Books about Wallis Simpson and Auberon Waugh

146 J .P. DONLEAVY

Noel Shine met the legendary author at his home in rural Ireland

152 T RAVEL: PARIS

Chris Sullivan discovers the city’s seedy and glamorous underbelly

160 R ESTAURANT REVIEW

A visit to Kaspars Seafood Restaurant at the Savoy, London

162 P EACOCKS & MAGPIES

Gosbee and Minns smoke their pipes without fear of prosecution

164 A POCALYPSE CHIC

How future humans will be dressing for the next 100 issues

170 CROSSWORD

SEND PHOTOS OF YOURSELF AND OTHER BUDDING CHAPS AND CHAPETTES TO CHAP@THECHAP.CO.UK FOR INCLUSION IN THE NEXT ISSUE

As a change from publishing acerbic comments on readers’ submissions to this column, for the 100th edition we are sharing, instead, some success stories from the archives.

Chaps who, either by following our advice or through their own determination, overcame early sartorial obstacles to find their true inner Chap or Chapette.

Mr. Guy Fantome sent us a photograph of himself in 1970 with a Riley RMA, looking quite frankly like he should be driving it, or cleaning it, for someone else.

Poor old Simon Doughty was lost in a sea of serge de Nîmes when he started reading The Chap, finding an alarming consistency of hostility towards his raiment every time he sent us his photograph.

Mr. Fantome’s more recent photograph, with an Alvis TD21, showed that, as his taste in cars has matured, so his wardrobe has vastly improved.

Doughty has since seen the error of his ways and taken to wearing sturdier fabrics such as linen, wool and tweed. We still, however, expect his occasional cheeky attempt to slip some denim under our noses in the future.

When Lou Christou first sent us his photo, he had such difficulty in finding the right clothing that he took the bold decision to have a cravat tattooed on his neck.

When Hiroki Ohashi of Tokyo began his frequent correspondence with us, it wasn’t quite clear who was mocking whom.

Thankfully, by reading the Chap, Lou discovered that such tattoos can be easily purchased at menswear emporia. He does, however, still have the advantage of being well-dressed even when swimming.

By the time of his last submission, this was abundantly clear.

Oh alright then. In the words of Beau Brummell, these are some of our failures.

Some fellows went to extraordinary lengths to find their inner chap (and indeed each other’s), but it somehow eluded them and they continued wearing pantaloons de NÎmes and pretending to smoke pipes.

These rum coves couldn’t even find their outer chap, never mind their inner chap. This photo was sent to us in 2012, but apparently they are still standing at that bar, a light covering of dust on their plastic pipes and plastic moustaches. Meanwhile, our work continues.

This looks like exactly the same group of men, but surprisingly is a completely different set of humans in another part of the world.

Here they are again, with the addition of two more to their macabre flock. The Chap takes full responsibility and apologises for any inconvenience caused.

Even we considered this a rather tasteless portrait when we received it in 2012. Whereas today buttoning the bottom button on one’s jacket is more acceptable.

“I had a Chapthemed stag do,” quoth Richard Walden in 2008.

A decade later, we stand by our ogiginal response: No you didn’t.

Here are the shotgunwielding fellows from above again, but in their real clothes.

Since receiving this photograph in 2006, the seated gentleman has now become the butler to the standing gentleman, on account of the latter’s possession of superior facial hair.

Interview

THE HISTORY OF THE CHAP Dennis Merry turns the tables on founder of the Chap Gustav Temple, interviewing the habitual interviewer to discover the origins and growth of the UK’s longest-running gentlemen’s quarterly

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one of those photocopying joints like KallKwik or ProntoPrint, I can’t remember which. It was designed in QuarkXPress, copied and stapled on A4 paper, because the original magazine was A5, and they ran off a hundred photocopies, and then a hundred colour copies of the cover, which we upgraded to card. It was pretty poor quality, but it was a start. We thought of it more as a sort of Samizdat dada pamphlet than a magazine.

o, The Chap is twenty years old, and here we are with the 100th edition; congratulations. When you look at this edition and compare it with the very first edition, how would you describe the differences? How has the Chap evolved?

Well, it’s bigger and it’s in colour. The very first edition, published in February 1999, was only 36 pages; it was printed in black and white, and it was quite naïve as a magazine, really. Instead of having advertising or some kind of filler, we actually left four pages blank, because we didn’t know what to put on them. Back then I had a partner, Vic Darkwood, with whom I founded The Chap, and it was fortunate that we had similar skills, so we kind of did half each, and you couldn’t really tell which was which – specially as we used a series of bizarre noms de plume. The thing is, there were two first editions. The real first edition was printed at

“People used to point and shout at us when we strolled around in vintage tweed suits smoking pipes.

It was shocking to them...

– an anarcho-dandyist anachronism!”

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for adverts for yachts and watches. Meanwhile, men and women are dressing much better, in certain quarters, than they were when we founded The Chap.

People used to point and shout at us when we strolled around in vintage tweed suits smoking pipes. It was shocking to them, but not entirely as something new, more as an anachronism – an anarcho-dandyist anachronism!

So somewhere in the world there are a hundred copies of the first edition, made at ProntoPrint, which are true collector’s items!

Yes, but sadly I don’t have a copy myself. Anyway, we sent a sheaf of those to various journalists on a wing and a prayer, just to see what happened and, surprisingly, we got some coverage in the media.

We got invited on to a few radio programmes and were interviewed by a few broadsheets. Then, the day after we were featured in the Daily Telegraph, we had a sack full of letters with cheques and subscriptions, which came into a P.O. Box number we’d fortunately had the foresight to set up. So we had all these subscriptions to fulfil but no magazines, so we had a proper printer run off more copies on professional magazine paper. I think we spent about a thousand pounds and had a thousand copies printed of the exact same edition.

But going back to your original question of how is it different. Now it’s a 164-page magazine, professionally designed and printed, with a substantial following. But it hasn’t strayed too far from its original ethos and that spirit of anarchodandyism, with a satirical element. We do have more advertising now, but compared to something like GQ , the ratio of ads to content is still tiny. I suppose the main difference between now and then is that we were a bit like a voice in the wilderness back then. There was no one else out there doing anything like this; no moustaches, no-one under the age of 60 wearing tweed, and nobody championing dandy culture with a certain satirical slant. Yes, there are more high-end men’s magazines touching on dandyism, but most of them seem to be vehicles

What gave you the idea for the Chap magazine in the first place?

The idea really all came out of a conversation in the pub with Vic. I’d known Vic for about five years; he is an artist and we met through artistic circles in London and discovered we had a lot of interests in common. We shared an affinity for Chap-type values, and drinking of course, and somewhere in those sessions of chatting and drinking came this idea, but I don’t quite remember why, of publishing a magazine. Both of us were interested in things like old comic books and old etiquette manuals, and characters like Vivian Stanshall, Beau Brummell and Terry-Thomas. We were having this conversation in a pub in Camberwell in London one night, and somehow got to talking about starting a magazine and what kind of thing it would be. We started sketching it out and very soon

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we had the contents. So we went away and worked on writing different bits. Being an artist, Vic did the illustrations too, although lots of the images we just scanned from our huge collection of comics and magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. A number of the original covers were old knitting patterns. So that’s how it all began, but I’m still not clear why we decided to do it!

The Chap Manifesto obviously has ‘tonguein-cheek’ overtones, but what are the core elements which you feel are most important and relevant to modern life?

Well, all of them, really. Those ten points in the front of every copy of the magazine didn’t actually go in until about 2004. Obviously, as an idea and a certain take on life, it was all there in the 2002 book of the same name. I suppose the only one we have slightly moved on from is the beard. Originally, we were in favour of moustaches and definitely anti-beard, because in 1999 beards were for old fuddy-duddies, or represented a certain hippy-ish scruffiness and a kind of unkempt, undisciplined approach; there was no grooming to speak of. The moustache has always seemed to me to be something of a bold statement, but the beard was kind of a lazy statement. Since then we’ve realised that any facial hair is good, because it’s flamboyant. I’ve come across so many chaps over the years who were sound fellows but wore a beard that I ended up thinking, we’ve got to give beards a chance.

So, this begs the inevitable question: why does the founding father of The Chap not himself sport a moustache?

Ah, of course; good question. I always thought that for every chap there is a moustache. But I have tried moustaches; I’ve tried them all, but none of them suited me, and I’ve come to see that it’s just not true; there isn’t a moustache for every man. And I have an early photograph to prove it.

Have you always been interested in clothes?

Have you always dressed well?

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Yes, I have always been interested in clothes, but no, I haven’t always dressed well. I was in a rock band in the 1980s and I suppose my outfits for that were not a million miles from Chap, in that I used to wear Victorian frock coats and top hats; it was all a bit Artful Dodger. We were called the Jackals of Freshkid and, strangely enough, one of our tracks has just been released on a compilation album on Cherry Red Records. In our band, I didn’t follow any of the dress codes which were around; I went my own way and dressed in a kind of rock ‘n’ roll version of how I dress now. I’m not one of those chaps that wore a three-piece suit from the age of twelve and never looked back. But I suppose there’s always been a bit of a Chap thread of running through things. I don’t think of myself as a dandy, but dandies have always been my inspiration. So I’ve always looked up to people like Bunny Roger and Oscar Wilde, and of course the ultimate Chap himself, Terry-Thomas.

My definition of a dandy is quite broad and includes rock ‘n’ roll dandies like Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Bryan Ferry.

So, where did this love of Dandyism come from, was it always there?

I was never cut out to be a rock singer. While I was in the band, I was reading a lot of Albert Camus, Andre Breton, Henry Miller and Baudelaire, and somewhere in all that came the idea of Dandyism. I suppose Baudelaire was the key, you know, wandering around the streets of Paris finding yourself, being a flaneur. So, in 1986, when the band broke up and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I thought, ‘Where

The Timeline

Issue no.1 of The Chap is published. Initial attempts at self-distribution, in a Triumph Vitesse around London, receive a mixed reception.

One doyen of a comic shop in Camden looks at it and says, “What the bejesus is this?”

FEBRUARY 1999

The Chap’s first shindig takes place on HMS President moored on the Thames. Entertainment includes a snake charmer and a man reciting dada poetry through a megaphone.

Chaps, attired as Edwardian mountaineers, attempt to scale the north face of ‘Embankment’

by Rachel Whiteread at Tate Modern, a 40-foot pile of resin casts of cardboard boxes. They are successful but escorted from the premises.

NOVEMBER 2002

APRIL 2005

OCTOBER 2001

OCTOBER 2003

JULY 2005

Publication of The Chap Manifesto by Fourth Estate.

The title is followed by The Chap Almanac and Around the World in 80 Martinis.

The Chap’s first protest against vulgarity, Civilise the City, takes place in London. Protesters enter McDonald’s and order devilled kidneys, before being escorted from the premises.

The inaugural Chap Olympiad takes place in Regent’s Park, London.

25 competitors alarm tourists by performing Trouser Gymnastics and Raconteur’s Relay.

The key points in the founding, development and manifesto-spreading exercises of this 20-year-old journal for the modern gentleman

The Chap expands to a larger A4 format and nearly goes bankrupt. The publication is saved by its readers in a fundraising campaign and quietly goes back to its former size.

The Chap’s second major protest is against Abercrombie & Fitch opening a store on Savile Row. The slogan is ‘Give Three-Piece a Chance’.

They didn’t.

After years of failed attempts, The Chap finally secures an interview with Fenella Fielding, which turns out to be her last full published interview before she dies in 2018.

DECEMBER 2008

APRIL 2012

JUNE 2016

JULY 2012

MAY 2017

The Chap recreates the famous tennis match in School For Scoundrels at the 1960 film’s original location, Corus Hotel Elstree.

The Chap mistakenly agrees to field a mini version of The Chap Olympiad at the Olympic Games in London. Hardly anyone shows any interest except Linford Christie, who asks us where the toilets are.

The Chap relaunches as a quarterly (which it was in the first place, before becoming bi-monthly in 2005), redesigns all its logos and graphics and doubles in size. There are a few letters from disgruntled subscribers.

ISSUE 92

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SUMMER 2017

APRIL 2008

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should a 21-year-old man go to find himself ?’ The answer of course was, and still is, Paris. I toyed with the idea of arriving in Paris in a frock coat and top hat, but then decided against it. So I started to wear black ill-fitting suits – they didn’t fit because I was too skinny and they came from charity shops. I thought a beret would be a step too far, so I wore trilbies and Fedoras.

I went for that existentialist kind of look because that was the literature I was influenced by.

It’s ironic that those 1940s threads then came into fashion in the early 2010s, and now you can buy a Harris Tweed jacket in Primark! Also ironic was that, during our Civilise the City protest in 2004, we marched into a Nike store and demanded to see the head cutter.

So in a way, they did listen to us, or at least the fashion industry as a whole did. Nike just called security.

Do you hold to the old adage that ‘Clothes maketh the man?’

What I’ve discovered through reading about and meeting dandies is that the clothes are just an exterior expression of the inner self. I’ve seen plenty of people dressed up in all the right gear, dressing the part, but they don’t look authentic. It’s like the clothes are wearing them. So of course we have to wear nice clothes, but they have to be the right nice clothes for your personality and your beliefs. I do believe in all the rules, brown in town, black tie, white tie etc. but it’s important that your clothes are an expression of who you are as an individual.

Something that appealed to us from the very beginning was that it’s all very well fussing over which correct tie to wear etc, but there was also something inherently comical about that too. Most of the other men’s fashion magazines take dressing so seriously; we wanted to put more raffishness back into fashion.

So when did tweed and pipes first make their appearance in your wardrobe?

One of the reasons we started The Chap was to answer the question of how to dress after middle age. Vic and I were both in our mid-30s and conscious that men who ignored their age and carried on regardless in the same style they’d worn as youths frankly didn’t cut the mustard. No-one takes a balding mod or an overweight Goth very seriously.

But at the same time, I felt quite passionately, and still do, that men should not be obliged to abandon all sense of personal style as soon as they hit 40. The answer seemed to be to find a new flamboyance – one that had nothing to do with whatever the youth were wearing. So we looked back to the 1940s, because the clothes from that period looked totally out of kilter with the times – remember this was 1999 – yet kind of edgy and anarchic. And the palette, once you started looking properly, was actually huge – much broader than whether to wear a blue hoodie or a grey one. This kind of clobber will easily take me all the way to retirement, I mused, and will provide ample opportunity for flair and individual expression. More so, if anything, than continuing to dress like a teenager and finding that the sizes just don’t scale up to middle-age spread.

How long has the Chap Olympiad been running and what gave you the idea?

It all began in 2005, in Regent’s Park, London. There were 25 people and several bottles of gin and it was really just a bit of a jolly in the park. But it had actually started before that, with an article written by Torquil Arbuthnot and Nathaniel Slipper, who came up with

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the idea of an Olympic Games in a one-off article, looking at what sports would be played by Chaps. The same year we published it, I said ‘Well, let’s try it out and see if these silly suggestions work in real life.’ And of course they did. So we did it and it grew, so the following year we sought a bigger venue in Regent’s Park. Then we began to put on an organized event with tickets and whatnot in Bedford Square Gardens, also in London. So it all started from that one article.

“Most of the other men’s fashion magazines take dressing so seriously; we wanted to put more raffishness back into fashion” Now that the Chap has crossed the Pond and is breaking into the American market, do you see it continuing to grow in its reach? Are there plans to expand into other markets and cultures?

Yes, although it’s difficult to market outside of GMT, added to the fact that a different issue to the one in Britain is on the shelves in America for two months.

The only two other places I think it would have a chance are Australia and Japan. The trouble is that the language is so idiosyncratic; English is so subtle, with lots of nuances and historical idioms that aren’t immediately obvious to non-Brits.

So basically, there are no specific plans to take it elsewhere, but you’re open to the possibility if the right situation arose?

Yes, and it is interesting that there are one or two countries where you wouldn’t necessarily expect the

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Chap to develop a following. For instance, the biggest EU circulation for the Chap outside of the UK is in Germany, and they’re not Ex-pats, they’re Germans.

The first offer we had for a translation of The Chap Manifesto into another language, was into Portuguese.

So there are pockets of Chappism everywhere.

Looking ahead to the next twenty years, what do you see for ‘Chapdom’? Do you think there will still be a place for the Chap and its values in twenty years’ time?

Well, in twenty years’ time I’ll be 74, and whether I’ll be inclined to get up off my divan to put together a magazine is unlikely. But in 20 years The Chap has gone from the sidelines as a counter-cultural ‘voice in the wilderness’ to being associated with a mainstream fashion movement. It’s survived being in and out of fashion; it’s been on the sidelines and it’s had its resurgences; imitators have come and gone, but it’s survived. We’ve kept calm and carried on.

Its ethos and its message are so clear and distinct, and so appealing to those who subscribe to the idea.

There will always be chaps; men who want to grow moustaches and smoke pipes and look back to the old days, and what else are they going to read?

Who yer gonna call?

Exactly! There’s nothing else quite like it; there’s nowhere else that they can get all that information in one place. From the word go, I decided I would try never to do the obvious thing and always look to be innovative with the idea. Our mantra from the very beginning was never to publish a feature about the Bluebell Girls, and, at least with that particular rule, we’ve remained true. n

LEATHERBRITCHES BREWERY

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small traditional craft brewery first established at the Bentley Brook Inn in 1993, now situated in Smisby on the Derbyshire/Leicestershire borders. Before the advent of science and technology, ale conners used to spill beer on the wooden benches and then sit on it while they had their snap (packed lunch) in order to determine the gravity of beers for duty payable to the king. Judging by how hard they stuck to the seat, the strength of the beer could be estimated. Only leather britches were able to withstand the wear and tear of the job, and this is where Leatherbritches Brewery takes its name.

The beers brewed by Leatherbritches are caskconditioned ales made from malted barley, English hops, Nottingham yeast and pure Derbyshire water.

No artificial additives are included. The new range of ales celebrates the cads and bounders of history, including one named after Terry-Thomas called, appropriately enough, The Bounder. This pale golden ale with an ABV of 3.8 has been described as hoppy and citrusy, with subtle notes of grapefruit and spice aroma. Others in the range include Cad and Scoundrel. www.leatherbritches.co.uk n

Features Terry-Thomas (p22)

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Interview with Leslie Phillips (p34) 21

Undeterred by this inauspicious beginning, Thomas wore the suede shoes to work anyway, paired with a pork pie hat and doublebreasted suit with a clove carnation buttonhole – a lapel decoration he would apply daily, fresh from the florist, for the rest of his life

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Chap Icon

TERRY-THOMAS Gustav Temple pays tribute to this publication’s most inspiring figure for the last 20 years All photographs courtesy of Penny Robinson

Bounder! By Graham McCann is gratefully acknowledged for research

“The last stronghold of gracious living in a world gone mad. MAD!”

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Charles Firbank (Terry-Thomas) in How to Murder Your Wife

t would be understandable if The Chap had several icons, elements of whom all contributed collectively to the ethos of the publication; perhaps a Frankenstein’s monster composed of Leslie Phillip’s raffishness, Cary Grant’s sartorial elegance, and Peter O’Toole’s drinking habits. But, while those chaps all played a huge part in forming the basis of our credo, this composite fantasy figure plays second fiddle to one particular individual who single-handedly summed up everything we hold dear.

That man is, of course, Terry-Thomas.

There is no question that Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens is the sine qua non, the ne plus ultra, in fact nothing short of the spiritual godhead of this publication. There is no need to explain why, but the 100th edition is the perfect place in which to delve more deeply into the life of the actor and look beyond the public image we know so well: the bounder, the moustachioed entertainer, the bon vivant, the caddish roué who charmed his gap-toothed way through more than 80 films, in a succession of embroidered waistcoats (one of them made from mink), Savile Row suits, bowler hats, whangee cigarette holders and monocles.

Terry-Thomas was born Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens in North Finchley, London, on 10th July 1911, the fourth son of five children, with older brothers Jack, Richard and William, followed by a

sister Mary in 1915. His father, Ernest, a welldressed but definitely not dandyish fellow whom T-T described as ‘always smelling like a first-class railway carriage’, worked in the meat trade at Smithfield Market.

It cannot be denied that there was very little in the background of Thomas Stevens that indicated a life in showbusiness. He escaped the drab surroundings of North Finchley to the cinemas and theatres of London, inspired by actors such as Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Owen Nares, and, aged 10, already dreamed of one day owning a pair of suede shoes like the ones worn by Gerald du Maurier. It was only once enrolled at Ardingly College in West Sussex that Thomas Stevens first showed signs of evolving into Terry-Thomas.

Surrounded by plummy accents more like the one he was developing himself, he made his mark by playing the clown and earned himself the sobriquet ‘the funny chap with the gift of the gap.’ By the time he left Ardingly, the 17-year old Thomas Stevens already felt he was destined for a glamorous life that involved the wearing of suede shoes, at the very least.

Instead he was offered a job by his father as a junior transport clerk at the Union Cold Storage Company in Smithfield Market. Undeterred by this inauspicious beginning, Thomas wore the suede shoes to work anyway, paired with a pork pie hat and double-breasted suit with a clove carnation

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buttonhole – a lapel decoration he would apply daily, fresh from the florist, for the rest of his life. He got through the dull routine of work by entertaining his colleagues with made-up characters and landed himself a part in the firm’s amateur dramatic society. This led to a few roles in minor productions at small theatres, and then into work as a film extra at Pinewood Studios.

It was mutually agreed that Thomas Stevens was not cut out to sell meat, and he drifted into another job as an electrical engineer. On the side, he was still performing, strumming the ukulele in the Rhythm Maniacs and trying his hand at professional ballroom dancing at the Cricklewood Palais de Danse. His dancing led him into his first double act, and his first marriage, to the South African ballet dancer Pat Patlanski.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Terry Thomas (he didn’t add the hyphen until 1947) and Pat were signed up to the newly formed ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association). His polished performances and ability to organise earned him a role as head of ENSA’s cabaret section. Terry was called up in 1942 and arrived at the training depot of the Royal Corps of Signals in a silver hire car laden with far too much luggage, including a Spanish guitar. His entrée into barracks did not go well; asked for his number by his CO, Terry Thomas replied, “Kensington 0736”.

However, Private Terry knuckled down and earned himself the rank of corporal, before having his hopes dashed of earning a commission due to a hearing problem, incurred during his days as a film extra. Instead he was offered a part in a new Services touring revue called Stars in Battledress.

This was where Terry Thomas developed a routine that was to become his calling card and eventually lead to a successful career in the early days of television. Inspired by the true story of newsreader Bruce Belfrage, who had continued broadcasting on the BBC while Broadcasting House was being bombed, ‘Technical Hitch’ had Terry Thomas attempting to orally recreate a series of records that were either missing or accidentally broken, the impressions ranging from Al Jolson to the entire Luton Girls Choir.

How Do You View? was first broadcast to the television-viewing nation in autumn 1949. It is still regarded as the first proper comedy series on British television and was seen as groundbreaking, even without much competition. Terry Thomas, as the show’s star, creator and co-writer, had a huge

hand in making it fresh, original and exploiting the potential of the new medium. The show was ostensibly broadcast from his character’s dissolute man-about-town’s bachelor pad, and Terry was adept at using the intimate medium to its fullest capacity. His intention was for the viewers at home to feel they had a seat in the front row at a variety theatre. Well received by the public and reviewers, the initial 20-minute fortnightly shows were increased to 40 minutes and ran for four series, bringing in stars of the day such as Diana Dors.

Terry knew he had arrived when he was named Best Dressed Man of the year in 1953 by the prestigious magazine Tailor and Cutter.

“Carlton-Browne of the F.O. was the only upper-class character I ever played.

I based him on someone I knew who was described as ‘rubble from the nostrils upwards’. If you asked him what day came after Wednesday, he would answer, hoping he got it right, ‘Thursday?”

With his name established on TV, the natural next step for the new household name of TerryThomas was cinema. His first major role was in The Boulting Brothers’ Private’s Progress in 1956, in which he showcased what was to become one of his catchphrases, “You’re an absolute shower!”

In a television interview from 1976 he explained the origin of this phrase: “In America they still go around saying ‘You’re an absolute shard’. They don’t know what ‘shower’ means. It’s short for ‘shower of…’ and you fill in the last word. Used it in the Army.”

Private’s Progress led to a fruitful period with the Boulting Brothers (see film guide, below) culminating in T-T’s finest role, at least for Chaps, of his entire career – Raymond Delaunay in 1960’s School For Scoundrels. Despite playing the second lead, Terry-Thomas is clearly the star of the film and his character encapsulates an incorrigible but charming bounder in a flawless performance.

Based on the One-Upmanship novels of the 1940s by Stephen Potter, the film was beset by background

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Terry-Thomas with his first wife Pat Patlanski

TERRY-THOMAS ON CLASS Terry-Thomas himself was always keen to dispel the notion that he only ever played the upperclass twit. In an interview on television’s Film Talk from 1976, he said, “Carlton-Browne of the F.O. was the only upper-class character I ever played, if one wishes to be pedantic about it. I based him on someone I knew who was described as ‘rubble from the nostrils upwards’. If you asked him what day came after Wednesday, he would answer, hoping he got it right, ‘Thursday?’

All the other characters were lower middleclass pretending to be upper middle-class.

The same type of chap – motor-car salesman.

If there are any motor-car salesmen watching this, I could change it to something else like… electrical engineer.” This particular profession had not been plucked randomly from the air – Terry-Thomas’ second job, after his inauspicious start in the meat trade, was precisely that of an electrical engineer.

Kramer noted, during the vast production of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, that Terry, as the only British actor among a huge cast that included Spencer Tracy, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney and Milton Berle, was the least inclined of the whole cast to on-set displays of ego and attention-seeking.

After several successful years in Hollywood, Terry crossed back over the Ocean (always travelling first class, of course, with his own personal hamper full of caviar, champagne, quail’s eggs, perhaps a couple of chops that he’d politely ask the stewardess to cook for him en route) to concentrate on what he’d always been very good at – spending money. He bought some racehorses, more cars, more clothes (his waistcoats alone numbered 150), upgraded his London home and bought a plot of land on Ibiza, where he had a vast house, Can Talaias, built to his own design. He married his second wife Belinda, 25 years his junior, and sired two boys, Tiger and Cushan (Cushan now runs T-T’s former villa on Ibiza as a hotel).

What could a Balearic island in the late 1960s provide but endless parties, nude bathing and morning Bloody Marys? The man who first mooted the idea of moving to Ibiza to T-T was louche actor Denholm Elliot, who had already built his own place in the sun in the hills above Ibiza Town. Like all expat congregations, the British acting community, frequently bolstered by visits from people like Leslie Phillips and Diana Rigg (who never wore a bathing suit), created their own concoction of local and home culture, serving paella followed by apple crumble.

Terry’s 1970s appearance on the debut episode of brand-new television chat show Parkinson marked a new phase of his career as the delightful raconteur.

This required just as hectic a schedule as his acting career had, and it was during an appearance at Sydney’s Metro Theatre that a doctor first spotted the early signs of Parkinson’s Disease, noting that T-T’s left hand trembled slightly.

Terry’s response to being informed that the disease would get progressively worse was to throw himself into an intense bout of film roles in locations all over the world. These included his appearance in 1972’s Vault of Horror, an anthology

by Amicus Films, and voicing Dr. Hiss in Walt Disney’s 1973 Robin Hood. He was wise to choose such projects over the new genre of smutty movies coming out of Britain at that time; the tail-end of the Carry On genre and its lower-budget siblings the Confessions of… series. The closest T-T came

problems from the start, none of which detract from the final version. In an odd reflection of the Potter books, which give a chap a guide always to being ‘one-up’ on any rivals, co-star Alistair Sim made the eccentric announcement at the start of filming that he didn’t want to touch any props. Any scenes involving his touching anything at all had to be reshot to accommodate this peculiar request.

The film’s original director Robert Hamer was a recovering alcoholic who fell off the wagon half way during production, and was replaced by the uncredited Cyril Frankel.

With the golden age of British 1950s film drawing to a close, Terry made the shrewd decision to cross the Atlantic and coast on his success. He was welcomed with open arms in Hollywood and landed plenty of roles in his first colour films, including How To Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon – who incidentally was hugely complimentary about T-T’s generosity both as a performer and friend. Terry was quickly absorbed into Hollywood’s glamorous inner circle, befriending Groucho Marx, Dean Martin, Cary Grant and Liberace, among others.

It wasn’t long, however, before T-T tired of the heat and snobbery of California; his response to being upbraided for inviting humble cameramen to his celebrity parties was to fly a Union Flag on his house and import a Bentley Continental from England at vast expense. Ironically, it was his very Britishness that was so in demand; director Stanley

Terry-Thomas being questioned for parking his drophead Jaguar on the kerb during the filming of School for Scoundrels in 1960

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Terry-Thomas’s relations with his female costars was never anything less than outrageously flirty

to this cinematic nadir was a reunion with his old chum Leslie Phillips in Spanish Fly (1975), on whose set Phillips reported Terry not being his usual garrulous self.

The Terry-Thomas family kept his progressive illness out of the public eye until 1977, when, with so many rumours abound, it was decided to make a formal announcement. He rarely appeared in public after that, bar the occasional advertisement to fund his increasing medical bills. A huge disappointment to him as an actor was having to turn down a role in Derek Jarman’s The Tempest. Terry-Thomas as Prospero under the distinctive hand of Jarman would have provided a perfect swansong for T-T. Terry’s only television appearance during the 1980s was in a series of BBC documentaries, The Human Brain. He effectively became the public face of Parkinson’s, raising considerable amounts of money for medical research by his appeal on the programmes. The dream house on Ibiza was sold to pay more medical bills, and Terry-Thomas’s next appearance in the media proved to be his most tragic and moving.

In 1988 the Daily Mirror ran a story entitled ‘Comic Terry’s Life of Poverty’, reporting how the comic legend and his wife Belinda were living in a three-room house in South-West London in dire poverty – so impecunious that the couple couldn’t even afford an electric kettle and were boiling water in a pan to make tea. Terry sat blank and lifeless in an armchair, warmed by the single bar of an electric

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fire. One of the readers of that article was writer and broadcaster Richard Hope-Hawkins, who, as a lifelong fan of Terry-Thomas, wrote to ask whether he could pay his hero a visit.

The emotional effect of this visit resulted in Hope-Hawkins going to his friends in showbusiness to see whether any assistance could be given to the ailing and destitute Terry-Thomas. Once word got around, anyone who was anyone was putting themselves forward to appear in a huge benefit concert staged at the Drury Lane Theatre. With Michael Caine as chairman, the appeal attracted stars from both sides of the Atlantic. The show took place on 9th April 1989 before an audience of 2,500 and included spots from Eartha Kitt, Ian Carmichael, Terry’s second cousin Richard Briers, Lionel Jeffries, Harry Secombe, Ronnie Corbett and Barbara Windsor. The total cast numbered 150, including recorded appearances from some of T-T’s stateside acting chums. It raised £75,000, with an additional £23,000 raised via a television tribute.

Terry-Thomas was moved to a nursing home in Godalming, Surrey, where he lived in relative comfort until 8th January 1990. His funeral took place on 17th January, with the theme from Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines played while the coffin was carried, bearing a white cushion with a monocle, a cigarette holder and a clove carnation. Even in death, Terry-Thomas had not missed a single day without wearing a fresh clove carnation. n

Interview

TALES OF TERRY Gustav Temple meets Terry-Thomas's niece to find out what it was like growing up in the shadow of Britain's most loveable bounder

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enny Robinson (83) is the niece of TerryThomas. Her father was Terry’s older brother Richard, who was killed in a motorcycle accident during the Second World War. Gustav Temple discussed the various ways that Terry-Thomas – whom she always refers to as ‘Tom’ – impacted on her life. She also wished to dispel a few inaccuracies about her uncle portrayed in the published chronicles of his life.

that you see on the telly was him, as a person. He was always the same; he spoke beautifully, he was very generous.

But there is a perceived difference between his accent and the rest of his family, isn’t there?

Well, my father spoke beautifully – they all did. And Jack, Tom’s eldest brother, was wealthy; he owned a huge butter factory. Tom’s mother, my grandmother, lived near us in Combe Martin in Devon.

Tell us about your family relationship to Terry-Thomas.

Tom was my father’s brother. There were four brothers – Jack, Richard, Tom (T-T), Bill, and a sister, Mary.

Terry-Thomas is always described in biographies as ‘the son of a market trader’.

Well, I don’t know about ‘market trader’ – they had a huge shop in Covent Garden! They tried to rubbish him, in a way, which the family found really annoying. “Oh, he wasn’t really like that at all.”

Yes he was!

What was it about the way T-T’s life has been represented that you didn’t think was accurate?

They made out that he came from the lower orders.

He didn’t come from the bottom; that character

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T-T on holiday in Devon with his oldest brother Jack

Richard Stevens (right), Penny’s father and T-T’s brother

Terry-Thomas wearing – yes – pantaloons de Nimes

Yes, he had a huge presence. His father, my grandfather, was also a very large man. And his mother was a huge character. She wore a long grey plait down her back and she was a clairvoyant; she used to tell fortunes. I remember watching her on the beach at Combe Martin, swimming across the bay in a black knitted bathing suit.

What’s the earliest childhood memory you have of Terry-Thomas?

Towering over me! He was a very big man, broad shoulders and very tall. I remember Tom coming down to my boarding school when I was about nine. My dad was killed on a motorbike during the War, in 1944. He’d been posted to Devon and was just about to be posted overseas. My mother was left with four very young children. The family scraped enough money together to put the three girls into boarding school, and Tom paid for my brother to go to Ardingly, where he’d been educated himself. So Tom came to visit me at my school with his brother and his wife, and it brought the school to a standstill! He was a big star by then.

How much contact did you have with ‘Tom’ after he became famous?

My mother took me to Malaya, where she went after she remarried. I was there until I was 19.

When I came back from Malaya, I stayed with Tom and his wife Pat [T-T’s first wife Pat Patlanski] at their house in Queens Gate Mews in London. She was a great help to him professionally.

She used to sit in the audience and afterwards tell Tom what to do with his act. There wasn’t enough room for all of us, as my sister was there

And was that the Terry-Thomas that we know, with the moustache and the cigarette holder?

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as well, so we stayed in what they called the Cowshed, a lovely little Nissen Hut in the garden.

I remember lots of cocktail parties, with some top people, and once getting in trouble with Tom for pointing out that his wife was very drunk!

Do you remember much about TerryThomas’s illness?

We went to see Tom do a show in Sussex in the seventies and he was already on the wane. He’d had a bad fall and he had to hold a tennis ball in his right hand to keep it supple. It was a very slow decline. The last time I saw him, I went down to the farm in Devon and he was lying in bed. He became extremely difficult to cope with; he had terrible temper rages. My sister said he was a real handful. It was the frustration. I think his mind was alright but he had difficulty communicating.

“Tom’s first wife Pat Patlanski was a great help to him professionally. She used to sit in the audience and afterwards tell Tom what to do with his act”

Did you attend the funeral of TerryThomas?

It wasn’t a very big celebrity funeral; I only remember seeing Eric Sykes there from Tom’s film career. Tom’s ashes are now in the cemetery at Combe Martin, where my mother and father are buried. But there’s no headstone, only a tatty wooden cross. There’s no monument at all. He was destitute when he died; he’d spent so much money on his declining health. My sister and I are trying to save up some money to have a proper stone placed above his ashes. n

What was it like staying with them?

It was lovely. I was very fond of my aunt Pat. She’d been a very renowned ballet dancer from South Africa, trained by Diaghilev. And Tom was a ballroom dancer, that’s how they met; Pat was the one who got him into the Spanish dancing. It was very tough when they broke up. The marriage broke up because she had reached the menopause, and for a whole year she didn’t get out of bed.

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THE TOP FIVE FILMS OF TERRY-THOMAS

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erry-Thomas appeared in around 80 films; some of them excellent, some of them alright, and some of them appalling.

However, he was never appalling himself; every appearance by T-T in a movie is a perfect, polished performance of almost always the same character. So to pick his best performances would be to choose the whole canon of 80 films. Instead, we are going to pick the five best actual films he appeared in, so that the viewer’s appreciation is a more rounded experience than simply admiring the gap-toothed charm of the incorrigible bounder.

high flier, set against the socially and romantically awkward Ian Carmichael. Benefitting from a tight script by the uncredited Peter Ustinov, based on the brilliant One-upmanship series of books by Stephen Potter, School For Scoundrels captures the very best of British comedy acting at the end of the 1950s. A morality tale told via a series of perfectly-devised (some of them entirely ad-libbed) set pieces that work equally well as comedy sketches: the oleaginous second-hand car salesmen; the pilfering of the fountain pen; the restaurant snobbery scene; and a tennis match that has become the stuff of legend.

1. SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS (1960) “Hello hello hello! Where did you find this lovely creature? Do the decent thing, old chap; fellow club members and that sort of thing. April – what a romantic name. Oh to be in England, now that April’s here!”

Meet Raymond Delaunay, the fictional character closest to the real-life Terry-Thomas, or at least a fantasy version of the arch-bounder and social

2. HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE (1965) “She doesn’t speak English?

Well, if one goes around marrying people who pop out of cakes, well… it’s catch as catch can, isn’t it.”

Not Terry-Thomas’s first Hollywood movie (that was Tom Thumb, 1958) but arguably his best. True to Hollywood form, the English actor was cast as a butler against Jack Lemmon’s confirmed bachelor Stanley Ford, with Virna Lisi as the cake-popping Italian

whom Ford accidentally marries, creating friction in the male household meticulously run by TerryThomas. Lemmon and T-T were close friends, Lemmon having based his character Lord X in Irma La Douce on his English chum. Terry’s portrayal of the butler is masterful, adding notes of pathos and vulnerability that take the edge off what could be seen as a rather misogynistic tale of a bachelor plotting to do away with an unwanted lady in the house. Here we see the best of Terry’s acting skills, with lots of tocamera asides and winks to the audience. His second cousin Richard Briers was always at pains to point out that T-T had real thespian talent, often overlooked, and How To Murder Your Wife shows this to the fullest.

3. THE NAKED TRUTH (1957) “But this is England – surely something can be done?”

A pure farce based around the exploits of a seedy blackmailer (Dennis Price) who threatens upstanding members of the community with publication of lewd tales of their clandestine antics in a National Enquirertype magazine. Terry-Thomas, in a break from his usual middle-management role, plays a peer with a penchant for saucy encounters with a young mistress.

This was T-T’s first collaboration with Peter Sellers, who plays a nouveau riche television celebrity who also indulges in secret assignations. The two actors complement each other perfectly, refusing, for different class-based reasons, to work together against the blackmail threats. Sellers and T-T went on to make several films together that explored similar tensions between old money and new money in postwar Britain.

4. I’M ALRIGHT JACK (1958) “You haven’t been here five minutes and the whole place is on strike. You’re a positive shower, a stinker of the first order!”

A stinging satire on the politics of the trades unions movement in the 1950s, I’m Alright Jack is actually a kind of sequel to 1956’s Private’s Progress, which was set during the Second World War. Men who were billeted together in the army are reunited on the battlefields of the factory floor of a munitions plant, with Peter Sellers as the Marxist shop steward ensuring that no-one works too hard, while spouting

Lenin at them and calling everyone ‘brother’.

Terry-Thomas is the bumbling manager, in thrall to the upper class overlords (Denis Price and Richard Attenborough) who conduct shady arms deals with Arabs and use the workers as pawns in their game.

Ian Carmichael is the innocent abroad, caught in the middle of the class system, and his rousing speech at the film’s climax takes the pitch into territory that would be explored by the Angry Young Man genre that was to follow in British cinema.

5. THE GREEN MAN (1956) A knockabout farce of the first order, with echoes of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. Hapless vacuum cleaner door-to-door salesman William Blake (George Cole) accidentally foils a plot by Harry Hawkins (Alistair Sim) to blow up a cabinet minister. The audience is clearly expected to sympathise with Hawkins’ grand scheme to rid the world of pompous politicians, headmasters and dictators by assassinating them. Terry-Thomas, surprise surprise, plays the philandering Charles Boughtflower, making a grand entrance in a provincial hotel, where he is conducting an affair, by greeting the septuagenarian all-female string quartet with a sly “Hello, ladies!” Based on the play Meet A Body by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who produced and adapted this big-screen version, it was directed by Robert Day, who went on to direct The Rebel and Two-Way Stretch (both 1960). n

© Rex/Shutterstock

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Interview

LESLIE PHILLIPS Chris Sullivan meets the great British comic actor, now aged 94, whose recollections of his career serve as a history of British film, commencing with Phillips’ origins in Tottenham in the 1920s

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first met Leslie Phillips in the newsagents opposite my flat, as he lives but 100 yards away. After putting it off for years, I eventually plucked up the courage to introduce myself as a fan, and was greeted with the most wonderful reception I could ever have imagined. He was glowing, so grateful and so humble. As soon as I had the opportunity to interview him, we spoke at length in his home.

or 12 – it was purely a means to earn some extra money for the family, as my dad had died mainly because of the awful area he worked in – it was called Angel Road and it stank of gas and it killed him. My mother was left with the princely sum of £15 and she was essentially a humble creature, under-educated with no great expectations, and to earn money she took in clothes for repair but wanted something better for us. One day she said she wanted me to meet this lady in the West End and after much to do we met, and I enrolled at Miss Italia Conte’s stage school in Holborn. So I went there three days a week, attending drama, dance and elocution, but reverted straight back to my usual heavy cockney when I went home.

I must say, Mr. Phillips, this is a lovely house.

I bought this house many years ago and it has become such a place where people buy for investment, whereas I just bought somewhere to live, and now I have inadvertently created a certain security on a massive scale.

But you’re from Tottenham originally?

I was born in Tottenham and grew up there. All my mother’s family lived there and then we moved out to Chingford – so I’m a Cockney and an Essex boy!

You’d never guess by your accent.

But I didn’t learn this accent, it sort of grew on me. I started as an actor at such an early age – 11

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Did you realise then what a different accent might bring you?

Oh no, I didn’t learn to speak like this because of the benefits, I didn’t learn for that reason. I was around people who spoke differently and I sort of absorbed it, as diction is very important in theatre – the audience have to hear what you say. But I did very well as a boy actor and made a lot of films in the thirties; I did films like the Citadel and the Four Feathers that were huge British productions.

Was Italia Conte a culture shock?

Well, I learnt a lot about the opposite sex from my time at the Italia Conte school, where the girls were busty, good looking, uninhibited and daring and didn’t care if you saw their knickers when they were dancing; if they needed a quick change they would strip off in front of everyone. I twanged one’s bra strap one day and she told on me, and I learnt that no matter how inviting some ladies might appear, you have to be careful, as they might bite. But I also learnt that a good woman can teach you a lot about everything.

Did that experience as a young actor teach you anything?

Yes, that teaches one everything; you have to learn how to behave and have tremendous discipline, which is something I have always maintained.

I learned discipline from working and I never stopped. As a boy I played some great parts on stage but not so many films. Theatre is my background and my love and that is where I learnt everything. The stage is a great place to hone one’s talents – if you have any – you do eight shows a week and it can be tough.

I still love those huge productions like The Thief of Baghdad. It must have been exciting working with the Korda brothers, Ralph Richardson etc?

I started working at Pinewood in 1938, just after it had opened, and when they just had their 70th anniversary in September they realised I was one of the few that had been there since it opened. I did some great films there. I worked alongside Rosalind Russell, who was my first glimpse of true Hollywood glamour, and she set my little knees trembling each time I saw her. I also worked alongside Rex Harrison, who showed me that to succeed, a certain amount of sexiness was important. I heard that he was a man of spectacular sexual drive and apparently irresistible charm, which I immediately recognised as a formidable weapon for an actor.

Was there one person who taught you the most?

My real education was from a lady called Odette, just before I joined the army when I was 17 or 18 and was so totally naïve – she taught me everything like only a good woman can.

What was it like working in the West End during the War? I worked for a long time at the Haymarket for the great Binky Beaumont, with the likes of Rex Harrison, and I did a great revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Doctor’s Dilemma with Vivien Leigh, who was gorgeous to me. She helped me after the war, both she and Larry. Binky was very what we in those days called ‘colourful’, if you know what I mean.

Did the War teach you anything?

The Blitz was going all the time and I was a firewatcher in Charing cross Road, when I finished at the theatre, as we did more matinees when the bombing was on. What I learnt during the war was that people got used to even the bombs, and it was unbelievable how people just got on with each other and there was a great sense of togetherness. You made friends with prostitutes and black marketeers and bus drivers and all sorts, and you lived in the war with bombs dropping all over.

If you got on a tram you were not alone. It was if we were all in it together.

“Discipline in everything is very important – always be on time, don’t go missing, don’t get big headed. I’ve been told I’ve got good comic timing, but it’s all down to good diction. If they can’t hear you, they won’t get the timing”

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Š Rex/Shutterstock

I was very dapper and a lot of people used to copy me in those days. That happened a lot.

How was it going into the army so young?

My brother was one of the first in and he suffered terrible injuries and survived, but he had a very tough time.

What was the part that pushed you into the spotlight?

Vivien Leigh helped me, as she had seen me go off into the army as a kid, so when I came back they were all anxious to help. I was in the play Doctor’s Dilemma, which had all the great character actors and a great director.

Were you at all scared when you joined the army?

Oh No! We were all pretty gung ho, as the Germans were such a bad lot and behaving so terribly that we all were itching to get even.

What was the film that propelled your career?

Well, I had the toughest director, George Cukor, and he was one tough hombre and not the sweetest guy in the world. But Kay Kendal, who’d seen me acting in Curtain Up and remembered my playing the archetypal English goony type, pulled me in for the film Les Girls, with Gene Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor, and off I went to Hollywood; I could have stayed and become the poor man’s David Niven. But I didn’t really want to, because I had young family, and that was, and is still, more important to me.

Were you not worried at being shot at

by Germans?

I was shot at enough by my own people. When we were training, the army were allowed 10 percent causalities and they made sure they got them.

My brother used to come to see me before he was wounded at Anzio and he was on his way to Scotland, as they thought the Germans were going to invade through Scotland, so all the British Army were up there and the Germans didn’t come. But he said we did far more dangerous things up there than in battle. I was in good shape when I joined, but by the time I left I wasn’t, as we were climbing mountains with bullets over your head… what did me was all the loud bangs from the artillery. People were killed up there in training. It was worse than battle. As my brother used to say, at least in battle you know who your enemy are. In training it’s your own side.

Thank the Lord you came back. Some of those sixties films you did are priceless. Ding dong!

Well they were, but we didn’t earn any money. If I had my time again I’d sign a different contract.

They got us all on the cheap. All the films have been turned into TV series and they made millions and we got nothing. I only did the first three with Carry On director Gerald Thomas and then I

38

graduated to the Doctors, taking over from Kenny More for three Doctor films. But I’ve done okay and haven’t stopped working. I must have done some 100 films and a lot of TV. What about the radio show the Navy Lark?

That was a great joy. I did 250 of those. I learnt about discipline there, which is very important, but it is also important to enjoy your work and be on time and not piddle about and be stupid. One of the biggest problems with telly was that they pissed about. We did the work but always had a great time.

Who or what stands out from your 70 years in front of an audience?

Rex Harrison had a great effect on me – he was a real character. The funniest of all my co-stars was Kenneth Williams, who always wanted to be a serious actor but he was a delightful man, just adorable; in fact they all were, Kenny, Hattie, Sid; the only reason I watch those old films is to see them, and although I only did three films with the gang, I loved them all. I was the oldest and I am the only one still alive.

What’s your secret?

That I don’t know. I’m not a drinker and I gave up smoking a long long time ago, as it affected my voice – I used to smoke those small cheroots. It was the best thing I ever did.

“On Doctor in Clover I said let’s play it down, as it’s funny anyway.

We don’t need to drop our trousers or anything, and it was the best of the bunch because we didn’t overdo it. If the knickers come off, it’s a different kind of game” What was it like being such a huge style icon?

I was very dapper and a lot of people used to copy me in those days. That happened a lot, and also a lot of people became a doctors because of the movies. In fact I blame myself for the NHS. But gradually I started looking for better roles and started doing more classical roles, and turned my career around into a different arena and back on to the stage, where I’ve done a lot of Chekhov, Shakespeare, all sorts.

How has it been being one of the country’s most recognisable faces for years? Has it taught you anything?

What I learned was that even though you might be famous all over the world, it doesn’t mean you’re rich. All I got was the actor’s fee, apart from the odd fee. I argued over Doctor in Clover and got a bit more and got to change it – I said let’s play it down as it’s funny anyway. We don’t need to drop our trousers or anything, and it was the best of the bunch because we didn’t overdo it. I learnt that to be really funny you have to under and not over play. I also learnt that funny is not often dirty; the suggestion is funnier than the actuality, and that is the secret of great humour. If the knickers come off it’s a different kind of game.

The great thing I enjoy is that male and female of all ages still enjoy the films, because they are constantly on TV.

What’s it like being a sex symbol?

I learnt that being a sex symbol attracts the attentions of both men and women. I get it from all sides, if you excuse the pun; no seriously, I still get boxes of fan mail [points to a big basket of assorted parcels and letters] but recently I have been so busy I have not had the time to answer them.

What about Out of Africa?

Sidney Pollack was a great man to work with, and Meryl Streep is the most amazing actress. She goes through the motions during rehearsals and saves herself for the camera. Then, bang, she is remarkable. But I’ve done a lot of other work that people never mention – Harry Potter, Mountains of the

39

Moon, a lot of TV, but no-one is ever interested in that, and looking at it these days I’m not surprised.

Is there one lesson that you have learnt through all this?

Discipline in everything is very important – always be on time, don’t go missing, don’t get big headed.

I’ve been told I’ve got good comic timing, but it’s all down to good diction. If they can’t hear you, they won’t get the timing. I’ve also learnt that I am a better father than a husband. Being a good husband requires a lot of hard work and you have to give your wife a lot of time, especially if she doesn’t work. I was born on the same day as Hitler, so that taught me that birth date does not dictate character.

Tell me about working with Peter O’Toole.

I’ve done two films with Peter. My wife Angie played opposite him many times, and we were all very fond of each other and he was a great actor. He liked to have a say in what he was doing, as he knew so much. But even though he had a reputation as being quite strong, he was also a pussycat and so funny. He loved to make you laugh on the set but didn’t overdo it. Some actors, when they become great stars, they want it all but he listened, worked and gave to his fellow actors. And that is what he did when we did those little comic scenes in the church and the café.

How many times have you been asked to say your signature “Hello!”?

Millions of times, and as for my other catchphrase, ‘Ding Dong!’, I couldn’t even count. But I have had a marvellous career and I am very fortunate.

One thing I have learnt is that I would have liked to spend more time with my children as they grew up.

Your careers seem to have run parallel?

Yes but in a different way – he had great charisma and loved to enjoy himself, but didn’t suffer fools. I put him on a measure with John Hurt – very similar talents. Great actors listen, so that when you are saying something they are listening, and not just waiting to say their lines and hog the camera. Peter was a joy to work with. Halfway through Venus, he broke his hip and we thought, ‘Oh No!’ And the doctors said they couldn’t fix it. He had this hip fitted and we thought the film was over, but when he came back after only four weeks, he was spot on.

Next time I bump into you in the street, we should have a cup of tea.

Oh yes please! That would be lovely.

Goodnight, Mr. Phillips.

No, please call me Leslie, dear boy, and do watch those steps as they can be very slippery! n

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ISSUE

2 0 Y E A R A N N I V E R S A RY

C H A P P O RT RA I TS To mark 20 years of The Chap and our 100th edition, we photographed the most stylish Chaps and Chapettes to have graced our pages. More portraits on page 96

S A RT O RIAL •

Chap Portraits (p44 & 96) History of Savile Row (p52) • Laurie Cunningham (p60) • Saddle Shoes (p66) • Satorial Primer (p68) • Humphrey Bogart (p74) • Grey Fox Column (p82) • Style Tribes (p88) • Straw Boater (p94)

John Sothcott

Photograph: Peter Clark

Boulevardier

Cinzia Sothcott

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Photograph: Peter Clark

Professional Coquette

Darcy Sullivan

Photograph: Peter Clark

Flâneur

46

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Photograph: Timelight Xxxxx Photographic

Zack Pinsent

Historical Costumier

Gaz Mayall

Photograph: Peter Clark

DJ/Impresario

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Anita Stratton

49

Photograph: Peter Clark

Interior Negotiator

Photograph: Peter Clark

Natty Bo Musician

50

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Photograph: Scott Chalmers

Mr B

Chap-Hop Superstar

Tailoring

THE HISTORY OF SAVILE ROW Savile Row is synonymous with Great British style and a Savile Row tailor is regarded as the best in the world. Chris Sullivan takes a stroll along the Row’s long and chequered history

T

he origins of the term tailor, from the French word tailler (to cut), go back to the 13th Century, when the coat replaced the tunic. The beginnings of Savile Row, however, only go back to the Elizabethan era.

Robert Baker set up shop in 1600 in the Strand to sell the ‘pickadil’, a development of the ruff, which had reached such outlandish proportions that wire supports were needed to keep it stiff.

Mr. Baker’s house soon became known as Pickadilly Hall and the street that led to it Pickadilly. Baker bought another two acres of allotments that included Golden Square and Carnaby Street, installed his nephews to work there and created the beginnings of the area’s tailoring tradition. After the death of Lord Burlington, the first resident of the semi-rural area that is

now Savile Row, it was his son Richard Boyle who would really put the area on the map. Upon his return from the Grand Tour, the third Lord Burlington was intent on building grand palazzos, in the Italian style, on the land that his father had bought, naming all the streets after members of his family: Burlington Street, Cork Street, Clifford Street and finally, in 1733, Savile Row.

The architect Giacomo Leoni intended that “the passenger at every step should discover a new structure” and closed each street with a fascinating architectural feature. The area was now elegant enough to receive its most conspicuous customer, Beau Brummell.

We all know the story of how Brummell laid the foundations for modern elegance. Overnight, men went from an over abundance of frills and

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lace to a silhouette that is not massively removed from today’s. Brummell’s tailors were the first craftsmen of their kind to be known as Savile Row tailors. He favoured Schweitzer and Davidson in Cork Street, Weston in Old Bond Street and Meyer in Conduit Street.

After Brummell, it was Napoleon’s turn to aid and abet Savile Row. After ‘The Nightmare of Europe’ escaped from Elba, virtually every ablebodied British man was swept into service, and every officer needed his mufti. Shropshire draper James Poole, who mobilized into a volunteer corps, had to provide his own uniform. His officer noticed his tunic, asked if Poole had made it and promptly ordered a dozen. Poole profited like no other from Napoleon, accepting orders by the truckload and expanding first to Regent Street and then to Number 4, Old Burlington Street. His son Henry took over and extended the business even further into the street behind, putting Savile Row well and truly on the sartorial map.

Another aid to what we now know as Savile Row was Regent Street. Commissioned by the Prince Regent, it was originally intended as a royal thoroughfare that would take the eminent fat man from Carlton House to his proposed villa in Regent’s Park. Its construction cut a swathe through the tailoring establishment, dividing the outworkers, mostly resident in the East, from the master tailors in the West. Even today, one might buy a suit from Savile Row that would cost twice that of a tailor in

Soho, even though the same craftsmen make both.

This curious anomaly was created by a strange concoction of extreme snobbery and Regent Street.

The tailors themselves, however, were becoming increasingly important to a gent’s existence. They became so powerful that they were able to ward off every governmental attempt to curb their wage increases. By the 18th century, tailors had become the most militant union in the country. By the 1830s the art of tailoring had become a serious business, aided by the invention of the tape measure.

Just as the tailors themselves became more powerful, so grew a certain antagonism within the industry.

The master tailors had become increasingly envious of the journeymen, known as ‘flints’ or ‘honourable men’, who actually did all the work. The masters

“James Poole’s officer noticed his tunic, asked if he had made it and promptly ordered a dozen.

Poole profited like no other from Napoleon, accepting orders by the truckload and expanding to Old Burlington Street. His son Henry extended the business into Savile Row”

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tried to break their monopoly, by employing ‘dungs’, a class of outworkers who would work longer for less money. Among the ranks of the latter were women and children, their activities known as ‘sweating’.

The flints formed a union, The London Operative Tailors. By 1834 the Union could boast some 13,000 members and, in April of that year, not at all dissuaded by the fate of the Tolpuddle Martyrs a month before, went on strike.

They met at ‘Houses of Call’ such as The Blue Posts in Kingly Street. These houses were infiltrated by police spies, who observed the weird initiation rites of the Union involving swords, bibles, painted skeletons and a secret sign: the placing of the right thumb and forefinger to the left side of the waistcoat, and then drawing it across the body to the right thigh. It was not the police however, who brought about the Union’s collapse; it was greed. The union’s headquarters were burgled and their funds embezzled. Penniless, they had to break strike. They could only return to work if they signed a pledge denouncing the Union.

Most drifted back, unable to feed their families.

The effect on Savile Row was that many employers began to employ second rate craftsmen.

A new breed of ‘Slop and Show’ shops erupted,

“Hawkes made a name for himself by kitting out the great explorers.

When Stanley chanced upon Livingstone he was ‘clad in flannels, with a patent Hawke’s cork solar topee on his head, a most unusual thing in Ugogo’” and by 1849 the traditional shops were in decline.

Much of the work could now be farmed out to an immigrant work force. Kingly street was home to about 70 workers who sat, 20 to a room, around the coke-fuelled stoves that heated the irons. There were ‘trotters’, who fetched the work, a timekeeper, and a messenger who brought the beer.

Drink always played an important part in tailoring. As Ron Keston said in the late 80s: “There were more characters in the past. Oh yes, they used to have a habit of going on the cod and not turning up for three or four days. The trade drives you to drink.” Such was the problem that, in 1875,

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Angelica Patience Fraser formed the Tailor’s Prayer Union and Total Abstinence Society, meeting in the Burlington Hall, close to the heart of the drinking and brawling tailors known as the ‘Carnaby Boys.’

She probably failed miserably in her endeavours.

Henry Poole set a precedent that still exists today. His career was elevated via the patronage of royalty. When the Prince of Wales chose Poole as his tailor, there was no stopping the man.

His shop became ‘a rendezvous for gilded and sporting youth… more like a club than a shop. The firm’s trio of high priests Mr. Cundney (General Supervisor), Mr. Dent (Coats), and Mr. Allen (Trousers) frequently joined the convivial gathering’.

The area was awash with prostitutes, and many tailors provided their clients with every possible facility, including guest bedrooms with ‘a discreet eye turned to the ladies who accompanied them’. They had twenty fittings with their tailor, and in the back or around the corner would be something else.

The fortunes of another famous Savile Row tailor, Thomas Hawkes (of Gieves and Hawkes), owed his success to another curious Victorian fad, exploring. The Royal Geographical Society was for decades resident at Number 1 Savile Row, and Mr. Hawkes made a name for himself by kitting out almost all the era’s great explorers. As Stanley explains in his book How I Found Doctor Livingstone, when he chanced upon the lost adventurer he was ‘clad in flannels, with a patent Hawke’s cork solar topee on his head, a most unusual thing in Ugogo’.

In the 20th century Savile Row was hit hard by a number of rather heavy blows.The first was the sinking of the Titanic, which caused the loss of many, many customers. The second was the First World War. For a while the war provided customers for the Row; what irrevocably injured the trade was that most did not return to pay their bills.

The renaissance of Savile Row was prompted by the Prince of Wales, without doubt the world’s best-dressed man of the twenties and thirties. His effect on Savile Row was immeasurable. It was he who popularised the ‘suit’ as we now know it. He abandoned spats, the morning coat, the starched collar and brought about a much more relaxed cut, as invented by his tailor Frederick Scholte. A total autocrat, the Dutchman Scholte created a style that was high waisted and close fitting, employing the square shoulder to great effect while maintaining his trademark softer look.

The Prince’s effect was also felt in Hollywood, where Savile Row-attired Jack Buchanan became the style leader par excellence. Buchanan introduced America to the broad-shouldered Scholte suit and Hollywood lapped them up. Fred Astaire discovered

TAILOR’S SLANG: The language used in the cutting room Balloon: Having a balloon – a week without work or pay Baste: A garment assembled for the first time Block: A standard pattern around which the suit is cut Bunce: A perk Cabbage: Left over material Coat: Jacket Codger: A tailor who does up odd suits Cork: The boss Crushed beetles: Bad buttonholes Darky: Sleeve board Drummer: Trouser make Gorge: Where the collar is attached Hip stay: The wife Kipper: A tailoress Mangle: Sewing machine Mango: Cloth cuttings On the cod: Gone drinking Pigged: A lapel that turns up after a bit of wear Pork: A reject that another customer might buy Schmutter: Poor clothes Skiffle: A rush job Skye: The armhole Tab: Difficult customer Trotter: Fetcher and carrier Umsies: Someone who is being discussed, whom the speaker does not want to name because he is present Whipping the Cat: Travelling around and working in private houses

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that the Prince had his waistcoats made in Hawes and Curtis: “The next day I asked if I could get the waistcoat like HRH’s. I was apologetically told that it could not be done. So I went somewhere else and had one made like it.” That ‘somewhere else’ might well have been Kilgour & French, who went on to make the dress suits Fred wore in Top Hat – now one of Savile Row’s most enduring images.

After the Second World War, recovery in Savile Row was slow. The American look popularised by cinema had caught on in Britain.

This colonial aberration was the antithesis of the Savile Row ethic. The street shuddered. A glimmer of hope came in 1950, when Harper’s Bazaar championed ‘the Return of the Beau’. This look evolved into the New Edwardian Look adopted by ex-Guards officers. The Look was soon dropped when it was adopted by the Teddy Boys, whose antics with the cut throat razor did not amuse the habitués of Savile Row.

One of the most controversial and colourful tailors on the Row during this period was Hardy Amies, who pushed the street’s reputation beyond its natural boundaries. Amies had noticed the rise of the High Street tailor chains, who were exerting a massive influence on national menswear. Amies went on to design a brilliant range for Hepworths in the sixties.

In 1965 Cecil Beaton delivered a stern lecture to Savile Row, telling them to “Pay attention to the fashions created by the young mods and get with it.” A chance meeting would answer his demands.

Tommy Nutter quite literally bumped into Edward Sexton in the Burlington Arcade. Sexton had trained under the great Fred Stanbury at Kilgour, and Nutter had answered an ad while working as a plumber that said ‘Boy Wanted In Savile Row.’ Nutter used his social skills to provide a fresh client list that included Brian Epstein, Mick Jagger and Twiggy. Nutter threw every convention right out of the window. “I just went wild with the lapels and cut them as wide as you possibly could and it was terribly flared at the jacket.” With the brilliant Sexton at his side, Nutter could do no wrong and in many ways defined men’s style in the early 1970s.

After Tommy Nutter left Savile Row in 1976, the street once more slipped back into orthodoxy.

There were still some legendary characters, such as Harry Helman, known as ‘the Godfather of Savile Row’ who, with his brother Burt, cut the cloth for some sixty years. Helman was known for producing a suit that could hide the stomach and exaggerate the chest, but for Burt it was simple: “You do your best to make a man look a little better”. The Helman brothers’ client list included John Hurt, Terence Stamp, Muhammad Ali and James Fox,

57

but their approach was really straightforward. As Burt put it, “I always say, rather do good work and make less, then you’re producing something worthy and not getting too much aggravation’’. Sound advice by anyone’s measure.

In Savile Row today there have been a number of changes, the greatest being the result of a government act in 1987 that relaxed property use in the West End. Even though the term ‘Savile Row’ denotes a tailor ensconced in a square mile of territory of which the street itself is the heart, today on the West side of the street the quality of some of the garments made are not as top notch as they should be. This situation is the result of the new development. In the lease of the tailors on the East of the Row, there is a stipulation that states ‘the premises must be occupied by fine tailors’.

On the West side, no such clause exists. Some tailors believe there should be a set of rules, as there are in the French Chambre de Couture, where a couturier has to reach a certain standard before he can call himself a ‘couturier’. Savile Row is now more than just a street and people expect a degree of excellence. Tailors such as Stephen Hitchcock (resident at James and James, 11 Burlington Street) trained for over ten years to reach the standards of Savile Row.

The only way one can tell the quality of one’s suit before its delivery is by how long it has taken to be made. The waiting time on a proper bespoke suit is two to three months, and a good Savile Row suit will cost upwards of £3,000. The results are worth it, for no-one I’ve met has ever been disappointed by the real McCoy. n

‘Richard the Rich’ Boyle, first Earl of. Burlington, Earl of Cork and Lord Treasurer of Ireland was the first resident of the once semirural region now the home of fine tailoring. Well ensconced in the area by 1676, the Lord suddenly found himself under siege. A glass works had set up shop next to his lavish town house, and its workers were boiling human excrement to extract potassium and saltpetre to make their seemingly innocuous product. After a series of formal protests, the glass works were closed down and His Lordship signed a new lease. He then died, ‘his venom satiated’. The area was then secured by his son as a development area and soon craftsmen of all kinds were attracted to the neighbourhood, catering to the region’s bourgeoisie. The only remnant today of the glass factory is Glasshouse Street, which at one point extended from Old Bond Street the entire length of Burlington Gardens right up to Piccadilly.

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© Rex/Shutterstock

Sartorial

LAURIE CUNNINGHAM Dermot Kavanagh looks back at the sensational soccer, sartorial splendour and soul-boy dancing of the first black footballer to play for England

F

orty years ago this summer, in July 1979, the footballer Laurie Cunningham arrived in Spain from the English first division as a star in waiting. He joined Real Madrid, the World’s most famous club, in a record-breaking deal worth £950,000 that had been brokered in a Birmingham restaurant. He was the first Englishman to play for the club, only their second ever black player, and the most expensive signing in the club’s history. His new manager called him the best player in Europe. The Spanish press, keen to get a handle on the exotic but largely unknown youngster, reported his arrival with curiosity, noting as he glided through the airport that he brought

“Walking past a shop on Leyton High Road, he noticed a large trunk thrown out on to the pavement filled with original wartime shirts, shoes, a Fedora hat and pin-stripe suit.

The trove gave him a template to work from” 61

five suitcases of clothes with him. It was a telling observation. When he was asked a few years earlier what he would like to be if he wasn’t a footballer, he earnestly replied, “a fashion designer or a dancer”.

Cunningham had always taken care to dress well. In the school playground, when everyone else was wearing shoes bought by their mums, he wore patent leather ones, and by his late teens was part of a group of black youths who were meticulous in their appearance. He was a soul boy who loved to dance and spent hours at home practicing routines before competing in contests, or ‘burn-ups’, in the pub back rooms and dive bars of the burgeoning underground funk music scene.

Laurie Cunningham was born in March 1956 at Archway, north London, the son of Jamaican parents, and grew up nearby in Finsbury Park.

In 1972 he left school to sign terms with second division Leyton Orient, and on apprentice wages of twenty pounds a week started to explore London, with a sketchbook in hand. He visited the King’s Road in Chelsea and Kensington Market to draw inspiration from the clothes he saw there. He would also have been aware of the ‘Windrush style’, the clothes that the men of his father’s generation wore.

This was a formal look that included hats, floral print ties, silk scarves and, the ultimate statement of individuality, the zoot suit.

By 1975 Cunningham was earning enough to have suits made that referenced this look. He found an old Jewish tailor in Stratford, east London, who could supply the heavy woollen cloth that would make his suits hang properly. The retro style was a reaction to the general scruffiness of menswear at the time, where patchwork denim and long hair held a seemingly iron grip. The Great Gatsby look, as it became known, was named after the 1974 Hollywood film starring Robert Redford. Redford’s wardrobe used a dazzling palette of colours, and his suits in pastel pink, pale yellow and brilliant white had a lasting effect on the soul boys.

Cunningham started to scour markets and second-hand shops for ideas; part of the fun was tracking down that special piece of clothing that nobody else had, helped by a stroke of luck one day. Walking past a shop on Leyton High Road, he noticed a large trunk thrown out on the pavement.

On closer inspection, he discovered it was filled with original wartime clothing, including shirts, a pair of shoes, a Fedora hat and pin stripe suit, all in good condition. He bought the lot for a few pounds.

The trove, full of information on craftsmanship and cut, gave him a template to work from. He

had the suit copied but added flashes of his own style, by exaggerating the width of the trousers and lengthening the jacket to hang at fingertip length.

Worn with a high crown Fedora and original corespondent shoes, he achieved a remarkably stylish look that not many were able to match.

At this time the black community could only meet in churches, community halls or house parties, as most clubs operated a colour bar. An important exception was a venue in north London called Bluesville in Wood Green, just a few miles north of Cunningham’s Finsbury Park home. It opened in the mid 1950s as a trad jazz and blues venue, with close links to Alexis Korner and the west London blues scene. As the 1960s progressed, the club tilted more towards soul and reggae and evolved into an ad-hoc cultural centre for local black youths. For the soul boys it was the place to find out how good a dancer you were. Steve Salvari, who went on to perform with the Brit-Funk band Central Line in the 1980s, remembers Cunningham as part of a group that always ‘came correct’. If a well-known dancer was due to visit, a huge buzz went round the area.

“Laurie’s dancing was freestyle, it was just expression in the moment.

He could do spins and we used to love the jazz dancers like Fred Astaire and take moves from them.

We had crowds round us when we danced, we’d get soaking wet from dancing and have a change of clothes in the car”

A dancer with one of the biggest reputations in London was Leon Herbert from Angel, Islington, and when news broke that he was coming to the club, Salvari upped his game in readiness for the challenge. He recalls, “All the guys turned up to challenge him. We were there in our tank tops and Ravel shoes doing Jackson Five kind of moves. Leon turned up in a double-breasted suit, patent leather shoes, a clutch bag and a shirt and tie. We’d lost before we’d even begun; when he started dancing he was doing ballet and tap moves.”

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Lesson learned, Salvari began to seek out better clothes, and recalls trips to places like Carnaby Street where “there was a shop called Emporium; you could go down there and get proper suits, proper Oxford bags. For hats there was Anello & Davide; they did gangster hats and two-tone dancing shoes; they had a shop on Charing Cross Road and a theatrical suppliers on Tottenham Court Road… We discovered a place on Petticoat Lane that sold original thirties and forties shoes. It was a real beaten up old shop and on a Saturday you couldn’t get in there! It was never organised properly, you would see a pair of shoes in the window that you liked and have to check through loads of boxes to find them; honestly it was pandemonium!” He remembers one fastidious acquaintance who was so particular that he carried a sheet of folded brown paper inside his jacket pocket, to place on chairs before he sat down.

After the hours had been put in at Bluesville, the most dedicated dancers graduated to a club on Wardour Street in Soho named Crackers.

Unremarkable and shabby from the outside, a stairway descended to a dimly lit basement with a tiny dance floor and balding carpet that was serviced by a mercurial PA system, which often blew its own speakers. The lunchtime sessions, held between noon and 2.30 on Friday afternoons, quickly developed a word-of-mouth reputation and, with a fifty pence admission fee, attracted a very young crowd, aged between 15 and 21. The energy of the dancers soon became as big a draw as the music, as a motley collection of skiving school children and young shop workers filled the room to shuffle, gape and wonder.

After training had finished, Cunningham drove to Crackers in his Volvo sports coupe with his best friend Bert, who describes Laurie’s dancing: “It was freestyle, it was just expression in the moment. He could do spins and we used to love the jazz dancers like Fred Astaire and take moves from them. We had crowds round us when we danced, we’d get soaking wet from dancing and have a change of clothes in the car.” The friends must have been a beguiling sight as they entered the club dressed in identically cut suits: “We had suits made all the time; you picked out your material, had the jacket lined, we used to interchange, if I had one in white he’d have one in black and vice versa,” he says. How you looked was as important as how you danced, and the loose-fitting suits were cut in the perfect way to show off certain dance moves.

Cunningham loved original wartime clothing and designed a canvas American G.I.’s jacket, which he

wore with pegged trousers. The soul boy style was accentuated with classics from English tailoring, such as Harris Tweed, Prince of Wales check, hacking jackets and cricket jumpers worn slung round the shoulders. By the long, hot summer of 1976, Crackers reached its peak and was attracting an across-theboard mix of black and white teenagers. For a brief period it was the place where everything came together with the right people, dancing to the right music, in the right atmosphere.

In 1977 Cunningham left London when he signed for West Bromwich Albion, to become part of the famous trio of black players nicknamed ‘the Three Degrees’, who electrified the first division with their memorable displays. He was one of the first black footballers to represent England at this time, and in 1979 signed for Real Madrid. However, after a bright start – in his first season Madrid won the league and cup double – his career was marred by a series of injuries that ruined him as a player. He became something of a nomad, playing for seven clubs in six years, before his untimely death in July 1989 in a car crash in Madrid at the age of 33.

Laurie Cunningham was an unconventional and singular figure who bridged the worlds of sport, fashion and youth culture. More than just a talented footballer, he was a leading light for a generation of black Britons. n Different Class: The Story of Laurie Cunningham is published in paperback by Unbound in July

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Footwear

SADDLE SHOES Gustav Temple goes on a mammoth quest in search of the perfect iteration of this shoe originally made for indoor sports and dancing

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“Spalding Saddle shoes quickly caught on as the perfect shoe for indoor sports such as badminton and squash, before their popularity spread to golfers.

Today Spalding still make shoes, but aimed at sports less sedate than badminton, and therefore ugly�

eaders of this publication are likely to possess inside their heads many pairs of shoes, only some of which have appeared in the corporeal world. There are few sartorial acquisitions pursued with more determination, time and effort than the seeking of certain footwear. The search can commence after the briefest glimpse, in a photograph or on a film screen, sometimes even in a dream.

The many saddle shoes I have seen, on the feet of rockabilly and lindy hop dancers, are nearly always black and white or navy and cream, but the ones that appeared to me from God-knows-where were not. They were dark blue with a brown saddle, and the picture set off a very long train of tedious internet searching, posts on social media and the reading of the many nerdy shoe blogs and forums that exist all over the world.

The saddle shoe originated in 1906, first introduced by American company A.G. Spalding and designed for indoor sports. It was called a saddle shoe because the waist of the shoe was reinforced and in a different material and colour

to the main body of the shoe. They quickly caught on as the perfect shoe for indoor sports such as badminton and squash, before their popularity spread to golfers. Today Spalding still make shoes, but aimed at sports less sedate than badminton, and therefore ugly.

By the late 1940s, saddle shoes were adopted by both male and female dancers of the Jitterbug and Lindy Hop, usually worn with Bobby Socks

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and most commonly in the standard blue and white combo. So far, so fascinating, I thought, but where was I going to get a pair? The British brands aimed at the lindy hop community make saddle shoes, but they are practical rather than stylish, and I didn’t plan to wear mine to the local jive.

Social media comes into its own at times like this. A single plaintive post yielded dozens of helpful replies, ranging from the close-but-no-cigar to the truly bizarre. GH Bass, I discovered, used to make an exemplary saddle shoe, but their European wing no longer stocks them. Ordering shoes from the US is a risky business anyway, what with the different sizing structure, and, now that GDPR has stamped its steeltoecapped boot on most American companies shipping to the UK, most of them have given up trying. Then one Neil Vincent (thank you Neil!) chipped in to the thread, recommending a brand I had never heard of called Mark McNairy.

Mark McNairy is an American fashion designer who already boasts several impressive heritage credentials, having revamped Ivy League brand J Press and, more importantly for my purposes, designing new models for GH Bass’s Weejun loafers. He clearly noticed that company’s mothballed (at least in Europe) saddle shoes, for McNairy’s next line of his own-branded footwear featured several iterations of the saddle shoe, ranging in original colourways that included the coveted navy and brown.

The soles are a brick-red crepe, making for a smooth perambulation. Some might object to this brightly coloured sole, but many other saddle shoes come with bright cream soles, which will only scuff to scruffy beige, especially when put through their paces on the dancefloor. The Mark McNairy sole will soon scuff down to a perfectly acceptable – on an informal shoe – shade of dusty brown. The shoes are Northampton-made, which is all one needs to know about their excellent construction. The only minor flaw is that they are built with open lacing, whereas traditional saddle shoes always have closed lacing.

Nevertheless, the long quest was worth the effort. n Mark McNairy Baltic Saddle £245 www.markmcnairy-uk.com

Sartorial

A SARTORIAL PRIMER Liam Jefferies takes a back-to-basics approach to the rules of men’s dress, just in case you haven’t been paying attention for the last 99 issues

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hances are, if you are reading this 100th edition, you have acquired a certain cognisance on the unspoken rules of dress. However, in these turbulent times of menswear, with pre-ripped denim and anklesocks abundant, one feels the need to reaffirm some of the rules governing the land of sartoria.

is, given there is a three-button stance, the top button is fastened should the weather demand, the middle is a must, while the bottom button is strictly cosmetic and should only be fastened if absolutely necessary (see Jean-Paul Belmondo hiding his gun in À Bout de Souffle). The reason for this most fastidious of fastenings stems from the rotund Edward VII, who often couldn’t fasten the bottom button of his waistcoat. His court followed suit and it soon became de rigueur and extended to coats. In modern times, the unfastened lower button denotes that the jacket is cut correctly and that the button itself has been rendered superfluous.

Suit sleeves should show a bit of shirt; if the cuff skirts the first knuckle of your thumb, they are too long. Similarly, if your cufflinks are permanently on show, then you have already played your sartorial hand, and have nothing ‘up the sleeve’ so to speak. Men’s accessories should lift an outfit, not dictate them. A collar pin, a tie

DRESS FOR THE WEATHER, THEN THE OCCASION If you haven’t come to a decision after ticking both these boxes, you own too many clothes. A simple wardrobe well executed will always be preferable to being a clotheshorse, and nothing says menswear neophyte like French cuffs worn with casual trousers.

WEAR A SUIT, DON’T LET A SUIT WEAR YOU The correct way to button up a suit coat is referred to as the ‘Sometimes, Always, Never’ rule. That

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clip or expertly folded square are excellent ways to add a certain elegance to an outfit, but worn all at once looks too pre-determined and fussy. A general rule is one accessory per outfit, and most often this is your watch. Always wear a watch. Reading the time from your field telephone merely displays your dependence on it. The same goes with a pen; invest in a good quality fountain pen and carry it everywhere, to save you from having to use a publicly shared biro.

DON’T FEAR A POCKET SQUARE A pocket square is not a handkerchief, so always buy silk and don’t blow your nose on it. A hankie should sit within your inside breast pocket and be reserved for lending to someone who needs it. When it comes to complementing your neckwear, match a colour or two, and have fun mixing patterns, but never go too matchy-matchy; the last thing you want is to give the impression you bought both tie and square in a gift set.

SHIRTS SHOULD HAVE LONG SLEEVES With the exception of private investigator Thomas Magnum, short sleeves, like short trousers, are best left to children’s Sunday dress. In clement weather, roll the sleeves up, but iron them rolled-up before you put on the shirt.

WEAR A TIE, AND WEAR IT WELL The adage goes ‘Always wear a tie when you are asking for money’, and this is because you wish to be seen as a responsible, attentive individual with a repertoire of several different knots. Put any fears of being overdressed out of your mind, for you’ll simply look like you have somewhere better to be afterwards. Tie width should match the width of one’s lapels, and when tied, the blade should sit so it half conceals the button of your trousers. Master the four-in-hand knot, followed by the half and full Windsor, as the collar demands – the wider the cutaway, the thicker the knot.

The basics of ties covered, here is an aspect of menswear in which a degree of fun can be had.

Consider the Italian art of sprezzatura, the sense of studied carelessness; imperfect tying on a bow tie is a necessity, but on a regular tie, playing with the length can add an element of ‘I just threw this on’-ness, particularly when combined with the continental style of twisting a four-in-hand knot, thus exposing the rear blade, and being particularly effective in striped or repp ties. Better to err on the side of caution, however: leave a tie too short and you look like you work for NASA (see short sleeves); however, when employed with a studied perfection and a nod to those in the know, a longer tie can be slimming. Don’t go too long though, lest you resemble a certain tangerine-tinged head of state.

WEAR TROUSERS THAT FIT As a general rule, the trouser cuff should fall so that the back of your trouser kisses the top of your heel; the minimal bunching at the bottom of the leg is known as the break. Too short, and you are at risk of showing too much skin when seated, too long, and your legs resemble a melting candle.

Trousers should fit, and not just in the waist.

Oxford bags are preferable to a trouser too tight around the thigh, but not as wide as the ones pictured. If needed, opt for pleats to allow necessary room for manoevre – if you cannot cock your leg over a bicycle, your trousers are too tight. When you take a seat, lift and pinch the trouser fabric above the knee; this will save the knees of your trousers from stretching.

Cuffs (not turn-ups) shouldn’t exceed two inches and should correspond to your lapel width.

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Made proper in Yorkshire.

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Open by appointment Monday-Friday or visit the mill on Saturday 8 June for ‘Made Beautifully Here.’ There will be makers from across the country and a marketplace of beautiful things. Food, drink and live music set in the stunning South Pennines.

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BLACK SHOES, BLACK BELT Particularly when wearing a suit, match your leathers. Anything less is garish and can split the torso into sections (this isn’t something you want). Many fine shoemakers construct belts from matching leather. Keep your belt width suitable to the rungs on your waistline; a slim belt worn with wide loops gives the effect you are holding up your trousers with a piece of string.

“A simple wardrobe well executed will always be preferable to being a clotheshorse, and nothing says menswear neophyte like French cuffs worn with casual trousers” A CAPITE AD CALCEM A chap is a chap from head to toe, so let’s talk footwear. With regard to socks, the cardinal rule is to match your socks, if not to your trousers, then to your shoes. The former can elongate the appearance of the leg, and is preferred. Every now and then the topic of white socks comes to the fore, with both sides of the debate equally populated.

With khakis or, better yet, white flannels, a proper white sock (i.e. those without a garish logo adorning the ankle) is considered proper form, and can look particularly fetching with saddle shoes or white buckskin derbies.

Steer clear of any novelty adornment with your socks, in fact always wear plain socks in whichever colour tickles your fancy. Going sans socks is not to be sniffed at, particularly with loafers or boating shoes, though it does help actually to own a boat (the same goes for unbuttoning more than two buttons on your shirt).

BUY FEWER SHOES, AND BUY WELL Dependent on your profession and leanings, you should own at least three pairs each of black and brown leather shoes. Spend more on these than on any other separate component of your wardrobe, and you will be rewarded with longevity. Shoes made in Northampton with a Goodyear-welted sole will likely outlive you, and leave a stylish inheritance for your offspring. In a suit five days a week? Black toe-cap Oxfords. For the more casual approach, opt for loafers in cordovan leather.

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If you don’t have the money to buy a pair of lifelong shoes, buy a pair of shoe trees. You can vastly improve the longevity and appearance of your footwear with a proper maintenance regimen. Polish your shoes as you would wind your watch, that is, often and with due attention and care. Always polish with the colour of the shoe as opposed to neutral polish, and always take the laces out first.

Now that you have the basics covered, feel free to add your own individual touches: a rule bent well will beat a Spartan approach hands-down. I for one opt for a shorter leg on my more casual trousers, nullifying the short legs inherited from my father.

Your personal style will emerge simply by following the rules, and expressing your inner self through clothing cannot be objectively defined or advised.

If you finds something that works, don’t be afraid to wear the same thing twice in a row.

Some of the most stylish men have a ‘personal uniform’, which they wear three times a week; this helps to keep your style centred and not have you frivolously opting for that ruffled silk shirt, simply to look different from yesterday. It is better to look good every day than to look different every day; this is the beauty of menswear. And remember the famous statement – the better your dress, the worse you can behave. n

@sartorialchap

Sartorial

HUMPHREY BOGART Nick Guzan on how the Hollywood icon was the most stylish actor even in an era when all actors were stylish

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umphrey Bogart had the unique talent to fully adapt his style – both acting and sartorial – to every role without leaving himself behind, whether he was playing the sniveling bastard in 1930s gangster pictures like The Petrified Forest, Angels with Dirty Faces and The Roaring Twenties, or when he reached his stride as the smirking, sarcastic, and ultimately heroic leading man in the following decade with classics like The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and The Big Sleep, or his mature era with roles in In a Lonely Place, The Caine Mutiny and The Barefoot Contessa.

Humphrey Bogart’s fame pinnacled during an era when Hollywood studios trusted certain leading men to wear primarily their own duds on screen.

Most of the men in question – Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck and James Stewart, to name a few – are hardly surprising choices, but it is Bogie who emerges from the lot as the most interesting.

Aside from the erstwhile Archibald Leach, who established a gold standard with his gray plaid 3/2-roll suit in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest sixty years ago, it is Bogart who is responsible for

wearing some of the most iconic looks of 20th century cinema.

When asked to think of a private detective, it is doubtless you immediately conjure the image of a man in a buttoned-and-tied trench coat with a Fedora pulled down over his eyes, a still-smoking Chesterfield between his fingers for good measure.

Whether the face is Bogart’s signature smirk or not, it is Rick Blaine in Casablanca or Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep that we have to thank for this image.

“The sight of Bogart, whether working the room or slumped over a bottle of bourbon and a life’s worth of sorry memories, will stick with any viewer long after the promised beginning of a beautiful friendship”

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Photo: Rex Features

Photo: Rex Features

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It was also Casablanca that delivered Bogart’s most enduring and influential look. As the proprietor of Rick’s Café Americain nightclub in World War II-era Morocco, Bogie’s Rick Blaine holds court each evening in an ivory doublebreasted dinner jacket with a shawl collar that rolls to a single button on the second row of a fourbutton front. The underpinnings are simple: white point-collar shirt, black thistle-shaped bow tie, black trousers, and black Oxfords, but the sight of Bogart, whether working the room or slumped over a bottle of bourbon and a life’s worth of sorry memories, will stick with any viewer long after the promised beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Bogart’s career rose during the 1930s, a decade arguably regarded as the apex in elegant menswear, and it’s clear that the ambitious actor paid attention during his visits to the tailor. By the time he was established as a leading man the following decade, Bogie had amassed a loyal variety of timeless suits and sport jackets that made appearances both onand off-screen across the latter half of the actor’s life.

One particular Humphrey Bogart favorite was the dark chalk-striped suit, double-breasted and made from a beautifully napped flannel cloth that only adds layers and texture, as it buttons across his torso in the classic formation of six buttons with two to fasten. One can hardly watch a Bogart film

from the early 1940s without encountering this suit, including The Maltese Falcon, the Paris scenes in Casablanca, Across the Pacific, Conflict, and The Big Sleep.

“The ambitious actor paid attention during his visits to the tailor. By the time he was established as a leading man the following decade, Bogie had amassed a loyal variety of timeless suits and sport jackets that made appearances both onand off-screen across the latter half of the actor’s life”

Unlike some of his equally elegant contemporaries, Bogart often endeavored to break the era’s rules, and very often with great success.

This could mean sporting an all-white suit – double-breasted, of course – with white bucks for a summer-friendly shoot in 1934 or, nearly a decade later, wearing the very progressive combination of a black suit and black shirt with a light silk tie as an

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BOGIE'S SHINER And, of course, there was the ring.

Reportedly a gift to the young Humphrey from his father, the actor sported this gold ring on the third finger of his right hand in nearly all of his movies. Flashing on the front side is a single square-cut diamond flanked by a ruby on each side.

adventurous Merchant Marine in Action in the North Atlantic, perhaps a callback to his Dillinger-esque gangster roles earlier in his career.

Bogart also had a talent for following only the most timeless of fashion trends. In the post-World War II era, as returning servicemen opted for the ease and informality of single-breasted suits and sport jackets, Bogie’s wardrobe evolved with it.

The double-breasted suits and long ties gave way to patterned odd jackets and sport shirts, as well as sometimes conservative single-breasted suits and the bow ties that became a marked favorite of the actor in later life.

As Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place, the harddrinking screenwriter with a dark side, Bogart supposedly found the role closest to how he saw himself. The actor’s diversifying style was reflected

in Dix’s wardrobe as well, with sport jackets made from durable wools and tweeds, paired with polos and jumpers for casual outings and dark suits with bow ties for business.

Unless there was a role like Chain Lightning, Tokyo Joe or The Caine Mutiny that required a military uniform – which Bogart, the former U.S. Navy sailor, always wore with both dignity and a rakish charm – his remaining films of the 1950s saw little differentiation between the style of Humphrey Bogart and his ‘tough guy-in-a-bow tie’ characters.

In Deadline–U.S.A., Sabrina and The Barefoot Contessa, we see a nattily attired and noble-aimed gent who is worldly but doesn’t take himself too seriously, and shows advanced senses of humour and style. He’s the man we should all aspire to be, so why should we ask him to look any different? n

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Mature Style

THE GREY FOX COLUMN David Evans of greyfoxblog.com advises on slowing down with an analogue approach to life, without going to live in a corrugated iron bunker

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eafing back over past issues of The Chap, I’ve been struck how it has changed over the years as it’s rolled towards this glorious 100th issue. Early copies look as if they were printed in the sixties (as was intended, of course) and it’s only the post-decimalisation price that gives away their recent origin. The magazine is now larger in size and less vintage in appearance; indeed, it has matured. However, there is a common thread that’s survived throughout: a drive for good behaviour, courtesy and humour in our dealings with each other.

Some readers hark back to a simpler past: they wear tweed, cultivate whiskers, smoke pipes and doff their hats in an attempt restore these sociable qualities. Are these perhaps signs of a yearning for an Analogue Age, in which everything around us is comprehensible and less intricate?

Modern life, far from being made simpler by technology, has become fast and complex. While even hardened readers of The Chap Magazine will

“Some readers hark back to a simpler past: they wear tweed, cultivate whiskers, smoke pipes and doff their hats in an attempt restore these sociable qualities.

Are these perhaps signs of a yearning for an Analogue Age, where everything around us is comprehensible and less intricate?” admit to some advantages in modern technology, we have to recognise its horrors.

Social media and the Internet have given everyone a say. This should be a good thing, but too often ignorance and emotion complicate every

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issue and drown out educated debate. Experts have become pariahs and evidence is a dirty word.

Addiction to social media, the licence its anonymity gives to some to be rude and bullying, is driving a return to simpler things.

How did we fill our days, communicate with each other, listen to music, keep abreast of current affairs and even find out what was on at the cinema or local theatre before the Internet and social media? We managed somehow – perhaps more slowly, with less volume of information than now, but was life any worse for that? We communicated directly with each other, rather than digitally, reducing the risks of misunderstanding and bullying behaviour encouraged by anonymity.

The dazzling weight of information that we’re subject to is overwhelming. Zombie-like, we wander along the pavement, oblivious to our surroundings, as we use our phones to keep up with our e-mail, Twitter, Facebook etc accounts.

Life is much too fast; we need to slow down, and make it simpler.

Of course, as a blogger and (I hope our esteemed editor will excuse the term) ‘influencer’, I’m part of this dire state of affairs, but maybe I can redress the balance by suggesting that you add to your lives objects that don’t rely on modern technology. Who really understands how a computer works? We can generally see how a pen, film camera or bicycle work, and derive some pleasure from that fact.

Here, in alphabetical order, are some items that will help your life become a little simpler, and more analogue: BOOKS While most of us still read books, reading from screens is taking over. However, the harsh light keeps us awake and screens can give vision

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problems. Buy books – they smell and feel better than any electronic object and, unlike a digital document, you can browse them with ease and pleasure.

A suitable book to start with is Carl Honoré’s In Praise of Slow, published by Orion.

develop your own film and set up a darkroom to create prints. The film process is certainly more involved than digital photography, but you’re in control of the results and aware of the cost involved in each print.

CARS (CLASSIC) Modern cars rely on software controlled only by a computer. In my car I have to scroll through a menu to find even the most basic functions. Why should I have to do that to reset the clock when in older cars I simply twist a knob to reset the hands?

My 1967 Land Rover (above) is as analogue as it gets. Even I understand how it works and the only electrics are for ignition and lighting. To introduce fresh air I open a vent under the windscreen; that’s the air conditioning.

BICYCLES Most of us understand how a bike works, and what better way to restore blood to the parts other vehicles cannot reach than cycling? A Brompton folding bike will keep you mobile around town and country, or try Pashley Bikes for something suitably classic in style.

CAMERA (FILM) Film cameras are already in the analogue vanguard and I know several photographers who use them.

Find an old one (they linger in drawers in most houses), buy some film, expose it, have the film developed and scanned – or, to be totally analogue,

CASH Do you ever carry cash? I rarely have any in my pockets, as contactless technology has seemed to

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appear overnight. Maybe we could keep some coins and notes to pay for smaller items and slip into charity boxes.

Cash is available from your local bank… if you can find one.

write it out in copperplate using a fountain pen or a propelling pencil.

I recently visited Yard-O-Led’s little workshops in Birmingham to see silver pens and pencils being hand crafted, with designs engineturned and chased on their barrels using skills that are centuries old.

COFFEE BEANS Instant coffee may be instant, but it’s certainly isn’t coffee. I love the process of grinding freshly roasted beans, releasing that mouthwatering aroma and achieving a delicious cup without rushing things.

MAGAZINES See above under ‘Books’. The fact that you’re reading this column in print rather than digitally shows you’re at least part of the way to an analogue lifestyle.

TEA LEAVES Enjoy the process of making a pot of tea by ditching teabags.

They often contain plastic, which ends up in the environment.

MECHANICAL WATCHES Quartz watches rely on batteries and do you really need to know how many stairs you’ve climbed, how your heart is doing and even how many calories you’ve consumed? A mechanical watch is a small engineering marvel. The best ones keep time accurately within a few seconds a day, and are powered by the energy of your movement or by being wound daily. Sixty years after the Apollo Moon landings, you can still buy the watch worn by the astronauts (the movement has been changed slightly, but the difference in appearance is hard to spot) – the Omega Speedmaster Professional (right) has a heritage and story hard to beat. Or buy a vintage watch – maybe a Smiths, the last Britishmade watch.

VINYL RECORDS One of the earliest forms of analogue to be rediscovered, vinyl records are preferred by many to digital for musical reproduction with character.

You may have a local record store or market, or try online (links below).

SUMMARY I’m not advocating total retreat from modern life here – just finding a balance by using some items that are simpler to use, slow you down and rely on your skills rather than those of a computer. n

NATURAL FIBRE CLOTHES As a menswear blogger I try hard not to be proscriptive, but I really dislike fleeces. They are easy to wash and wear, but totally lacking in style.

They damage our precious environment, shedding microscopic artificial fibres into our waterways and oceans when washed.

Far better are natural fibres, wool and organically produced cotton (that hasn’t used oceans of water in its production). Of course Chap readers (male and female) probably already wear woollen knitwear, tweed and organic cotton shirts, but I mention some brands to try below.

In Praise of Slow carlhonore.com Yard-O-Led yard-o-led.co.uk Brompton Bikes brompton.com Pashley Bikes pashley.co.uk Omega watches omegawatches.com Recordstore recordstore.co.uk Cordings of Piccadilly for knitwear, cotton and tweed cordings.co.uk Emily & Khadi sustainable and ethical clothing emilyandkhadi.com Arthur & Henry sustainable and Fair-trade cotton shirts arthurandhenry.com

PENS AND PENCILS I’m writing this on my laptop – in a two-fingered sort of way. How much more fun it would be to

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Style Tribes

FUTURE NOSTALGIA Olivia Bullock on the various style movements over the centuries that have looked to the past for inspiration and turned it into something new Illustration: Olivia Bullock

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n 1948, a group of Savile Row tailors initiated a new style that revived the aesthetics of the Regency period. Their intention was to introduce elegance and refinement into the austerity of postwar Britain, cocking a snook at the Labour government. Oxford undergraduates and Mayfair bloods lapped it up. The New Edwardians made a distinct impression, in single-breasted suits with long-waisted four-button jackets with short lapels, square-cut fronts and slanted pockets.

Trousers were narrow and often pleat-fronted, paired with a double-breasted waistcoat in a complementary pattern or check. Crisp white shirts with cutaway collars and Windsor knotted ties, trilbies and half boots or toe-capped shoes completed the outfit. Hair was worn a little tousled and longer than convention dictated.

“The New Edwardians’ carefully curated style may have defined their pedigree, but it was promptly requisitioned by a youthful working class movement”

This reimagining of the past was not exclusive to the New Edwardians; in fact it reflected the political and ideological impetus behind many diverse subcultures. The rejection of mass production and consumerism in favour of an anachronistic alternative suggests a

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mindful disobedience, and the New Edwardians were a flamboyant example. By tapping into a cultural zeitgeist that is defiantly anti-modern, it evokes a narrative of decadence, aspiration and individuality that appeals to those with both reactionary and conservative inclinations, and is a custom that goes back as far as the 18th century.

The influence of trailblazers such as Beau Brummell and Thomas Hope on contemporary dress had contributed to what would become a standardised classical silhouette, conceived with novelty and the romance of antiquity in equal measure. Thomas Hope was an advocate of the classical notions of an ideal physique. In his books Costumes of the Ancients (1809) and Designs of Modern Costumes (1812), Hope fuelled the trend for tightfitting breeches and cutaway jackets that revealed and enhanced the body; similarly the unstructured Greco/Roman style dress, fashioned in muslin and secured with a sash that was rather immodest for the period.

The Aesthetic Movement’s approach to dress in the late 19th century was even more fastidious.

Their rejection of constrictive formality in favour of loose fitting, simpler styles in luxurious fabrics was an ideological attempt to revive the principles of the late Middle Ages. Oscar Wilde’s conspicuous velvet jacket and knee breeches were the apotheosis of the male mode of aesthetic dress.

Although we might regard these as trends, as opposed to the sartorial deviation of a subculture, they both present an aspirational veneer that imitated the affluent classes. The New Edwardians’ carefully curated style may have defined their pedigree, but it was promptly requisitioned by a youthful working class movement that imitated and adapted their regalia.

EDWARDIANS FROM THE EAST Groups of teenage males from the East end of London, when Up West, were impressed by the elegant dress of the New Edwardians, and began to introduce elements of this new style into their own.

The result was a fusion between the sharp suited spiv and the snappy Zoot suited boys. The Cosh boys, or Elephant boys, were notoriously violent, and their image would advertise this: long drape jackets or ‘fingertip’ jackets in Mohair or 22oz Worsted with velvet collars and cuffs accompanied narrow leg trousers. The addition of ‘slim Jim’ ties, bright ankle socks and Brothel Creepers would establish the look of the Teddy Boys, whose idiosyncratic style still remains one of the most representative of any subculture.

Also regarded as ‘New Edwardians’, any affiliation between the Teddy Boys and their upper class equivalent was rapidly severed, the former claiming that their appearance was more ‘authentic’. The Teds embraced the elegance and dandyism of Regency dress, but they made their look more masculine by introducing an American western style that came with rock ‘n’ roll. Made-tomeasure suits that cost two weeks’ wages featured half-moon pockets and covered buttons. Rolled American-style collars were accessorised with a Maverick tie. Teddy Girls, or ‘Judies’, wore black be-bop sweaters over pencil skirts that were either slit or buttoned up, three-quarter-length overcoats and three-tier wedge shoes.

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FLÂNEUR T HE NE W ME N’ S F R AGR A N CE FRO M T H E CH A P

Ava i l abl e excl u si vel y fro m www.thechap .co.uk

MODERN DANDIES The appeal of the romantic rebel reappeared in the 1960s, pioneered by designers such as Michael Fish and John Stephen. Fish’s signature flamboyant shirts and ethnic exoticism propelled the Peacock revolution. This saw a bold change in custom tailoring that, although it referenced the past, was notably modern. Double-breasted velvet suits with long jackets presented a distinctly Edwardian silhouette, as did the vogue for frilled shirts, cravats, casual neckties and occasionally top hats. Nicknamed the ‘Modern Dandies’, they later adopted a more military style, but this was shortlived due to the backlash against the Vietnam War. But the enthusiasm for authentic garments created an appetite for second-hand clothing, particularly from the 1930s and 40s. The term ‘vintage’ made its first appearance.

NEO VICTORIANS The concept of absorbing historical reference within a contemporary perspective is the template for numerous fashion trends, but for those who subscribe to it as an ideology, it can achieve immense creativity, especially within the confines of a subculture. Steampunk is one such example. The Steampunk aesthetic relies on a fantastical vision as much as a physical one, played out in extravagant costume that reinvents Victorian characteristics.

A hypothetical alternative history that depends on technology is a fundamental aspect of Steampunk, as well as a mode of dress that implies dedication, imagination and craft. The Victorian influence is explicit, and encompasses elements of the American Wild West, but specific personae or characters feature as well as definitive garments and accessories: airship captains with leather helmets and goggles, explorers with pith helmets and brass telescopes, gentlemen in lab coats over formal wear, goggles over top hats, burlesque corsets in brocade or leather with steel boning.

The influence of Victoriana in a subcultural context is nothing new. The Goth embraces the Victorian cult of mourning with a uniformly black palette, but, as an appendix to punk, it introduced a fetishistic element with PVC and rubber, with lace, velvets, brocades, corsets and gloves all thrown into the mix.

Another very different subculture that also favours lace and brocade are the Japanese Lolitas.

Their bows, bonnets and crinolines convey the idea of eternal innocence, exhibited in elaborate and fastidiously curated outfits that imitate children’s clothing of the Victorian period.

“Nicknamed the Modern Dandies, they later adopted a more military style, but this was short-lived due to the backlash against the Vietnam War. But the enthusiasm for authentic garments created an appetite for second-hand clothing, particularly from the 1930s and 40s. The term ‘vintage’ made its first appearance” 91

“The addition of ‘slim Jim’ ties, bright ankle socks and Brothel Creepers would establish the look of the Teddy Boys, whose idiosyncratic style still remains one of the most representative of any subculture... The Teds embraced the elegance and dandyism of Regency dress, but they made their look more masculine by introducing an American western style that came with rock ‘n’ roll.”

The term ‘vintage’ can describe anything from 20 to 100 years previous, and refers to the original or replication thereof. This distinguishes it from the term ‘retro’, which denotes a derivative or interpretation of the original. Much of the hipster style falls into both these categories, but ‘vintage’ is frequently used as an umbrella term for numerous sub-categories, which envelops a multitude of contemporary subcultures.

Rockabilly and Pin-up are two such sub-groups with a distinctly vintage theme, yet the popularity of vintage applies to a diverse community. It is undivided in its integrity and appreciation of any chosen era. It can be frivolous and playful, or merely an expression of individuality. For the more dedicated, vintage requires a level of expertise, and nuance and refinement are valued.

Acquisitions of rare or desirable items generate an amicable competitiveness among its enthusiasts, many of whom have mastered the art of sewing in order to adjust their vintage garments.

The appeal of vintage may be a circumstance of consumer attitudes regarding sustainability, or a response to ‘fast fashion’, but for the devotee, it is an infatuation with nostalgia and durability within a rapidly advancing technological environment.

Vintage has a pertinent role to play; it eschews consumerism and avoids convention. It exhorts an anti-modern rebellion with a clear sartorial objective; it is a retrospective subculture for modern times. n

The term Neo Victorians is used to consolidate these disparate groups, but in fact Neo Victorianism demonstrates an aesthetically contemporary interpretation, informed by the standards and conduct of Victorian convention. It subscribes to an amalgam of sensibilities including art, literature and fashion. Adopting Victorian habits such as riding penny-farthings or using traditional shaving methods may be bona fide,but the influence on style is fashionably conscious. These habits might also be attributed to the prevailing Hipster aesthetic, an unequivocally trendy pastiche of vintage style and nostalgic irony.

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Photo of Jonny Haart: Irene Elisabeth Photography

Sartorial

THE STRAW BOATER Matt Deckard sings the praises of this often maligned item of gentlemen’s headwear

I

’ve never been too keen on the boater.

Yes, it’s made of straw and cool for summer and came out long before the soft roll up panama, but it’s like wearing an inedible cracker on your head. Although now often viewed as a hat that is functionally terrible and aesthetically comical, the boater became the standard summer hat for millions of men around the world in the early 1900s. It became a staple item in the respectable businessman’s wardrobe; in essence it was, for a time, the summer version of the bowler.

Originally, in the mid 1800s, the boater (Also known as a ‘Sennet’ or ‘Straw’) used to be a seafaring hat that was issued to and worn by British Royal Navy sailors during the summer months. These early boaters were softer than the version we see on the heads of Harold Lloyd and Fred Astaire in the 1920s and 30s, because they were made to yield somewhat to the forces of wind and water encountered by a seaman on a long voyage. In its early days, keeping the brim flat

wasn’t much of a concern, so you’d see sailor after sailor sporting straw hats with warped brims. Many Italian gondoliers still sport versions similar to the original ones worn by British sailors.

As time went by, the boater went from being an item of military issue to a fashionable and somewhat formal summer accessory. This is reflected in Manners for Men (1897), in which Mrs C. E. Humphry informed her dapper readers that “For a morning walk in the Park in summer the straw hat, or low hat and tweed suit, are as correct as the black coat and silk hat.” Around the same

“Manners for Men informed its dapper readers that, for a morning walk in the Park in summer the straw hat, or low hat and tweed suit, are as correct as the black coat and silk hat” 94

time, English schools and colleges made the boater into a uniform requirement.

Clearly, the boater had successfully made the leap from respectable British military issue headgear to the smart but cumbersome lacquered and pressed straw halos you ended up seeing on American luminaries like David Wark Griffith and Calvin Coolidge, and on businessmen around the Western world.

Unsurprisingly, these hats never had the staying power of more comfortable summer hats. Their impractical and comical nature was played up by young students ‘skimming’ them under buses to pass the time (if they were lucky the passing bus would eat the hat); in the 1920s, boaters were turned into a faddish novelty, as college kids began pairing them with raccoon coats and pennants at pep rallies. The farcical side (and thus the end of the more formal application) of this headwear was echoed in the appropriation of the boater by Vaudevillians and carnival barkers. Soon enough, you’d see foam versions worn with red, white, and blue ribbons issued to crowds at political rallies. The seriousness of the hat had clearly departed.

If it had had more functionality than fashionability, perhaps the boater would have had as long a run as the Panama hats that you can still find at your local department store today. Unlike its winter felt counterparts, the bowler, which originated as a hard gamekeeper’s hat that can be moulded to the cranium to perfection with steam, or the soft fedora that’s an offshoot of the comfortable slouch hat worn in the field of battle, the boater requires that your head be exactly the shape of the hat, or you’re in for an ill fit. It is stiff and has no give. If you try to alter the shape to fit your head, you tend to warp the brim.

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And yet, I like the boater now. I like it because nobody else is wearing it. It stands out on the street corner. Although shunned by well-heeled men decades ago and thus best worn with a slightly irreverent air, I find it adds an unexpected jauntiness to a well-tailored suit. In 2019, it can give your look a panache that will certainly make you stand out among a sea of businessmen on a crowded summer street. n

Chris Sullivan

Writer/Impresario

ISSUE

2 0 Y E A R A N N I V E R S A RY

Photograph: Eliza Hill

C H A P P O RT RA I TS

Christos Tolera

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Photograph: Eliza Hill

Artist

Alex Maglalang Barrow

Photograph: Eliza Hill

Art Director/Musician

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Craig Richards

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Photograph: Eliza Xxxxx Hill

Disc Jockey

Photograph: Soulstealer Photography

Costumier and model

Eva Leigh

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Kevin Rowland

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Photograph: Eliza Hill

Musician

Holly Rose Swinyard

Photograph: Megan Amis

Writer/Journalist

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Lee Shaw

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Photograph: Peter Clark

Notorious Flâneur

www.tylerandtyler.co.uk

To celebrate The Chap's 100th edition we are offering an exclusive 20% discount to readers on all TYLER & TYLER webstore purchases. Use code “chap100”.

LONGER FEATURES •

Sebastian Horsley (p106) • Olly Smith (p116) • Birding (p122) Dandizette: Lauren Bacall (p126) • Chap To The Future (p132)

Photograph: Fiona Campbell

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In Memoriam

SEBASTIAN HORSLEY Alexander Larman recalls his first encounters with the dandy of the underworld that led to his collaboration on the composition of Horsley’s autobiography

“There are two ways of emptying a theatre; the first is to run in and yell ‘Fire!’ The second is to put me on. Not that I will see it of course.

A play about myself? There is only one thing I hate even more than theatre and that is myself” Sebastian Horsley

G

ustav and I stroll down Meard Street together late one balmy February afternoon. It is a street that both of us knew well at one time, thanks to our visits to number 7, where a small, elegant first-floor flat once housed the artist, dandy and libertine Sebastian Horsley. After Sebastian’s death in 2010, the flat was sold, and now, like much of the rest of the street, is inhabited either by the very wealthy or by some wearisome technology company.

Nonetheless, the door’s famous sign ‘This is not a brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address’ remains, slightly faded, perhaps, but still present. We watch in faint horror as a couple of women, one younger and one older, pose for a smirking selfie outside the front door. There is a wheelchair with them, full of shopping, which

quietly trundles away while they squabble over the camera. Gustav smiles sardonically. ‘Well, it’s what Sebastian would have wanted. He always did have time for the waifs and strays.’

It took me back a decade and a half, to Meard Street once more, and the occasion of my first meeting with Sebastian. I had recently left university with literary ambitions, a penchant for gin and a healthy interest in the demi-monde, and sought to combine these three preoccupations by taking various poorly paid internships at literary agencies and publishers by day, and hanging out around some of the more louche pubs of Soho by night. At one literary agency, where I was not paid a penny for my services, the director cornered me during one of the lengthy benders at the pub beneath the office.

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‘What sort of stuff are you into, books-wise?’

I had to be honest, otherwise I suspect I would have been fired, or, worse, I would have had to put my hand in my pocket for my next double gin and tonic. ‘Decadent stuff, mainly. Naughty, saucy, licentious, loquacious, sexy and vile. But not a lot of that’s being published, these days.’

He smiled his ‘come into my parlour’ expression that I had seen a few times during that internship. ‘Have you heard of Sebastian Horsley?’

I had, at that point, not. ‘He’s something of a conundrum for us. Fascinating man – one of the great figures in Soho – but we’ve been trying and failing to get his autobiography in shape for years.

He wants to call it Mein Camp.’ He paused, and lit a cigarette reflectively. ‘He probably shouldn’t.

Then again, he blotted his copybook with his last publisher by going into an editorial meeting while blasted on heroin and threatening to cut his editor’s breasts off.’

I gulped, but tried to adopt an expression of bravado. ‘Ah.’

The agent nodded, as if a decision had been made. ‘Have a read of the manuscript. You might see something in it that we’ve all missed. And then, perhaps, you could meet with Sebastian. He likes taking tea at Maison Bertaux most days.’

‘Tea? But I thought that you said that he was a junkie?’

He looked at me as if I had been impertinent.

‘The two are hardly mutually exclusive, you know.’

I started reading the appropriately blackbound text the following day, and alternated between astonished mirth and mounting horror. It was a Book, there was no doubt of that. In its three hundred or so closely typed pages, it contained often matter-of-fact descriptions of virtually every perversion that I had imagined, and a fair few that I hadn’t, to say nothing of a prose style that was akin to being trapped in a lift and being yelled at by a lunatic. It did not, at this stage, seem to scream ‘bestseller’, nor did it seem to be publishable in any way, shape or form.

My first instinct was to send a couple of friends the choicest bon mots from the manuscript and to shrug my shoulders in despair at what seemed an impossible folly. And yet, as I wrote the missives containing the brilliant, if derivative, lines – Wilde by way of Genet and Axl Rose – I began to think differently about the man who had written the book. This was no swaggering boast, but a desperate plea from an iconoclast for understanding and love. Far from being a sniggering exercise

in shock, it revealed a tortured, even brilliant soul. I realised that I had, on some strange level, encountered a soulmate, even as I began to jot down lines, ideas, even potential jokes, all of which I could present to this strange and mysterious figure, whose answerphone message, delivered in a guttural tone, seemed designed to repel interest.

‘How are you getting on, Alexander?’ enquired the agent.

‘I’ve got to meet him,’ I said, even as intrigue mixed with slight terror at what I would encounter.

My first visit to Meard Street proved a memorable one. Could it have been anything else?

As my 22-year-old self waited outside number seven after having pressed the buzzer, nothing happened.

I waited for a moment more, and then dialled the phone number. Nothing again. I was about to give up and return to the office, when the front door flew open with a flamboyant bang. Standing before me was one of the most extraordinary-looking men I had ever seen. He must have been around six foot three, but the enormous stovepipe top hat added the best part of another foot. His nails were freshly painted with red varnish, and he sported a dark three-piece suit and formal tie. He was equal parts Byronic dandy, Dickensian grotesque and Wildean poseur. The hand was outstretched; the handshake warmer and firmer than I expected.

‘Mr Larman, I presume? Disappointing it isn’t Dr Larman, but that can’t be helped. Come upstairs; I’ll give you the grand tour.’

Sebastian lived in a flat that appeared only to have two rooms; he mentioned something offhand about the existence of a kitchen and bathroom, but both seemed near-theoretical, a sketchy nod at a conventional life rather than ever being pressed into service. (He later told me that he never ate at home, believing it to be scatological to dine in the same space where one shat.) The parlour was a decentsized homage to all things Horsley, festooned with a wall studded with human skulls. He took pleasure in pointing out the origins of them, one of which was a suicide’s (‘see the bullet hole – here, look!’) and he claimed that one belonged to his former mother-in-law. There were a couple of canvases on display, both of sharks, a photograph of his friend Nick Cave and more revealing pictures of his girlfriend, the glamour model Rachel Garley (‘Rachel 2’). In his bedroom was a bed obviously too small for him, next to which was a loaded pistol. I held it, gingerly, as he looked at my obvious discomfort with amusement. As I replaced it, I was entirely unsurprised to hear Sebastian announce, in

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much the same tones that one might comment on the weather, ‘I will kill myself one day. But not today.’

We took tea at Maison Bertaux, as promised.

Half of Soho seemed to know Sebastian, and the simple act of eating a slice of cake and sipping some Earl Grey took hours. He was engaging, I noticed, in a clever piece of theatre; whether or not he knew the people talking to him, they all had the same over-theatrical greeting, more often than not including the words ‘fancy a fuck?’ and he threw in witticism after droll epithet, some borrowed, some blue. At the end of the couple of hours we had together, I had agreed – God knows how – to help him with the book. The only substantial piece of critical advice that I gave him on that day was simple: ‘The title’s going to have to go.’ He smiled, waved his hand in ironic acknowledgement, and sent his carnal longings towards ‘the prettier girls in the office’. It was, I now know, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

We worked on the book, off and on, for months, before his new publisher became impatient and assigned a real editor to work with him, rather than this odd young man who seemed to have Ideas. Sebastian was an unconventional collaborator. At times, he wanted to include stories simply because he found them funny, rather than because they had any basis in fact. He once complained, I think only partially in jest, that it was a shame that the book had to be described as a memoir, given that it was really a work of fantastical fiction. And yet, as if we were restoring an old house to its former splendour, something rather wonderful began to emerge. The unpleasant detail was toned down, although enough pungent moments remained to make one realise that there was nothing prissy or uneventful about Sebastian’s past. I threw in a few suggestions for one-liners and allusions, and some were adopted, just as others were scornfully derided as being ‘unworthy of you, let alone me.’ We had many more coffees in Maison Bertaux and talked about his days of whoring, my days of study, and what awaited us all on the other side. Almost without realising it, we formed a friendship.

Of course Sebastian was nobody’s idea of conventional. There were brief unpleasant outbursts, such as the time a friend of his overheard me talking – too loudly – about my involvement with the memoir in a Soho post office queue, of all places, and Sebastian flew into a rage at the idea that I had not signed some kind of confidentiality

agreement. (The fact that nobody was paying me a penny for my work, least of all him, did not seem to bother him in the slightest.) And he could be moody and difficult in person, or alternatively brittle and facile, treating his supposed intimates with the second-hand quips and witticisms that they had heard a dozen times before. It was polite to laugh, but I’m not sure that I always did.

Half of Soho seemed to know Sebastian, and the simple act of eating a slice of cake and sipping some Earl Grey took hours. He was engaging, I noticed, in a clever piece of theatre; whether or not he knew the people talking to him, they all had the same overtheatrical greeting, more often than not including the words ‘fancy a fuck?’

Yet once the book was finished, we remained in touch, meeting every few months for tea, or a visit to a gallery, or simply to wander the streets of Soho. When Sebastian was in funds, there were trips to The Ivy for dinner and to The Colony Room for champagne; after decades of welldocumented excess, he did not partake himself, but stood there, enjoying the spectacle of others becoming intoxicated both on his wine and his tab.

We later discovered, after his death, that virtually none of his bills had ever been paid; his well-heeled friends discreetly clubbed together to avoid any posthumous embarrassment.

He enjoyed holding court and revelled at being the centre of attention, even in the most unexpected of ways; I remember his making an unexpected cameo in a student film when we were together, being asked to say something into the camera and, of course, shouting ‘Fancy a fuck?’ as if he were Laurence Olivier moonlighting as a gigolo. And, thank God, he could retain a sense of humour. I recall the evening that, leaving the Ivy in a particularly spectacular suit, he held the door

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Photograph: Fiona Campbell

Photograph: Fiona Campbell

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open to some entering American, who, mistaking him for a doorman, tipped him a fiver with a patronising smirk. ‘Good to snort some coke from later, I suppose’, he said, grinning.

The book, now more soberly entitled Dandy In The Underworld, was published in 2007. I was pleased that my entry in the acknowledgements wryly thanked me for ‘blowing the whistle’. The reviews were generally very good, and the launch party, featuring lashings of absinthe at a Fitzrovia art gallery, was every bit as louche and ostentatious as Sebastian would have wished for. There was subsequently a high-profile deportation from a planned book tour of America, on the splendidly old-fashioned grounds of ‘moral turpitude’, which allowed him to come out with the quip for the ages that ‘the good news was that they’d read the book.

The bad news was also that they’d read the book.’

attack by Victoria Coren, ‘Apparently I hate Jews.

So untrue! I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-racism and anti-Semitism. Oh and anti-pasti.’ Yet the sadness was beginning to consume him. Here is the full text of one of the final emails that I received from him.

Dear Boy, Don’t worry. I am the same. I’ve been in a mess of late, down in despair, but I am managing slowly to drag myself up again. Which I prefer to casual clothes. I am feeling as thoroughly defeated as you. Post book blues finally hit in. I have spent myself, I have burnt away like a comet. Now I am only ashes. Life is travelling downhill in a car with no lights at terrific speed and driven by a four-year-old child. The signposts along the way are all marked “nowhere”. What can we do? A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens and then everybody disagrees. I had hoped the book would save me. But from what? How can anything save you from yourself ?

I think the week of the 12th may be good. At the moment I want, like some cut-price Greta Garbo, “to be alone.” Sx

In its 300 pages it contained matter-of-fact descriptions of virtually every perversion that I had imagined, and a few that I hadn’t, in a prose style akin to being trapped in a lift and being yelled at by a lunatic. It did not seem to be publishable in any way, shape or form

The success of Dandy In The Underworld meant that there was a growing sense, in Soho at least, that Sebastian should be introduced to a wider public, and so the playwright Tim Fountain was commissioned by the Soho Theatre to write a oneman show about Sebastian, starring the actor Milo Twomey. It is not for me to judge the effectiveness of it as a representation of my friend’s life, but it received decent enough reviews when it was performed in the summer of 2010. Unfortunately, it appeared as an epitaph, rather than a celebration.

Sebastian had always been lukewarm about the idea of being portrayed on stage. The very last email that I received from him announced ‘There are two ways of emptying a theatre; the first is to run in and yell “Fire!” The second is to put me on. I am sure there will be nothing wrong with this production – except its appalling choice of subject. Not that I will see it of course. A play about myself ? There is only one thing I hate even more than theatre – and that is myself.’ Yet there was a first night party, with the great and the good flocking to it. I could not attend as I was in Zurich; I didn’t especially believe it mattered. There would be another time soon. Perhaps I could attend the play with Sebastian, and other spectators might enjoy the meta-theatricality of the occasion.

And then I received a text from a friend on the afternoon of 17 June 2010, the day after the play opened. I suppose that I, on some level,

But it soon became clear that something was missing. Sebastian had an air of mournful resignation about him that did not sit well with the charming, vivacious figure that he had cut just a couple of years before. I heard a rumour from a mutual friend that he was using drugs again; I sometimes saw him on Dean Street in his shirtsleeves looking utterly lost, as if he was expecting someone to swoop along and save him from something. Possibly himself.

He remained a hugely entertaining and witty correspondent. The one-liners were as quotable as anything he ever put to paper, whether he was announcing that ‘The only fidelity I’ve ever believed in comes on vinyl’ or, in response to an

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already knew what had happened as soon as I saw the words ‘did you hear about…’ The inevitable had, at last, happened. Horsley had ceased to be.

Nobody will ever know the precise circumstances of his death, caused by a heroin overdose. Speculation mounted that he was so horrified by his presentation in the play that he turned to his old familiar habit as a means of escape, and it proved fatal. I hope that it was an accident, but the likelihood, alas, is that Sebastian finally bore out the comments that he had made to me the first time we ever met.

The funeral was a grand spectacle, with St James’s Church on Piccadilly packed with hundreds of well-wishers and friends. Stephen Fry delivered the eulogy, the whores of Soho entered in their finery and Sebastian’s body was carried through the streets that he had tarried around in a horse-drawn carriage. The coffin, of course, was in red. Afterwards, there were huge amounts of sparkling wine in the churchyard, and a selection of Sebastian’s favourite songs were played; his ‘twelve apostles’, as he called them. The two that I will forever associate with him are Bowie’s Word On A Wing, ‘In this age of grand illusion, you walked into my life, out of my dreams’, and Captain Beefheart’s Further Than We’ve Gone. The latter doesn’t have any clever or witty lyrics, but the contrast between Beefheart’s ragged, emotional voice and a heartbreaking section of piano and guitar midway through the song is surprising, moving and entirely unexpected. Just as, indeed, any dealings with the great Sebastian Horsley always were.

Many of us who knew and loved him try and celebrate Sebastian, still, whether by articles such as this, talking about him, or simply admiring his exotic suits, one of which can be found within the Museum of London. Next year will mark a decade since he’s been gone, and I hope that a group of us will assemble somewhere in Soho to drink too much and recite passages from Dandy In The Underworld in his memory. And, if we manage to, I hope that we might summon up his ghost for the evening from the underworld, well tailored and dashing as ever. Although, knowing Sebastian, I can only imagine that his phantom’s first lines to us would be ‘Darlings, news of my death has been greatly exaggerated, wouldn’t you say?’ n Sebastian Horsley 8th August 1962–17th June 2010

Photograph: Fiona Campbell

Drink

The 100 Best Things About Drinking Olly Smith marks one hundred issues of The Chap with his definitive list of the 100 very best things about alcohol

H

appy 100th birthday to The Chap!

Does this mean a telegram from Her Majesty? A polite round of applause from the Pavilion?

Or a chance to celebrate the hundred best things about drinking? Almost certainly all three.

Here for your delectation (and in no particular order) are the hundred best things about drinking.

Happy Hundredth!

1. Oliver Reed. Oliver Reed is at once the best and worst thing about drinking, but without doubt shooting sofas in the middle of the night to startle your sleeping houseguests is an extraordinary way to finish a night on the sauce.

2. Ming The Merciless. Ming’s power potions are the stuff of legend. Rumour has it his sommeliers travel the far corners of the galaxy to ensure that his potency, when it comes to romance, is a hurricane of hugs.

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3. Sherry. It’s probably what Ming’s secretly been drinking all these years, and there is no doubt that a chilled glass of Fino with a carefully carved platter of jamón is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

4. Withnail. A morose theatrical old soak he may be, but Withnail is without question responsible for some of the greatest quotes connected with the dark arts of drinking. “We want cake and fine wine.”

5. Condorman. A much underrated drinker, especially when Michael Crawford’s character orders a double Istanbul Express. “Nobody orders the double” trembles the waiter. “Alright then, make it a triple”. The flames shooting out of Crawford’s face after a single sip look like a butane barbecue. Magic.

6. Keith Floyd. Cooking on location with effortless improvisation was a showcase to his wit and wonder. Alas the booze had a tendency to gain the upper hand but when on song, this chap was nothing short of operatic.

7. The Queen. For her love of gin, for her love of Dubonnet, for her love of our country, “The Queen” should be the toast of all drinks.

8. Harvey’s Best Bitter. A long established tradition in these pages to extol the virtues of the world’s greatest pint.

9. Sausages. On the bar of The Grenadier, The Duke of Wellington’s old mess and a splendid Belgravia boozer, you will find sausages. And you should order them.

10. Edinburgh. The greatest drinking city in the world. Whisky, beer, wine, or just coffee laced with outrageousness, there is no better scenery in which to get steadily sloshed.

11. Cricket. What Edinburgh is to cities, cricket is to sport. No finer backdrop to getting slowly pickled.

12. Tennis. Except tennis.

13. The Hipflask. A hipflask is sacred and the contents are the diplomatic bag of personal enjoyment.

Armagnac Port or Aquavit are all as acceptable as the

usual suspects. Fill it with your dreams.

14. Pastis. The aniseed outrage of this drink is enough to reassure even the most jaded palate that the frontier of flavour is laced with eternal astonishment.

15. The Colombe D’Or. A favourite of my late friend Sir Roger Moore, this hostelry not far from Nice is adorned with Picassos and what the rustic food doesn’t quite deliver, the setting and ice cold rosé more than make up for.

16. The Hangover. Impossible to appreciate the glory of the night before without the penance of the morning.

And the only excuse you will ever need to drink early in the day. Bloody Mary, you say?

17. The Full English. See above.

18. Al Bowlly. In your frailest moment of sublime regret, when your curses to Bacchus writhe to the ceiling, nurse your hangover with the gentlest crooner of them all, Al Bowlly singing The Very Thought Of You. Satisfaction guaranteed.

19. Jesus. Water into wine. Enough said.

20. Dawn French. For her love of cider and infectious giggles, we salute the best of the French.

21. Horace. The great Roman poet loved a glass of local wine from around his Sabine farm, rather than the posh pricey stuff back in Rome. My favourite translations of poetry are by Harry Eyres. Try this, from Odes 3:25, Quo Me Bacche: My words will soar, O Lord of the Wine Press, And they will not die: I am drinking deep, Taking the risk, binding my brow with vine shoots.

22. Long Haul Travel. A glass of excellence while flying far away is excellent. Doesn’t matter so much where as what’s in our glass – make it strong, cold and repeatable.

23. Prohibition. Not so much fun at the time but the source of many legends, stories and, oddly enough, the finessing of boutique booze production.

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38. Lily Bollinger. “I drink Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am.

Otherwise, I never touch it - unless I’m thirsty.”

39. Admiral Lord Nelson’s dead body. Steeped in rum, Nelson’s blood infused the barrel and some say the sailors on his return home from Trafalgar. Pickled admirals, some say, are the greatest admirals.

40. Skiing. Much better after a bottle between friends.

41. The Pickled Egg. Only ever acceptable with a pint, and said pint is only ever an excuse to indulge in this most revolting yet compellingly British snack.

42. Cheese. A glass of Porter with a slice of Dolcelatte will tease the deepest secrets out of any conversation, all accompanied by mile-wide grins. This is filth at its finest.

43. Hammocks. An afternoon snooze in the dappled light of an orchard after a heavy lunch in the Room of Dreams offers unparalleled levels of enjoyment.

44. Harbin Ice & Snow World. Below minus twenty calls for serious fortification to see this illuminated wonder of the world in China. Just make sure the drink doesn’t freeze to your face. I speak from experience.

45. Captain Haddock. Loch Lomond anyone?

46. Sir Roger Moore. Noted for his work as an actor, philanthropist and devotee of fine Sancerre, a glass in His Rogesty’s company could ne’er be beat.

47. Port. Deeply fortified, this is wine’s answer to a portable potable fireside.

48. Greek Wine. For character and quality, local Greek grapes are a tasty treasury for those in the know.

Get started with white wine from Santorini – ideally from a crystal chalice, to match the grandeur and purity flowing from the bottle.

49. Shisha. It is totally acceptable to seek out a shisha pipe to smoke when the battle is being won by the booze.

50. The Lewes Rooks. Pints at the annual beer festival of Lewes FC, usually in November, is always a night which opens the portal to Sussex’s answer to Valhalla.

51. Valhalla. Rowdy but recommended.

52. Sloes. Other than infusing in gin, utterly pointless.

24. Mountain Dogs With Brandy Barrels.

We’d all love one as our best bud.

25. Cognac. Grape spirit seasoned in barrels that can live for centuries. I’ve tasted 1805, the year of the Battle of Trafalgar. Time travel? In a drink? Without a Tardis?

I’m in.

26. Singing. Always better after a drink.

27. Bourbon. Condemned by imbeciles as inferior, this American Whiskey is, in fact, capable of top quality.

In addition, Bourbon features in the Mint Julep that Bond and Goldfinger share on Auric’s Kentucky stud farm, so Bourbon is unimpeachably wonderful.

28. Micheladas. There’s no denying how horrific these drinks sound on paper: tomato juice, beer and spices. But drink a cold one in Mexico and find your god.

29. The Square & Compass, Worth Matravers.

Quite simply the greatest pub in the world in which to drink cider.

30. Coq Au Vin. Cook chicken in wine, drink wine.

Sometimes the French really do nail it.

31. John Clare. The bucolic poet may indeed have lost his mind and fallen victim to the bottle, but any poet responsible for the lines “I am – yet what I am, none cares or knows” deserves a place in the top 100 of everything.

32. Sake. It’s heavenly.

33. Iggy Pop. Of course.

34. Sparkling Water. Sometimes the cascade of bubbles can finally get a grip on reality, from the inside of your face up to your brain.

35. Fondue. In reality, you can’t drink fondue, but I dream that you can.

36. Plze . Also known as Pilsner, this is the birthplace of bright golden lager in the Czech Republic. Drinking Pilsner Urquell from the barrel in the cellars is akin to sipping from the font of the gods on the very peak of Mount Booze.

37. Titian. Be mesmerised by his Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Gallery. If that painting doesn’t make you want to drink, sing or visit Titian’s grave in Venice to bow your head in thanks, then you are either made of wood or already ashes. Yes, I have done all three.

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53. Foot treading grapes. Sensual, ludicrous and highly effective in wine production.

54. Sting & Trudie Styler. Makers of their own Il Palagio vino which, as I discovered on visiting them in Tuscany last summer to interview them for my podcast ‘A Glass With…’ is rather jolly good.

55. Biblical Bottles. Be it Balthazar, Nebuchadnezzar or Brian, we love bottles that are enormous and named after legends who may or may not be imaginary.

56. Alec Guinness. His portrayal of tipsy dotard the Reverend Lord Henry D’Ascoyne in Kind Hearts and Coronets offers a simple lesson to us all: never behave in the manner of a tipsy dotard parson, lest you risk being bumped off by a disgruntled distant relative.

57. Glassware. Nothing can be more pleasing than a beautifully designed vessel from which to sip the splendour of fermentation, distillation and dreams. For wine, Zalto delivers the goods, for all else, simply deploy a giant conch.

58. Curry. It’s OK, we are all friends here and, while in your cups, you can fall into your sizzling Jalfrezi without judgement or disdain. Simply invoke the immortal words: “I’m as hungry as hell. Care to indulge in The Sauces of Fire?”

59. Dogs. Thanks to a combination of instinct, cunning and their carefully guarded secret linguistic skills, dogs are fully able to translate the roaming fancies of the easy drinker’s ramblings into cogent letters of note. Just place a quill in the dog’s paw over a stretch of vellum and let the adventures begin.

60. Apple Blossom. The contented sipper is never sent more skyward in mood and moment then when graced with a spontaneous cascade of pale pink apple blossom surrounding the nose holes.

61. Beef Wellington. Red wine, in the company of this divine roulade of ridiculousness, is the finest meal in existence.

62. The Wine Society. The world’s oldest wine club (founded 1874) have the best bottles from bargains to blow out. I am a member of the Society and if you’re half serious about the quality of vino in your life then

you should be too. I don’t work for them, I just love them. Though I was born exactly one hundred years after their foundation. Coincidence? I think not.

63. Sigourney Weaver. Watching Sigourney blast and plot her way out of Aliens with a large frosty martini is the ultimate sharpener, and the fastest way to achieve cruising altitude without the need for take-off.

64. Ice. Always have a glacier’s worth on standby to chip, smash and tip from your freezer into your goblet of glory.

65. Alka-Seltzer. It’s a rare but esteemed club for those who actually like the taste, let alone the soothing effects.

66. Pompeii. No matter how dull the conversation, how deep the hangover, how hideously your face looms from the shadows in the mirror, just remember you are not in Pompeii being vaporized in Vulcan’s belch. Be thankful and order yourself a very strong drink to wash away the madness.

67. Your Imaginary Tail. We all have one. Be it lion’s, lizard’s or elongated squirrelly-bush, one’s imaginary tail swishes magnificently during drinking.

68. Mary, Queen of Scots. She had a properly rubbish time and was probably right, so raise a ruddy glass to her, would you?

69. A Rubber Mask. It is wise, while drinking, to carry a discreet mask in your travelling bag, just in case.

Mine is a Moon-faced expressionless space alien; trust me, after a solid bout of drinking, when he mysteriously appears at a party, it makes quite an impression.

70. The 2006 Bordeaux vintage. Everyone raves about 1982, 2000, 2005. But who can afford them?

Scour restaurant lists for the underrated 2006 and sip stellar kit within the orbit of your wallet.

71. Benny Goodman. Drinking along to Live At Carnegie Hall on vinyl is akin to surfing a wave of numbers into a matrix of mathematical jazz perfection.

72. The Well. The well is the deep hole in your mind where you forgot to remember some of life’s key events.

Drinking not only locates The Well, but also throws a rope ladder down and provides scuba kit for a deep dive into half-truths, secrets and dimly lit coves of consciousness. Don’t stay down too long.

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73. Dry Roasted Peanuts. There is a mysterious moment somewhere between a third and half way through a serious session when a packet of cheap Dry Roasted Peanuts always seems like a good idea. Carry a stash, just in case.

74. Spätlese Riesling. These German fruity beauties are also known, by me at least, as ‘The Juices of The Discotheque’. Lower in alcohol, hovering around the 8% mark, they taste like mangos dropped from heaven and offer access to fine wine for the price of a couple of cinema tickets. Book yourself in for the matinee.

75. The Xylophone. You can, when tipsy, play the xylophone. And you should.

76. Jigsaw Puzzles. If you are seeing the outline of jigsaw puzzles across your vision, bravo, for you have reached the apogee of idiocy. Now get on all fours and place the imaginary pieces wherever they fit best as quickly as possible – and do sober up.

77. The Tropics. With a cold beer, this combination fuels a uniquely deep sense of longing and well being all at once.

78. Moonraker. Let’s not re-hash old disputes. The film may well be far from perfect, but the Bondola’s journey across St Mark’s Square is really splendid with a glass of lightly chilled red Bardolino.

79. Uncle Monty. “I’ll say one thing for Monty. He keeps a sensational cellar.”. So should we all.

80. Bonfires. A summer’s evening elongated by staring into The Flames of Revelation is as richly rewarding as remembering it’s high time to re-watch The Wicker Man. “Oh God, oh Jesus Christ!”

81. Carménère. If you are planning to buy a red wine, this grape has become a bit of a Chilean speciality, and almost always offers a satisfying ratio of good value to bold flavour.

82. Holmansbridge Farm Shop. This Sussex gem has taken the humble hot sausage roll and turned it into a transformative tasting experience. Nothing beats it when feeling a little rough in the cheek after a session on the hard stuff.

83. The Ben Nevis. The most appropriate place to

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drink whisky, sometimes live music, always good cheer.

Get thee to Glasgow.

84. Buck Rogers. Gil Gerard’s incarnation always makes the world seem both weirder and more wonderful, glass in hand.

85. Schubert. Piano Sonata in B Flat D960: I Molto Moderato played by Alfred Brendel is the very best soundtrack to being trapped in an alpine cable car after a few drops of drink. Yes, this did happen to me. The icy peaky mountains seemed ever more mighty and more magical with every passing tinkle of the ivory.

86. Belgium. For beers that are as bonkers as they are beautiful, from Saisons to sours, this library of lunacy is the place to sip.

87. At Sea. All rules out the window, drink widely and deeply as the ocean rises to meet your feet.

88. Ireland. See above; replace ‘sea’ with ‘land’.

89. The Green Fairy. She is real, as all absinthe aficionados agree.

90. Jilly Goolden. Say what you like about Jilly, she made wine seem fun, yet above all Jilly made it memorable.

91. Cleopatra. Loved a drop.

92. Frank Sinatra. Loved a drop so much he declared, “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy.”

93. Reggae. With rum, it all makes perfect sense.

94. Daytime. By far the best time to be drinking.

95. Pub Games. Never pass up the challenge of trying to understand these archaic rituals.

96. Wine Lists. For the best value in these boozy bibles order a Beaujolais Cru for red, or anything white from Eastern Europe, and rejoice in your efficiency.

97. Where Eagles Dare. Pour yourself a measure of madness and tot up Clint Eastwood’s extraordinary body count as you go.

98. Pyjamas. If you are drinking in your pyjamas, consider yourself off the hook and 100% at ease.

99. Ann Peebles. Listen to Old Man With Young Ideas and raise a glass to the marvel of it all.

100. Defiance. There is no such thing as Last Orders. n

Birding

IMPRINTED: MY BIRDING LIFE Nick Ostler reveals the seed that sparked his lifetime devotion to watching birds, planted by a schoolteacher

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“I learned to accept that my friends’ excitement over the latest album from a band I’d never heard of was just as valid as mine at the news that a super-rare Tengmalm’s Owl had been sighted in Shetland”

mprinting’ is the phenomenon of a newly hatched chick falling in love at first sight with its parents, helping it to figure out that it is a bird and should probably behave as such.

Falconers will often struggle with a captive bred bird that imprints on them rather than its avian parent – far from making the young falcon friendly and loyal, it can make it think it is human, resulting in a serious attitude problem. I was eight years old when I experienced my own form of ‘imprinting’.

Our teacher, Miss Matthews surprised the class one day by announcing that we would be embarking on a new project based around birds. Books had been scattered across the classroom, and we were to choose one to look at for inspiration. Mine was a large-format paperback featuring a bright orange and blue bird with a dagger-like bill perched on the cover. It looked so exotic I assumed it must be from somewhere far away, despite the fact that the book’s title was Birds of Britain and Europe. It was, of course, a Kingfisher. It would be another three years before I saw one in the flesh, darting past me at the local gravel pits like a Day-Glo bullet. Not every species inside the book was as glamorous as its cover star, but what struck me was their sheer variety, from the giant, gawky waterbirds to the tiny, gem-like Warblers. How

could there be so many different kinds? The names alongside the pictures were just as varied – from the harsh ‘Gannet’, to the unlikely-sounding ‘Collared Pratincole’ and the alluring ‘Honey Buzzard’.

Everything was odd and new and startling. I had to know more. I had to see them for myself. I was hooked. Love at first sight. Imprinted.

Why did that book have such a powerful effect on me? Like a newly hatched chick, was I looking for something special to latch on to? Then surely some of the other 29 children in that class would have become overnight birders too? Which they did not, as I found to my cost, when I told them with breathless enthusiasm about the Blue-tits that had just started using the nestbox I made for them, only to

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Photograph: Cath Benson

be met with blank faces and teasing laughs. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that someone might not be fascinated by the revelation that descendants of the dinosaurs had been smart enough to hollow out their bones and take to the skies.

Disinterest in something I was so passionate about was a bitter pill to swallow. But then I’ve never understood how anyone can be interested enough in cars to care what model someone else is driving. The thrill of Six Nations Rugby eludes me. A round of golf ? Not unless I can bring binoculars. And not play any golf. In time, I learned to accept that my friends’ excitement over the latest album from a band I’d never heard of was just as valid as mine at the news that a super-rare Tengmalm’s Owl had been sighted in Shetland. I mean, it’s not. But fine.

If it wasn’t just my age that made me susceptible to a new obsession on that particular day, then perhaps it was my sex. Birding has traditionally been seen as predominantly male pursuit – something to do perhaps with the compulsion to hunt, just like the first birders who literally shot what they saw.

These days, we birders collect our sightings on lists instead. Some of the most dedicated ‘twitchers’ become members of the ‘400 Club’, reserved for those who have seen over 400 species in the UK. Or perhaps it’s the kit that appeals particularly to men – the binoculars, telescopes, tripods, cameras, zoom lenses – although for me those have never held any interest beyond being a means to an end: to see more birds. Of course, despite Bill Oddie’s much-deserved poster boy status in popular British birding folklore, the idea that birding was ever simply the preserve of the bearded man of a certain age is a fallacy. Tessa Boase’s excellent new book Mrs. Pankhurst’s Purple Feather charts how early female conservationists like Etta Lemon fought to end the trade in wild bird feathers for millinery, saving several species from extinction and founding the R.S.P.B. in the process.

If anyone can claim to be the UK’s top birder today, it is surely ‘Birdgirl’ blogger, 16-year-old Mya-Rose Craig, who has just seen her 5000th species – that’s roughly half of all the species in the world, an astonishing achievement at any age.

Trying rationally to account for one’s obsessions is perhaps a fruitless exercise – as elusive as trying to explain why you might fall in love with one person but not another. Nor is it a zero sum game – I might think about birds every day and look for them everywhere I go, but that doesn’t devalue someone else’s passing interest. I pride myself on the friends I have convinced to develop an occasional

curiosity about the birds around them. Perhaps I wore them down. Maybe they’re humouring me.

But I love nothing more than receiving an excited text telling me they’ve just spotted a Fieldfare in their garden, or the video clips of some unfamiliar species encountered on holiday. For me, birding has long been much more than a just a hobby. The birds I have seen in the years since I first opened Birds of Britain and Europe have become the tent-poles on which all other memories are hung. My childhood is the House Martins that wheeled above our lawn as I tossed a tennis ball into the air among them. My teens are the rarities I marvelled at on our holidays to the birdwatching mecca of North Norfolk, such as the multicoloured Roller I watched catching wasps as the sun set over Holkham Dunes. My honeymoon is the Seychelles Paradise Flycatchers, with their absurdly long black tail streamers, perched on the wires overhead as we cycled to the beach. As I write this I am in Dubai at the Emirates Literature Festival, and when I remember this week, I will think of the new friends we made, the towering needle of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, and the lavish hospitality of our hosts. But I know that my mind will go first to the stunning pair of pink and black and white Hoopoes wheeling over the swimming pool, oblivious to my presence in their courtship. n

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RESIDENT SUMMER BIRDS IN THE UK DUNNOCK

Let’s start with an easy one. You’ll find the Dunnock in your garden or local park, but it’s easily overlooked, or dismissed as a sparrow (its nickname is Hedge Sparrow, after all).

In fact it’s not a sparrow but the UK’s only Accentor. Look for the subtle mix of grey head and chest, barred black and brown back and pink legs. Ground dwelling, unless singing its surprisingly musical song from a perch.

A very important committee at the British Ornithologists’ Union decides when a new species can be added to the official list of British birds. The latest rather surprising

RED KITE In mediaeval times this elegant, large raptor scavenged the streets of London, before suffering a long-term decline that saw them barely clinging on in their last Welsh strongholds by the 1930s.

These days, after a successful reintroduction scheme, they are an increasingly common sight over large parts of Britain (if you’re driving along the M40 you can’t miss them). Their size, reddish-brown colour, pale underwings and deeply forked tail make them easy to tick off your list.

CHOUGH

BULLFINCH

You’ll probably be familiar with the commoner Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Greenfinch, but the less numerous, larger Bullfinch is the real rock star of the British finch fraternity. Often seen in pairs, the male has an unmissable bright red chest and belly, the female beige, and both have a black cap and chunky beak. Woodland, parks and, if you’re lucky, your garden feeders.

TREECREEPER Another fairly common breeding bird that’s easy to miss, though you’ll have walked right past them in the woods. Mottled brown on the back, white underneath with a small, decurved bill, Treecreepers resemble a mouse inching up a tree trunk from top to bottom, which is what you’ll always see them doing.

Chances are you’ve already seen three types of British ‘corvid’ – the Carrion Crow, Jackdaw and Rook. Perhaps the giant Raven too. But the much rarer Chough is really worth making the trip to the Welsh coast to see. Find the right clifftops and you’ll enjoy watching these conspicuous, noisy gems with their jet-black plumage and blood red bills and feet tumbling through the skies.

DIPPER If you can track one down on a fast flowing upland river in the North or West, the Dipper is simply one of the UK’s most entertaining birds.

Bobbing up and down on a rock midstream, tail cocked like a giant Wren with a white bib, this

addition was a Dalmatian Pelican that roamed around Cornwall for six months in 2017, bringing the total number of species seen in Britain to a whopping 618. But well under a

chubby character will then dive into the water, swimming after its prey. I’ve watched them for hours in the Lake District.

third of these are actually resident breeders who can be found here all year round. Of those, some are obviously much more common than others. Here are ten of my favourites:

BEARDED TIT

FIRECREST

Its more common cousin, the Goldcrest, is charming enough (tip: search graveyard yew trees), but the Firecrest really ups the stakes when it comes to looks. Europe’s joint-smallest bird, it makes up for what it lacks in size with some stunning headgear – stark white supercillium, pop star dusky mascara and bold orange crown-stripe (yellow in female). Only resident in the South-East of England, but you can pick them up on passage elsewhere.

Once you’ve got to grips with the common garden varieties of Tit – Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed, why not head to a reedbed on the East or South coast and hunt down their more flamboyant namesake (it’s not technically related). Find a good vantage point, listen out for a ‘pinging’ call and move fast to spot them when they pop up for a blink-and-you’ll-missit view of the male’s blue-grey head, black drooping moustache and long, rounded tail.

RSPB reserves, Radipole Lake in Dorset and Minsmere in Suffolk have given me my best, hard-won views.

LITTLE OWL Any owl would be worthy of inclusion in a birder’s top ten, but I have a soft spot for the smallest member of this most charismatic of bird families. Even though not originally a native species (they were introduced in the 19th Century), and much scarcer than the Tawny (they hardly occur in Scotland at all), the Little Owl is a frequent daytime hunter, which means that if you are lucky enough to find one you’ll enjoy a decent view. Check fence posts, bare branches and hay bales and look for the lighter brown plumage, noticeably small size and yellow eyes, to nail the I.D.

LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER While we’re setting a challenge, why be satisfied with the run of the mill Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers, when you can impress your friends by claiming your first sight of the much more unusual and elusive Lesser Spotted? Pretty easy to distinguish with a decent view – it’s much smaller, as the name would suggest, with a little red only on the male’s head and not the vent (front bottom) like the Great Spotted. The white bars on the back are horizontal rather than vertical. If identifying the Lesser Spotted is straightforward, finding them is not and you’ll just have to take your chances in the local wood or park. You can go for years without seeing one, then one will suddenly pop up in front of you – at least now you’ll know what you’re looking at.

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Dandizette

Lauren Bacall Sunday Swift on the considerable talents and style of the woman forever associated with Humphrey Bogart

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women… but also the work… and the aloneness of women: my grandfather died very young. My mother was without a husband at a very young age. It was proven to me that women could do almost anything.”

Theatre gave her the opportunity to step outside herself and become someone else. “I had this enormous, enormous crush on Bette Davis,” Bacall said, “I wanted to be just like her. I cut school to see her movies.” Davis’ most iconic role was as Margo

hree things generally come to people’s minds when they think of Lauren Bacall (who was always known as Betty to her friends and family): that famous quote in her first film, To Have and Have Not (“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow”); the man she said it to (Humphrey Bogart) and ‘The Look’ she gives him as she says it.

The Look developed out of nerves: Bacall was a 19-year-old woman squaring up to a long-established actor more than twice her age. Her chin nearly to her chest, eyes looking up, The Look was at once seductive and innocent, insolent and demure, serious and frivolous. Bacall managed to transform those nerves not only into strength, but also a signature style that would suggest everything except fear.

Betty Bacall was born on 16th September, 1924 in New York City. Her parents divorced when she was a child and she never saw her father again. Her formative years were spent seeing “the strength of

“The moment her feet touched the ground in Hollywood, Betty was told to change – she should pluck her angular and thick eyebrows to look more like Dietrich and Garbo. Bacall refused. Hawks agreed”

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Channing in the 1950 film All About Eve, about an established actress who is surpassed by Eve, a young and beautiful star played by Anne Baxter. One day, Betty charmed her way into the studio to meet her idol, who warned the young, adoring Betty to “Be sure it’s really what you want to do with your life. It’s hard work, and it’s lonely.” Betty accepted this: she had grown up with women who were alone.

By this point, Betty had added the second L in Bacall to standardise the pronunciation of her surname. She worked as a department store model and didn’t enjoy it: “I was not a mannequin.” Editorin-chief of Harper’s Bazaar Diana Vreeland put Lauren on the magazine’s cover in 1943, styling her as a Red Cross nurse. “Diana Vreeland had decided it was time to have a model who looked natural,” said Betty, “I was a rotten model.”

Rotten model or not, Betty caught the attention of Howard Hawks. The moment her feet touched the ground in Hollywood, suggestions on what to change poured in: her angular and thick eyebrows were not the fashion of the day – she should pluck them to look more like Dietrich and Garbo. Bacall refused. Hawks agreed. He wanted to put her alongside Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. “His idea was always that a woman should play a scene with a masculine approach – insolent” and in Lauren (Hawks suggested the new name) he found his ideal, casting her in her first film, To Have and Have Not (1944) with Bogart.

From then on, Bacall’s career would be forever intertwined with Bogie; practically everything written

on her goes into lavish detail about their relationship.

It started as an affair, evolved into a family (with two children) and lasted until Bogart’s death in 1957.

She was only with Bogie for 12 years, but her career spanned seven decades. At the age of 86, Bacall lamented, “My obit is going to be full of Bogart, I’m sure.” Her prediction proved accurate.

Needless to say, her film debut was a success and Bacall was catapulted into instant stardom at only 19. She wrote that she was transformed “from a nothing to a combination of Garbo, Dietrich, Mae West, Katharine Hepburn… so proclaimed the press.” Being put in the company of these dandizettes instantly raised Bacall’s profile, but also put an exceptional amount of pressure on her – how could anyone ever live up to such an image? Her friend, playwright Moss Hart, warned: “Congratulations on your success– you realise, of course, from here on you have nowhere to go but down.”

Betty agreed: “Hawks didn’t think it was important to protect me, or any actor… As fast as I went up, that’s how fast I fell down. And I spent really the rest of my career just trying to get to some middle ground.”

Part of Bacall’s public image was certainly the invention of Hawks, at least, initially. Hawks “wanted a woman who gave as good as she got. So he made me something that I’ve had to live up to ever since.

Someone who would stand up for herself.” Yet he resented it when Bacall did stand up for herself. He sold her contract when it became apparent that she

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The Look was at once seductive and innocent, insolent and demure, serious and frivolous.

Bacall managed to transform her nerves into a signature style that suggested everything except fear.

was unwilling to break off her affair with Bogart.

Hawks may have discovered her, and Bogie may have helped make her a household name, but it was Bacall alone who held the reins to her own success.

Bette Davis’ warning that life as an actor was difficult certainly proved true for Bacall. Bogie died in 1957 and, like her mother and grandmother, Bacall found herself a young single parent with two small children. She married actor Jason Robards and had another son. She often struggled to work, later echoing Davis as she recognised an actor’s life as being one of constant rejection – no-one believes “you can do anything that is different from what you have done until after you’ve already done it.”

However, Betty’s long list of awards, including Oscars and Golden Globes, as well as nominations for BAFTAs and Emmys, proves that she was no one-hit wonder. In Kate Hepburn (another fabulous dandizette), Bacall found “one of the most… influential and treasured friendships of my life.”

Bacall would eventually win a Tony in 1970 for her role as Margo Channing in Applause, a musical version of All About Eve. One evening Bette Davis herself sat in the audience. Unlike Margo, however, Davis was kind enough to see Bacall after the play, telling her, “No-one but you could have played this

part, and you know I mean that.” The wide-eyed 15-year-old who wanted to be Bette Davis had become the star herself, and Davis, the falling star, was there to see it. Bacall lamented “the horror of this business” – that someone as talented as Davis was reduced to taking out ads in the trade papers looking for work.

Funnily enough, when Bacall stepped down from the role, it was Anne Baxter – who had played Eve to Davis’s Margo in the film – who took the mantle. It seems that, in the end, Eve is always waiting in the wings to take Margo’s role. Bette Davis had warned Bacall that this was a lonely business, and Bacall certainly spent much of her time alone.

But she was quick to insist that the words “alone” and “lonely” were not the same thing: “I’m not lonely. Independence and self-reliance have always played a part in my life… I wanted to be alone.”

“I’ve always been thought of as a personality, a name, a star, whatever,” Bacall shrugged. “I guess people don’t think of me as a human being. I suppose I have built up a certain veneer to protect myself.” As interesting as that dandy façade was, Betty Bacall proved to be just as interesting behind it: “You know what you learn if you’re a New Yorker?

The world doesn’t owe you a damn thing.” n

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Dandizette

LAUREN BACALL STYLE “From the day I could afford it, I shopped too much.”

Like any dandy worth her salt, Lauren Bacall had a staple style that embodied her character – a look to match ‘The Look’. Her fashion reflected her sophistication, intelligence, simplicity, confidence and glamour – all while looking effortless. Ralph Lauren declared that her fashion sense announced a glamour that was “beautiful, bold and independent.”

Style and beauty expert Mary Alice Stephenson said, “Bacall made it sexy for all women to wear casual clothes. She would wear them in such a glamorous way.” Bacall wore the clothes, “they didn’t wear her… It was a combination of Hollywood feminine glamour and masculine, androgynous insouciance and power.

The only other person I can think of who could do that was Dietrich.”

Lauren looked good in everything, but she tended to favour clothes with sharp, angular lines. Wide, high-waisted trousers and skirts, A-line fit-and-flare dresses, puffy sleeves and shoulder pads, playsuits and low-V-necks suited her best. Her long neck was perfect for showing off elaborate necklaces. There wasn’t a fabric she couldn’t wear, though she was more likely to wear a tweed trouser suit than something with too much lace. Bacall even managed to make the

1970s look good – a rare feat indeed. She was exposing her midriff as early as the 1940s, with bandeau tops and cutout dresses, and Betty was an early adopter of jumpsuits and overalls – trends that keep coming back into fashion.

Bacall even managed the unlikely feat of making a creased denim all-in-one jumpsuit work. Designer Peter Som said, “She was the opposite of Marilyn Monroe’s overt sexuality, yet she still oozed sensuality out of every pore. The clothes are so simple and so chic, and they still feel today so relevant. They feel like clothes you kind of want to wear.”

So iconic were Bacall’s looks that the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York curated an exhibition to celebrate her style.

She was happy to participate, as long as it was high quality – Diana Vreeland style. Bacall gave 700 garments, from designers like Marc Bohan for Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin, Leah Rhodes, Yves Saint Laurent, Perry Elis, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan. From this collection, twelve were put on display within the museum.

Whatever the decade, Bacall’s style announced cool sophistication and down-to-earth elegance. Designer Isaac Mizrahi argued that Bacall was a “smart Jewish girl from the Bronx who knew Norell as well as Loehmann’s. She’s our reference for what smart looks like. Look up ‘smart’ in the dictionary – you’ll find her picture.”

Pop Culture

CHAP TO THE FUTURE Holly Rose Swinyard on the Influence of Chap in popular culture, from early science fiction to modern-day computer games and television series

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herever you look in pop culture, you will see signs of our beloved Chap Fashion. Whether you are looking into a far-flung cyberpunk future or back to the romanticised past of fantasy worlds, there are clues and signposts all over the place to the classic influences that brought us here.

Why have a few very specific time periods had such a large influence on our huge entertainment industry? Take my hand, oh dapper one, and let us go on a journey of discovery through the history of pop culture to find out.

All of us will be aware that the turn of the last century, and all the way through to the postwar period in the 50s and 60s, was a time when we saw the world change. Everything from technology and science to social and political awareness, to fashion and art, was turned on its head from the traditional ideas of the Victorians.

So far so what? I hear you ask.

As a young person, I’m pretty sure that the world didn’t actually exist before colour TV, such is the enormous influence of the media. For the first time, there was media that everyone, no matter who they were or where they came from, could engage with, and the public could not get enough of it. The birth of mass media is the moment when people actively start to tune into the same stories at the same time, and the creators of these stories are able to bring different, new, exciting content to them, things they had never dreamed of. And of course the huge boom in technology and science influenced these stories.

Science Fiction appeared long before the 1920s, when it is seen as beginning. The first real sci-fi book was written 100 years before by a teenage girl, quite literally on a dark and stormy night, and it’s called Frankenstein. This is followed

by Jules Verne kind of securing the genre, but the beginning of the 20th century is when the

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true explosion of science fiction really happens.

Comic-books such as Mr SkyGack, From Mars and Buck Rogers, still running to this day, were incredibly popular with all ages, and it’s a matter of legend what happened when Orson Welles’ version of War of the Worlds was broadcast – mass chaos took hold of America, with listeners genuinely believing that the aliens were coming to destroy the world.

So is it a surprise that the visuals of the early 20th century, the era that birthed it, are so pervasive in science fiction? Not really.

But sci-fi can go beyond simply referencing history – it can be history. Time-travel in all its various forms is a key part of science fiction, from Doctor Who to Star Trek; we see it being used as a plot device to show us all sorts of exciting periods. It allows for period beauty with modern, or futuristic, excitement and drama. The Assassin’s Creed franchise of video games utilises this story device better than most, with games that span more of human history than any other. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Assassin’s Creed Unity take place in Victorian London and Revolutionary/Napoleonic Paris, allowing you not only to dress in outfits that just make you want to be there, but also getting you to run around incredibly recreated versions of these cities in that period. I don’t really want to admit how much time I spent climbing up the Houses of Parliament so that I could see all of London spread beneath me.

If you aren’t into horror games, then you can get your chap on with We Happy Few. An homage to The Prisoner, it is set in a version of Britain where the Second World War devastated the country and people cut themselves off from reality with a drug called Joy to keep them in a state of euphoria.

The whole game is set in the swinging 60s, with

psychedelia springing from every pore, but behind every mod haircut lies a dark secret. Better start running from the bobbies.

But it’s not just in gaming. Look at any classic pop culture and you see all these clues to where it started, especially if you focus on Western culture.

You can’t be a villain in Gotham City if you aren’t wearing the crispest three-piece suit, even if it is covered in question marks. Nor can you run around looking for the cartoon killer with the annoying rabbit who swears he’s innocent, unless you have your trusty trilby and glass of scotch; and have you ever tried hunting down androids in a neon cybernetic future without a proper trench coat?

Sci-fi might have given us a future to put an aesthetic on, but noir and crime fiction gave us a clear-cut aesthetic to put on it.

Noir is one of the larger influences that stamps its legacy on present-day pop culture. Indiana Jones, Blade Runner – let’s be honest, most good films with Harrison Ford in them – owe their timeless visual elegance to noir. The grim and gritty, pseudo reality

“Have you ever tried hunting down androids in a neon cybernetic future without a proper trench coat? Sci-fi might have given us a future to put an aesthetic on, but noir and crime fiction gave us a clear-cut aesthetic to put on it” 133

Miranda Otto as Aunt Zelda in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

of noir, the seedy underworld of Al Capone, along with the Pinkertons and the general lawlessness surrounding everything, while every single person involved seems to be dressed in clothes so sharp they could cut. Style is substance when it comes to this aesthetic in pop culture. You see references to the books of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and the classic films of Hitchcock across the board in pop culture. Noir is a class-A drug to culture, one that it has never managed to kick.

The biggest user of this narcotic is DC comics, and Batman specifically. Without noir, Batman just couldn’t exist; every inch of those comics is soaked in cigarette smoke and cheap whisky. And that’s no bad thing. Every bad guy and girl in Gotham is shockingly well dressed, for people who seem to be in and out of prison every week. But would the Joker be as scary if he didn’t ooze with the familiarity of the Zoot Suit? Clearly not, if you look at the reaction to Suicide Squad – anyone who is dressed like a two bit ‘gangsta’ boy with fake gold teeth is not scaring anyone, no matter how dark the alley.

If you take a look at the Gotham TV show, the most recent small-screen version of Batman, you can see how it has pulled key elements of the comics, blending all of the classic looks and styles with the more modern aesthetics of its supposed early noughties setting, in a way that is bizarre and totally original, while also drawing in all those familiar 1950s aspects. It builds a world in which you can understand and see the fear of noir, but without shifting it to another period.

Another perfect example of noir being brought up-to-date with the blending of periods is the most recent iteration of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

by Netflix. Despite many of us knowing Sabrina: The Teenage Witch from the 90s, this new imagining throws any ideas of fashion mistakes and canned laughter out of the window. Each episode draws more and more from a catalogue of eras in fashion, visuals, tone and story. One minute you could be in a teen drama, the next a Hitchcockian horror, then suddenly you’re flung into storylines that could rival The Crucible for dramatic tension. The Witches of The Church of Night would not look out of place in the cabaret clubs of 1930s Berlin, while the mortal teenagers clash 50s and 60s style with almost 80s vibes.

“The Lord of the Rings spills from war and loss and comradeship, influenced by the history Tolkien lived through.

But Tolkien talks through metaphor and magical escapism; what we see are the visuals of that history seeping in architectural reference rather than in sartorial ones” 134

The purpose of the vintage aesthetic in these shows is to make the setting and characters timeless.

It sets them in their own space that doesn’t have to adhere to the rules of real world history, but without going into all-out fantasy.

So how does fantasy fit into all of this?

I would forgive you for thinking that dragons, elves, wizards and the like don’t really fit into this whole sartorial elegance thesis. I grant you, there are a lot of robes and tabards going on in fantasy, but let’s focus on the originator of modern fantasy fiction, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

The Lord of the Rings spills from war and loss and comradeship, influenced by the history Tolkien lived through. But unlike the other examples, Tolkien talks through metaphor and magical escapism, rather than recreating or referencing real history. Instead, what we see are the visuals of that history seeping in architectural, rather than sartorial, references.

The worlds of the elves and the dwarves in Middle Earth bring to life the dreams of Art Nouveau and Art Deco in fantastical clarity. The cities of elves are twisting, turning, organic places, blossoming with easy curves living in perfect balance with nature, just as Art Nouveau was intended to be.

This sits in stark contrast to the Dwarvish citadels, carved from rock and wrought in geometric iron, with great statues designed on straight mathematical lines and looking over them, a core of Deco to the whole thing. When Tolkien, and later illustrators and filmmakers, created these settings, he placed pieces of realism in them to help the reader connect with

the world he had created, while subverting the whole thing to drag you out of the real world.

It’s really quite clever.

I can’t really talk fantasy without bringing in the boy wizard who changed children’s literature.

Harry Potter as a franchise has a lot to answer for in their ‘lack of costume’ department, however the most recent additions to the franchise have finally started to give these magically inclined folk some sort of dress sense. Personally I would love for them to go even more Chappish with the look of the wizarding world, but no-one can deny that Misters Redmayne and Law wear a good tweed three-piece very well. Dumbledore seems to have ditched his bejewelled gowns for smart grey wools and proper cufflinks, bringing him more in line with the Chap view of a hero. As for Newt Scamander, he really knows how to rock shabby chic, circa 1930.

No matter where popular culture goes, it will always have its roots in the period that Chap fashion also has its roots in, and, much like Chap, pop culture doesn’t care about the rules or what other people think. It’s anarchic, chopping and changing, adding and blending to create new visions from old imagery. We will always refer back to those key moments in the past to anchor our ideas, no matter what medium we express those ideas in. We cannot go back in time, but certain things are far too good to leave behind, and the aesthetics that made up the beginning of the 20th century are precisely the things that cannot, and shall not, be left behind. n

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REVIEWS •

Author interview: Ben Schott (p138) • Book Reviews (p142) • Interview: JP Donleavy (p146) Travel: Paris (p152) • Restaurant: Kaspars at The Savoy (p160) • Peacocks & Magpies (p162) • Vintage Apocalypse (p164)

Author Interview

BEN SCHOTT Alexander Larman and Gustav Temple meet the Miscellany maestro who recently added an excellent PG Wodehouse homage to his canon

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“I love annotated editions, and so I hope I managed to bring something of that to Jeeves and the King of Clubs. As for the positive critical response, ‘relief’ is the only appropriate way of describing it; I’ve had major surgery, and this was significantly scarier”

t is not often that the editor of this fine organ and I conduct interviews à deux, being of the opinion that the meeting of minds and opinions that a conversation should usually lead to can only be interrupted, rather than enhanced, by a third party interjecting their opinions into the equation.

However, we are always prepared to make an exception when we are both keen to meet the subject in question, and so it was with light hearts and excited faces that we sashayed into the private library at Quo Vadis in Soho to encounter Ben Schott: miscellanist, graphic designer and now, with the publication of the excellent Jeeves and the King of Clubs, both novelist and Wodehouse homagiste.

Schott first rose to public attention with the publication of Schott’s Original Miscellany in 2002, a compilation of obscure but useful information, which he had designed and typeset himself.

Originally intended as a treat for close friends, he, like Byron, awoke one day and found himself famous, thanks to The Guardian running a G2 cover story which called it ‘the publishing sensation of the

year’. Many more books followed in a similar vein, but now, with his first work of fiction, Schott follows in the considerable footsteps both of the Master himself and of Sebastian Faulks, whose own Jeeves and Wooster novel, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, was published to some acclaim in 2013. Nonetheless, the charming and unassuming Schott agreed to be interrogated by us both on one unseasonably warm

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CHAP: And yet the book is a success, both as a Jeeves and Wooster novel, and as a formal work. It contains its own ‘miscellany’, replacing an index, and the whole saga is a metatextual one; you’ve written as Ben Schott, but also as PG Wodehouse. How did that come about?

SCHOTT: I wanted to litter the book with allusions, many anachronistic, and the idea was that if you got them, great; if you didn’t, the book didn’t stumble. Hence when I write ‘a wise king once said’, it’s a reference to Kingsley Amis, ‘the wise King’.

If you don’t get that it doesn’t matter, but it adds another level and gives it a double pleasure. I love annotated editions, whether it’s Pound and The Waste Land or Alice In Wonderland, and so I hope that I managed to bring something of that to the book.

And as for the positive critical response, ‘relief ’ is the only appropriate way of describing it; I’ve had major surgery, and this was significantly scarier.

February afternoon, prior to heading to Plum’s alma mater Dulwich College to discuss all things Wodehouse. Gin and tonics were poured, armchairs sunk into and our chat began. ‘It’s going to be an exercise in good cop, bad cop’, quoth the editor.

‘Time will only tell which is which.’

CHAP: When we first read Jeeves and the King of Clubs, it was with enormous trepidation…

SCHOTT: As you should. There are people in the Wodehouse Society who, sight unseen, have announced that they won’t read my book on principle. I approached writing it with enormous trepidation. It’s my first novel, but I don’t think of myself as ‘a novelist’. I’m interested in nouns and verbs, particularly verbs, and so what I try and do, whether in journalism or graphic design, is to take complex information and distil it. The nouns don’t especially matter, but the verbs do.

Personally, I feel that writing a novel is a bit like being awarded a PhD. Those who succeed have to introduce something new into their discipline; thus it is with literature, and that’s not my skill. What I’ve tried to do is to construct an elaborate Heath Robinson machine, basing it on the Wodehouse oeuvre; I didn’t have something that I wanted to communicate, as such.

CHAP: What were the issues you faced in writing a book like this?

SCHOTT: I half-remembered a Virginia Woolf quote, something along the lines of ‘light and effervescent it might be on the surface, but it is clamped together with bolts of iron’. Wodehouse was a genius, and I’m not, so I had to approach this

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as a deadly serious frivolity. I didn’t want to write ‘another Jeeves and Wooster novel’, nor did I want to do ‘young Bertie’ – because I’d have to answer questions like ‘why does he have a gentleman’s gentleman?’

Then there’s the writing. It wasn’t a struggle, but it took a lot of polishing. I read every passage out loud thirty or forty times, until it sounded right.

And then there’s the issue of plot, or, to be more exact, lots of plot. There’s a limited amount that one can bring in terms of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, but it does need a slightly more contemporary feel. There are anachronisms in language – I’ve included a Spinal Tap reference, for instance – and I, mentally, set the story in 1932, with the looming clouds of fascism and Spode as a Mosleyite wouldbe leader.

capturing rhythm and voice. As a challenge, it was like solving a thousand crossword puzzles a day.

CHAP: If your publisher had asked you to write an original novel, about a man in his thirties, say, what would your reaction have been?

SCHOTT: I wouldn’t have done it. I see myself as a designer, rather than an artist. With graphic design, there’s a problem that has to be solved, whether it’s a logo or an advertisement. With art, you have to create the problem. Wodehouse was an artist; I’m not. How the ‘meet cute’ happened was that I wrote a short story that was published in The Spectator, inspired by Donald Trump’s butler, which involved Trump going to Brinkley Court and meeting Bertie for a game of croquet. It was such fun to write – hard but effortless – and people didn’t hate it, so I approached the Wodehouse estate. They were, understandably, sceptical – after all, one bad book and the brand is damaged, and I hadn’t written a novel before – so I wrote a series of set pieces in the style in which I wanted to write the book, and a synopsis. Then I said ‘I’m not a novelist, but this isn’t a Novel’, and that seemed to do the trick. Incidentally, I’ve never believed in the idea of the pluckily starving writer, tortuously creating art in a garret. If it’s really that hard, darling, why do it? Writing this is the most fun I’ve ever had.

CHAP: So did you try and reinvent the characters, in a mild way?

SCHOTT: Not as such, but it was more to bring them back to how they were conceived. A lot of people know Bertie from the Fry and Laurie TV series, and think of him – and others – as posh twits. So while I was writing it, I was very conscious that every character had their own distinct voice, with their own cadence. Spode, Aunt Dahlia, Anatole – each of them is like an instrument in an orchestra. The only voice I didn’t try and capture was Wodehouse’s, and instead I wrote in my own voice. So I hope that this takes it out of the realms of pastiche and parody. Yet I knew that, for him, the two essential touchstones were Shakespeare and the King James Bible, so then it was a question of

CHAP: So how did you start your nonexhausting career?

SCHOTT: After reading politics at Cambridge,

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Author Interview

I worked at an ad agency for six weeks, and then became an ‘absolutely B-plus’ photographer for magazines and papers, where I got a reputation for photographing difficult, ugly men. But I was never going to be fashionable. So what I did was to send out an annual Christmas card to remind people I was alive, and available for work. One year, I included a little booklet of information for photographers and designers – stocks, film speeds, etc – leavened with things like cloud types and wine bottles. That turned into Schott’s Miscellany, and that’s how I became a writer. The whole thing was massively unexpected.

hospital, near Lamb’s Conduit Street, and I used to walk past Powell’s shop. I vowed to myself ‘If ever I have any money, I’m going to buy myself a suit, because I really like what he’s done.’ Fast forward twenty years, when aforementioned money was made, and the cry went up, ‘POWELL!’ I wanted something a bit edgy, rather than wearing something that my father might have done; the jacket has a single butterfly button, as if it’s a dinner jacket.

I buy my shirts in Italy, which to me is the place for shirts; I dally there on trips twice a year.

And my two-tone red socks come from a factory in Leicestershire; I had sixty or seventy pairs made, in my preferred colours, about a decade ago, and hopefully will never have to buy any again. I still have forty pairs wrapped in plastic, so plenty left to go. One thing I don’t believe in, however, is bespoke shoes, which I always think look a bit weird.

CHAP: What happened with your Byronlike entry into the nation’s consciousness, courtesy of The Guardian?

SCHOTT: I had a call from my publisher saying ‘you’re on the cover of G2 tomorrow’. And I said ‘How? I haven’t done an interview!’ I was terrified; I didn’t know why they hadn’t been in touch. So I drove down to Kings Cross and waited for the next day’s papers to be delivered, and I was literally shaking as I picked up the paper. The cover asked ‘Why is this book the publishing sensation of the year?’ It wasn’t, until they announced that it was. I didn’t know why they’d done it until a decade later, funnily enough. It was because I had a column in The Telegraph, and so the G2 feature was designed as a spoiler to spike their exclusive. Still, it worked beautifully as a nice puff piece, and professionally it worked very well. But I couldn’t believe it.

“I’ve never believed in the idea of the pluckily starving writer, tortuously creating art in a garret.

If it’s really that hard, darling, why do it?

Writing this is the most fun I’ve ever had”

CHAP: What do you do when you’re not writing fine resurrections of much-loved characters?

SCHOTT: I’m something of a club aficionado; I’m a member of the Garrick, and have been a member of the Oxford and Cambridge and the Reform, which has the nicest rooms. Although I’ve had it in for the Athenaeum for allowing Jimmy Savile to be a member. And tailoring, itself a kind of club, is something of a passion of mine; one of my intentions with my book was to portray the kind of world in which one is steered to what the tailor wants, after an elaborate tug-of-war.

Further conversation follows about the ‘pleasingly gay’ neighbourhood of Chelsea in New York in which the (married) Schott lives – ‘I’ve never been given the elevator eyes… I must up my game’ – and his shared affinity with Gustav for the red sock, duly photographed for posterity. And then the witching hour approaches. Schott is Dulwichbound, and Gustav and I have a stroll down memory lane to remember an old friend (as will be seen elsewhere in this title). A relieved-looking Schott, having survived the not-so-Spanish inquisition, makes to scarper off in a taxicab.

As he heads off, he smiles, and leaves us with a final Wodehousian bon mot. ‘There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.’ Seldom was a better sentence spoken, or indeed remembered. n

CHAP: And who is your preferred tailor?

SCHOTT: The suit I’m wearing today is bespoke,

by Mark Powell. I used to work in my father’s

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Book Reviews

A SCRIBBLER IN SOHO: A CELEBRATION OF AUBERON WAUGH

standing for the Dog Lover’s Party. He might only have garnered 79 votes, but it immortalised him as one who did not give a solitary toss; the bracing thing about reading this book is the realisation that Waugh behaved entirely as he liked throughout his life and career, with little care as to who he offended along the way.

Sometimes, this could be deeply wearying.

Especially in the Private Eye sections of this book, there is a sense that Waugh picked battles and vendettas almost at random, secure in the knowledge that a vast amount of family money insulated him from any real personal difficulty or discomfort. In his autobiography, Will This Do?, he wrote ‘looking back over my career to date, and at all the people I have insulted, I am mildly surprised that I am still allowed to exist.’ When his existence did end, far too early, in 2001, the columnist Polly Toynbee wrote a vituperative column in which she described him as a ‘vile man… effete, drunken, snobbish, sneering, racist and sexist.’ Her anger could be explained in large part because of his open disdain for what he viewed as ‘prattling left-wing women’; he was a man who was a true and loyal friend, but an implacable foe. There is a lengthy description here of an unsuccessful libel case that he defended against Claire Tomalin, then literary editor of the Sunday Times; the suspicion remains that he spent a great deal of time and effort defending it because he did not want to be bested by a woman.

Ed. Naim Attallah (Quartet, £20) Reviewed by Alexander Larman

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uberon Waugh was something of a strange case. He had either the good or ill fortune – depending on which way you look at it – to be born the eldest son of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, setting a precedent that few would have any hope of living up to. Before he could make any sort of start on the literary life that he was widely expected to lead, he nearly died in a machine gun accident in Cyprus during his National Service.

On what he believed would be his deathbed, he wrote a valedictory letter to his father, saying ‘Dear Papa, just a line to tell you what for some reason I was never able to show you in my lifetime, that I admire, revere and love you more than any man in the world.’ Evelyn’s response to this was to end his allowance of £25 a month, leading to Auberon weeping ‘bitter tears of rage’.

His father died when he was 26 – fittingly, on the loo on Easter Sunday – and so Auberon, who by then had published three novels, found himself taking on the at times uncomfortable mantle of the senior Waugh. This book, which is half-anthology of his work and half memoir by his friend and colleague Naim Attallah, focuses initially on his career at Private Eye, for which he began writing in 1970 as the loosely-named ‘political correspondent’, and then on his later career as editor of the Literary Review; it is from that fine publication that his columns between 1986 and 2001 are reprinted here.

Waugh loved to shock and outrage, just as his father did. Arguably, he peaked early, when he contested Jeremy Thorpe’s seat in the 1979 general election in the midst of the Norman Scott scandal,

“In his autobiography, Will This Do?, Bron wrote ‘looking back over my career to date, and at all the people I have insulted, I am mildly surprised that I am still allowed to exist”

Judged as a man, then, he was something of a mixed bag. But as a writer, he could be peerlessly brilliant. There are too many examples to cite, but one will do, in his spoof Private Eye diary from 28 April 1974. He writes ‘I wonder how much the Sunday Times has paid Jan Morris for the very wonderful, searing story of how she changed sex?

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It is little known that I am the only human being in the world who has changed sex and then changed back again. My reason for changing sex in the first place was a general feeling that at thirty-four it was time for a change. My reason for changing back was the ghastly boredom of women’s conversation after dinner.’ It is tempting to wonder just how this would have gone down in our era of social media outcry when ‘the trans issue’ is raised; badly, one supposes.

This book, then, might well become the definitive last word on Auberon Waugh. It has some oddities; its compiler Naim Attallah refers to himself in the third person throughout, often in flattering terms, and its descriptions of the half-cut, half-rackety world of literary London in the eighties can induce both painful nostalgia and disbelief, depending on the age or inclination of the reader.

Still, there are memorable cameos and walk-on parts; I, for one, did not know that the actress Anna Chancellor, before achieving recognition as Duckface in Four Weddings and a Funeral, achieved a different kind of fame as an especially glamorous habituée of Waugh and Attallah’s Soho literary club The Academy. And, in an era where cant and the dreariness of the woke have dominated, it is refreshing to read the unfiltered writings of a man who did not care who he offended or how, as long as he could make some excellent jokes along the way. And for that, if nothing else, Auberon Waugh should be remembered as much more than just ‘the son of Evelyn.’

opprobrium than Wallis ‘Wally’ Simpson, Duchess of Windsor and the woman who was never queen.

It is not especially difficult to see why. Despite being unexceptional of demeanour and appearance, her relationship with the Duke of Windsor, before, during and after his brief reign as Edward VIII, saw her become synonymous both with the finest and most opulent trappings of a lifestyle imaginable, and an unblushing sense of entitlement to such a milieu.

Described as ‘the American harlot’ in her lifetime, she spent decades flitting round Europe with her husband in luxurious exile, unable to find a place in the world, and painfully aware, when she took the occasional glance down from her ivory tower, that she was cordially despised by everyone from the man on the street to world leaders. The Prime Minister at the time of the abdication, Stanley Baldwin, described her as a ‘third-rate woman’, and that was one of the kinder contemporary remarks made about her.

Wallis will feature prominently in my forthcoming book about the events leading up to the abdication, The Crown In Crisis, but before then, Anna Pasternak’s new biography of her offers a revisionist look at someone who has been treated very poorly by history – although not by Madonna, whose dismal 2011 film W.E. attempted to paint the Duke and Duchess as a pair of star-crossed lovers whose unfortunate lives as poor little rich people would be interrupted by such inexplicable moments as Wallis dirty dancing to the Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant.

Thankfully, there is no such literary equivalent of appalling taste in Pasternak’s carefully researched and elegantly written book. She makes her case, and cause, clear from the outset – ‘far from being the villain of the abdication, Wallis was its victim’, and attempts to reframe her life as one in which a headstrong, all-consuming passion was made a hundred times more difficult by the man that she fell in love with being, firstly, the Prince of Wales and, subsequently, King of England.

There can be little doubt that some of the more lurid speculations about Wallis owe as much to tittle-tattle and prurient gossip as any documented fact, although it’s still the likely case that we shall have to wait for decades for various sealed archives to become available. Until then, and in the absence of definitive answers to various vexed statements, Pasternak makes a good fist of defending both Wallis and the Duke of Windsor against many of the charges that have been brought against them

UNTITLED: THE REAL WALLIS SIMPSON, DUCHESS OF WINDSOR

By Anna Pasternak (William Collins, £20) Reviewed by Alexander Larman

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ith the exception of various serial killers, dictators and disgraced seventies light entertainment stars, it is hard to think of a twentieth century figure who has attracted more

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(most recently in fictional form in The King’s Speech and, memorably, in The Crown). She dismisses the idea that the Windsors were Nazi sympathisers, stating that their infamous visit to Germany in October 1937 may have been ‘incredibly foolish’, but was conducted out a combination of misplaced patriotism on the Duke’s part and simple naïveté.

And there is much dedication to dismissing as ‘wild rumours’ many of the more salacious stories about Wallis, not least rumoured affairs with the German ambassador to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and a used car salesman named Guy Trundle.

Those who are hoping for a full and frank account of precisely what Wallis’ rumoured ‘Oriental skills’ were – picked up from a sojourn in China – may be disappointed to find out that this was nothing more depraved than the ability to perform oral sex; one presumes well enough to enrapture a smitten Prince of Wales.

MENSWEAR FROM THE

“Wallis’ candid description of her unexceptional looks – ‘I’m nothing to look at, so the only thing is to try and dress better than anyone else’ – matched her mother’s warning that ‘like explosives, she needs to be handled with care’”

This is an intriguing and captivating book, written with obvious affection for its subject, and the in-depth research makes notable statements stand out, whether it was Wallis’ candid description of her unexceptional looks – ‘I’m nothing to look at, so the only thing is to try and dress better than anyone else’ – or her mother’s warning that ‘like explosives, she needs to be handled with care.’

On balance, it does not replace Anne Sebba’s far more critical and caustic 2011 biography That Woman as the definitive work about Wallis, but it does, at least, have the effect of eliciting a measure of sympathy for someone who, underneath the considerable trappings of extreme wealth and privilege, was one of the unhappiest and most adrift women of her time, condemned to spend another half-century after the abdication trailing round Europe, an object of equal fascinating and castigation. And for that, if nothing else, it is hard not to feel sorry for this particular bird in the most gilded of cages. n

CLOTHING FOR CHAP OLYMPIANS Made by Walker Slater, worn by Chaps

www.thechap.co.uk/shop

Literature

J.P. DONLEAVY Noel Shine paid a visit to JP Donleavy’s rural Irish retreat in 2016, a year before the great Irish-American author died, to discuss the author's career

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P Donleavy bore all the hallmarks of genius.

To critically evaluate his genius in terms of his writing alone, however, is to miss the point. A master of the art of reinvention, he immersed himself chameleon-like into every episode of the epic saga that became his life.

From relatively humble beginnings in the Bronx to eventual success, as writer-in-residence at his country pile in the wilds of Ireland, he was the original poacher turned gamekeeper.

In the States, JP Donleavy is spoken of in the same hushed tones as beat generation writer Jack Kerouac. While in Blighty his subversive wit is placed alongside Spike Milligan and George MacDonald Fraser. In Ireland, he is viewed as a cultural icon from the same tradition as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Flann O’Brien and Shamus Heaney. While comparisons are odious, I think all would agree that he was the last tangible link to a bygone age, when to be a novelist had a certain cachet; that era when the written word had yet to yield to the sensory overload that came with television, rock ‘n’ roll and the internet.

As I drive down the narrow, winding roads to Donleavy’s Levington Park home overlooking Lough Owel, my mind drifts off to that fabled era, when a man was judged as much for the cut of his suit as he was for the fabric of his character.

How, I mused, should I broach the subjects I want

to discuss with Donleavy without seeming overly deferential? By the time I arrive at the gates of Levington Park, I have already reasoned that one should never confuse an author with his texts.

Upon entering the kitchen, I am introduced to JP, seated at the kitchen table, by his secretary Deborah Goss. As we exchange pleasantries, he eyes me warily and shifts uneasily in his chair, not altogether sure if I can be trusted not to pocket the cutlery. He is a dapper gent with an inscrutable gaze. I commence with a few questions about his youth in the Bronx.

“I remember Brendan Behan came to visit me where I had a house and land outside of Dublin.

I saw him reading The Ginger Man in a little outhouse that was close to the main building, and he read the book and put it down and said, ‘This book is going to shake the world!’”

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Donleavy with Brendan Behan

Do you recall who would have been among your earliest influences?

“Gosh, I wish I could, because it’s so long ago now! [laughs] I remember how I would go around as a child where we lived in Woodlawn, which was all big private houses. I was delivering newspapers.

They paid me every three weeks and some of them would refuse to pay you. I remember I would write on their newspaper ‘How does it feel to cheat a child?’ I would walk along and was really surprised that it really shook them up… how does it feel to cheat a child?”

Even at that early age, he understood the power of the written word. Donleavy’s abhorrence of bullies would prompt him to join the New York Athletic Club in 1941 to hone his skills as a boxer; he shows me a photograph of himself with Smokin’ Joe Frazier, taken prior to a bout with Muhammad Ali in 1971. I regale him with my own tale of how I came to meet Ali, and a rapport is established. As I listen to the playback of this taped interview now, I am struck by a certain charm in JP’s mid-Atlantic drawl, reminding me of Peter Cook as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, with a dash of Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardiner thrown in for good measure.

It is American English as enunciated by a grandee and probably acquired during his tenure at the New York Athletic Club, which is also a gentleman’s club populated almost exclusively by unapologetic WASPs.

“Both of my parents came from Ireland and they came to New York, but they seemed to be able to settle in and join that world where you met people and they encouraged you. I joined the New York Athletic Club and was given a good life to live.

Each summer would come up, where you had long summer holidays from school, and we would go touring in America. It was my idea to go out and see what Chicago was like, for instance. They made a point out of bringing me there. We had servants in the places where we would travel to. That wasn’t usual with some of the Irish Catholic people where I lived, you know.”

Wherever he acquired those dulcet tones, it was not from the Jesuit Fathers. They expelled him from school upon the discovery, that as Brother Superior Master, young Paddy Donleavy had convened and chaired a fraternity meeting in a neighbourhood bar. At this time, he became confirmed in the belief that he was an atheist.

When I probe him on the issue, he is suitably vague in his response:

“I was expelled from a school called Fordham Preparatory School. That was a well-known school and they chucked me out after a short spell. It had to do with getting into a fight or something.

I was just thinking with a few pals of mine and exchanging a few ideas about how we lived and what we wanted to do, and what we thought of being a Catholic. I think we all joined together and

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broke away from these things when we were quite young. You just disregarded it.”

He graduated and served as Seaman Second Class in the US Navy at the latter end of WWII. I ask if growing up during World War II helped shape his world view.

“I think it did actually, but it’s quite a rare situation for someone like yourself coming up with this. Most people wouldn’t see this at all. It gave you a deeper appreciation of life, I would definitely say so, yes.”

In 1946, Donleavy arrived in Dublin to take Sciences at Trinity College under the terms of the GI Bill. He assumed the identity of Mike Donleavy to mask his Catholic roots. At that time, Trinity was a bastion of Protestant ascendancy. Donleavy gravitated towards other like-minded Americans on campus, most notably, the charismatic Gainor Crist and the more cerebral AK Donoghue. The young Donleavy distinguished himself at Trinity only in the manner of his dress, bedecked in tweed suits with a newly sported beard. One fateful night while drinking at Davy Byrnes pub, a literary haunt, his plummy accent gained the unwanted attention of Brendan Behan, then an aspiring writer and a known republican. Behan taunted Donleavy, calling him a “narrowback” – a pejorative term used to describe second-generation Irish-Americans who, unlike their parents, did not need to work in unskilled trades for a living.

Egged on by rival factions, the two men withdrew to a lane outside the pub to settle the dispute, Queensberry style. When Behan remarked that none of the other barflies had bothered to set down their pints and join them, the two men agreed that a fight without an audience was utterly futile. They then struck up one of the most unlikely friendships in the history of Irish literary lore. It was against this backdrop that a loose affiliation of new Irish writers converged on Dublin to form what was later regarded as the vanguard of modern Irish literature. Theirs was essentially a European aesthetic, at odds with the prevailing insularity that typified Ireland at that time. They included the likes of Flann O’Brien, Patrick Kavanagh and Edna O’Brien. There standing among them was the quintessential Irish-American, James Patrick Donleavy, though he tells me now, “I would have known those people, but I didn’t get into that circle of people who were authors.”

At that time, JP harboured ambitions of being an artist, staging his first art exhibition in

December 1948. A month later, he married an English lady, Valerie Heron. The two set up home in the rustic idyll of Kilcoole, County Wicklow, where Donleavy indulged himself in painting and subsistence farming, before dropping out of Trinity altogether. By 1951, with the birth of his first-born imminent and his art career in the doldrums, he set out in, some desperation, to write what would later become The Ginger Man.

“I suddenly found myself just writing it. I didn’t stop myself doing anything like that, I just went on and carried on.” There are echoes of Donleavy’s own pressing circumstances projected on to the character of Sebastian Dangerfield in The Ginger Man. When I suggest that Gainor Crist is central to the character of Dangerfield, he agrees: “Certainly, insofar as his survival in his own life, and my survival and so on. That would have been the point that made me take up and focus on The Ginger Man. I found him [Gainor Crist] inspirational. Is that a good word?”

Someone else who proved inspirational was the aforementioned Brendan Behan. While the Donleavys were away in the Isle of Man, he broke into their cottage at Kilcoole, somewhat taken in drink. Spying the unfinished manuscript, tentatively titled Sebastian Dangerfield, he proceeded to edit its pages, before repairing to the nearest pub with several pairs of Donleavy’s shoes. Apparently, Donleavy forgave the intrusion on the grounds that Behan’s editing proved insightful. Donleavy left Ireland soon after and spent a year hawking the finished manuscript around all the major publishing houses in the States, without success. Disconsolate, he left America again and settled in London. He was visited by Behan, now flushed with success as a newly published author himself. Behan suggested Donleavy try Olympia Press in Paris.

Donleavy heeded his advice, and in 1955 The Ginger Man was published as part of a series of erotic novels, much to the author’s chagrin.

Donleavy re-edited the book and had it published in England by a legitimate publisher, Neville Spearman, in December 1956. Despite receiving critical acclaim from the likes of Dorothy Parker, The Ginger Man was banned on grounds of obscenity and his reputation as a serious writer was assured.

From a remove of some sixty years, it is difficult to comprehend the tumult caused by a book that is, by today’s standards, considered relatively tame. I read the book in the vain expectation of chancing upon something offensive to my sensibilities.

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Donleavy published The Ginger Man at Neville Spearman, ended in farce. Olympia went bankrupt and Donleavy bought the firm at a nominal sum, momentarily finding himself in a legal quagmire whereby he was effectively suing himself. When I ask him where he got this pugnacious streak, he replies, “I’m not sure, probably my mother. She never sort of had rules or terrible things. She was very good as someone who wanted you to be free to do what you wanted to do.”

She gave you that inner strength?

“Yes, that and the advice to always stay in the best hotels!”

I continue our chat by posing that hoary old chestnut – to what do you attribute your great longevity? “Just, I suppose because I was training like a boxer all the time. I don’t smoke. I drank, but not too much, actually”. At this point JP stands up from the table and gives me a brief demonstration of his shadow-boxing technique. He has hams for fists, the kind more used to repairing dry stone walls than mincing about at a keyboard all day. Have you any plans for your 90th birthday? “Goodness I don’t know, except to say I’m sorry I’ve done what I did!” [laughs].

This brief chat segues nicely into giving me a grand tour of the house, the main corridors of which are adorned in a beautiful shade of ginger.

“There’s another room here and a door opens up out to the garden out there, and I remember that there was something that Joyce wrote, ‘Jim stood there’. I would remind myself, my God, James Joyce was standing here!”

Joyce is reputed to have stayed at Levington Park many years prior to JP acquiring the property.

I ask if it influenced his decision to buy the house back in the 1970s.

“Well I doubt it! But it is a coincidence. It shook me up a little bit when I realised that James Joyce was standing – right there!”

For posterity, as much as anything else, I ask him to pose for a photograph in that Joycean glade. All too soon, my own little Donleavyesque odyssey is at an end and I pass through the gates at Levington, back into the real world of facts once more. It was great to have been in the presence of one whose eloquence soared with the flight of angels and swooped with the plight of desperate men. A man who wrote of the lies we tell ourselves and each other. And the unspoken truth therein.

“If there is illusion,” says Dangerfield in The Ginger Man, Live it with a flourish. Dignity in debt, a personal motto. In fact, a coat of arms. Bowler hat crossed with a walking stick.” n

What I found was more profound than profane, a delusional tale of thwarted ambition, impending doom and sexual degeneracy carried off with a certain aplomb. I asked JP if he anticipated the controversy that initially surrounded The Ginger Man.

“This would have come from people who first read the book, when it wasn’t yet published. At that early stage, they read it. I remember Brendan Behan came to visit me where I had a house and land outside of Dublin [Kilcoole]. He just looked at the book – I saw him reading it in a little outhouse that was close to the main building, and he read the book and put it down and he said, ‘This book is going to shake the world!’ [Laughs] He was the first person who did read it, actually.” Brendan Behan died in 1964, a victim of his own ceaseless wandering. “He was a delight,” Donleavy recalls, “His company, everything about him. He would do anything and say anything. I never questioned anything he wanted to say or what he would do or what he thought.”

An uncensored edition of The Ginger Man was finally published in 1965 and has gone on to sell millions of copies, becoming a veritable cult classic.

There were plaudits from Hunter S Thompson, Ted Kennedy, Richard Harris, Princess Grace and Jackie O. I observed that if his books were published in the present era, it would be political correctness, not church-state-led censorship, that would invite censure. Does Donleavy have a view on political correctness? “I’m not sure that I do; I take my own decisions and follow them.”

Does he resent the focus on The Ginger Man at the expense of the rest of his canon of work?

“No, not really; if anyone else is interested it kind of keeps your own interest. Johnny Depp came here. He was in this room actually, he and Cillian Murphy,” he says, indicating another photo, “but I do remind myself going to countries in Europe and realising that you were there only because of what you had written.”

There are rumours of a Ginger Man film starring Johnny Depp, I ask him.

“It’s absolutely impossible to say!”

In 1969 Donleavy divorced Valerie and married Mary Price Wilson, 20 years his junior, and, on the advice of his wine stockist at Fortnum and Mason, retreated once more to Ireland as a tax exile. In the 1970s, he cultivated the land and an image of himself as country squire around Levington Park, Mullingar before issuing A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners. A 21-year legal battle initiated by Olympia Press in 1957, when

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Travel

A CHAP’S GUIDE TO PARIS

T

Chris Sullivan recommends the most authentic bars, clubs, bistros and cafes in which to refuel while pounding the hedonistic streets of Paris

he Eurostar is still really rather wonderful. You get on a train at St. Pancras and alight some two hours later at Le Gare Du Nord into a different world, where the attitudes, tastes, smells, people and culture are as different from London as sand is to salt. Undeniably, it is quite an anomalous experience – one that usually only a plane journey can really prepare us for – stepping off a train into this alien environment that is both Parisian and, due to French colonisation, Gambian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Sudanese and Algerian. It’s in all respects downright foreign. A train journey of such duration would normally take us to the heady heights of somewhere like Manchester, which in every particular is definitely not Paris.

I first visited Paris as a rambunctious 19year-old youth, accompanied by five like-minded others, unknowingly staying in a thoroughly sordid Pigalle hotel (Pigalle was then perhaps the sleaziest red light district in the world) favoured by ladies who rented by the hour. We should have suspected, when the door was opened by a rotund 40-something black woman dressed in a see-through baby doll nightie holding a banana, that this was a knocking

shop, but it was only when I opened the wardrobe and found three platinum wigs, a whip and a crusty set of knickers that I twigged.

Consequently, we had our belongings stolen, were overcharged at every turn, given counterfeit change and brawled with Teddy Boys, Punk rockers, Market Traders, bouncers and football fans. Since then I have visited Paris some 40 times and have got to know the ins, outs and in-betweens of the City of Lights.

I checked into Le Crillon, a hotel opened in 1909 in a stone palace dating back to 1758, and which really is the last word in unrestrained luxury.

Located on Place de la Concorde at the bottom of the Champs Elysees, it is the perfect location and one of the world’s great hotels. After a swift café we made our way to Le Puce (the flea market) located outside Metro Porte de Clignancourt in the suburb of St Ouen; not specifically for the market, but to enjoy a typical Parisian lunch of snails and bœuf bourguignon at Chez Louisette, a marvellous little café where you’ll catch one of their septuagenarian crooners delivering a touch of Aznavour, Chevalier or even a Gallic rendition of My Way. This kitsch throwback to an age well missed is a

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Paris institution that is nothing less than essential.

Subsequently, we had a little look around the market, where one might find everything from snide trainers and tourist tat to flick knives, authentic fifties Americana, superb Art Deco objets d’art and original prewar French couture. Undeniably, this flea market isn’t what it was in the 80s but, if you head northwest past Bd Peripherique, past all the cheap rubbish, then you will find the SWPL district and Marché aux Puces de Paris, where one can still find the odd bargain, such as the 1950s leather barnstormer coat I picked up for €60, and the large antique African mask from Gabon for €80.

After a typical Parisian meal, and a typical Parisian flea market, it was time for a typical Parisian bar. La Chope du Chateau Rouge is a no-frills bistrot/bar with cheap drinks (€3.50 a pint of beer), friendly staff and full of locals.

Tourist trail this is not. This was where we met one of our hosts for the weekend, the one and only Albert de Paname (above right) – who, Paris incarnate, was the man who resurrected Paris nightlife, first as DJ at Les Bains Douche in the late 70s, and later promoted amazing one-nighters at Les Balajo, le Nouvelle Eve and Maxims and, more recently, at Pachamama. His new weekly onenighter is in Clignancourt, at bar-club-restaurant la Guingette de la Chope des Puces, where Django Rhinehart started his career, and where one can find live gypsy jazz most nights. Here Albert plays

classic French music and cha cha cha, while his customers look as if they stepped out of movies such as Rafifi, The Golden Age and Lift to The Scaffold, whose attention to sartorial detail is above exemplary, particularly the ladies, who have an edge right down to the last earring.

But as it was Saturday night in Gay Paree and even though ye olde wallet was now some £200 lighter, in order to anaesthetise myself from the shock of unloading such an amount on drink and grub, the decision was made at 1 am to drink a lot more, so off we trotted to Pigalle, home to gangsters, street walkers, drug addicts, sex shops, brothels, gambling dens and ne-er-do-wells that always pulls me in, like a bit fat moth to an even bigger, fatter and infinitely more exciting flame.

“Pigalle as a neighbourhood had the worst reputation of anywhere in Paris, and was controlled by the Corsican Mafia for almost all of the 20th Century,” chuckles Clive Hadley, who met us near Les Puce. “It’s still not that safe at 4 am but now youngsters have started going there, while many of the streetwalkers [who until quite recently covered every single corner] have disappeared and gambling has gone online. It’s become a bit like Soho in London was in the nineties.”

And, even though the area still manages to hang on to its rather sleazy façade, beneath lies an underbelly of excellent groovy bars, such as the tiny Pigalle Country Club, full of extremely stylish

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cats – a good few dandies, some fifties and forties incarnate, others sixties styled – but all grooving to a DJ playing classic funk, blues soul and Latin vinyl on couple of decks. Just up the street we saw more of the same at the lovely Le Petite Taverne, while around the corner lies the Rock ‘n’Roll Circus, which delivers insanely cheap booze and a classic rock and soul soundtrack to a hep cat crowd.

“There are plenty of these little bars all over Paris,” says Hadley. “They are not expensive and so the customers are always young, interesting and interested. I go to a bar called Le Saint Sauver in Menilmontant, not because it’s cheap, but because its still got that real Parisian bohemian feel that you don’t get elsewhere.” Menilmontant is another area worth a visit. La Feline is a little bar with a stage that features burlesque acts such as Lulu La Vamp and Lalaloo Du Bois, with DJs playing pure 50s and 60s rock ‘n’ soul with a bit of vintage US garage thrown in, while Café La Laverie is a superb bistro bar run by a couple who care, which I certainly didn’t by the time I hit the sack at 6 am.

On waking just a few hours later at nine am, we found ourselves under attack from HMS Hangover, but on stepping into the harsh sunlight the battle was ours, the buzz of Paris firing a hefty broadside into the affray, leaving us feeling footloose, fancy-free and glad to be alive.

After a fine breakfast, followed by an hour of intense libation in a nearby bar, we headed to the

Left Bank to our first destination, the absolutely splendid Musée Rodin in Rue de Varenne. The sculptures are displayed in the garden, where one can sit back, take tea and relax, while soaking up both sun and culture. Remaining on foot (it is the only way to see all the nooks and crannies of Paris) we made our way to Rue de Seine, passing the fantastic outdoor food market that provides a real insight into the Gallic identity, divorced from all the tourist hyperbole. Rue de Seine is one of many real streets that have survived in Paris with not a Gap or an Agnes B in sight. On the left lies the Hotel Louisianne, once home to Miles Davis, Billie

“We should have suspected, when the door was opened by a rotund 40-something black woman dressed in a see-through baby doll nightie holding a banana, that this was a knocking shop, but it was only when I opened the wardrobe and found three platinum wigs, a whip and a crusty set of knickers that I twigged” 155

Holiday, Charlie Parker and Jean Cocteau, while at the end of the street lies another Paris institution, Bar Palette, decorated with a variety of old artists’ palettes and a décor that must date back to the turn of the century, with a clientele that looks like it was torn from the pages of Brassai’s Paris by Night.

As keen on walking the city as we once were, we were now ‘banjaxed’; HMS Hangover was drifting sneakily back into port, Frankie Fatigue had us by the short and not even slightly curlies, and my dogs were barking up a storm. Thus I thought I’d take the weight off and plot up at The Church of St. Germain, even though I am a devout atheist.

The oldest church in Paris, it also boasts a sculpture

by Picasso of Apollinaire in its garden.

After a snooze in the rather uncomfortable pews, we drifted back to Le Crillon to collect our chattels and relocate to the rather less expensive Holiday Inn in the Bastile. An odd choice but, housed in an old hotel that I used to stay in in the nineties, is reliable, clean and well located. We then hit the Metro to take us to a true Paris institution – the Porte de Montreuil flea market, which has been held since 1860 on the Avenue du Professeur André Lemierre in the 20th arrondissement. Quite simply one of the world’s finest markets, it is full to bursting with everything from vintage toys to old light-fittings, furniture and clothes in huge piles that conceal some wonderful vintage French mufti.

Another option is the smaller and infinitely gentler

Les Puces De Vanves in the 14th Arrondisment, which runs on Saturday and Sunday mornings and is where the locals go in search of old books, old furniture, antiques and clothing made before 1960.

Then it was back on the Metro, heading west to Montmartre where the likes of Renoir, Monet, Lautrec, Modigliani and Picasso once lived. Here one realises that the Cubists basically just painted what they saw – a cacophony of roofs in grey, brown and beige (which is a tad disappointing, really). On the way, we stopped off at the 120-yearold Chartier Restaurant on Rue de Fauborg Montmartre – where the waiters in bow ties tot up one’s bill on the table cloth, and where a main course of confit de canard pommes grenailles is €10. A true Parisian institution, without which any visit to Paris is not complete.

Now a little squiffy again, we cabbed it up the hill to the magisterial cathedral of Sacre Coeur.

From its lofty heights one can look down on the whole city, from Montmartre to Montparnasse and from the Bois de Bologne to the Bois de Vincennes.

Walking down from the cathedral, we then passed through Place Montmartre, which has been entirely engulfed by the tourist trade. It does still contain such wonderful attractions as Chez La Mere Catherine – the oldest bistro in Paris, established in 1793 as an eatery for Russian Cossacks who had wandered into France after the war with Napoleon.

A damn fine restaurant, though I get a rather bad

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case of indigestion when eating in the vicinity of tourists who photograph their entire meal – even the damn cutlery – so we nipped over to La Divette de Montmartre, an odd little tourist bar with table football and pinball machines and every last inch of wall covered with stickers, bar mats and old vinyl, run by a grumpy old grey-haired owner called Serge. It was good to sit down, but even so, two hours later we were hungry again, so we mosied on over the hill to chef Laetitia Bret’s Michelin-starred ‘vintage’ bistrot Restaurant L’Esquisse. Even though it’s a no-frills affair with zinc chairs and bare wooden tables and benches, it is known by locals as the best bistrot in Paris, serving you modern French cuisine the likes of which I have never encountered before. I started with cockle salad with lemongrass, mango and avocado, followed by trout fillet, pickled peppers and orange ice cream with white chocolate/white pepper, finishing off with raspberry pavlova with strawberries and orange blossom, all washed down with an incredible house red – all for about €60 a head, including service.

But Paris also fields some of the finest ethnic restaurants that this not-so-young scribe has ever encountered. Krung Thep in Belleville serves Thai food that is the best in Europe and worth a trip to Paris in itself. For Moroccan you will have a hard job topping Le Souk in The Bastille, whose fare provides a luscious assault on the senses that will knock you into touch.

For yours truly, any trip to Paris is not complete without a bowl of onion soup, a dish that only Parisians can do properly. So the next day (after a pronounced kip) I went to Aux Pied de Cochon in Chatelet, which since 1947 has rarely closed, day or night. This fave haunt of Josephine Baker, Serge Gainsbourg, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Paul Belmondo is a beautiful space, while the food is pure Paris and the soup festooned with enough cheese to make your spoon stand up on its own. Walking from Chatelet to Les Halles, I was struck by the sheer volume of quirky little stores. You might expect the centre of Paris to be bereft of any retail quirkiness, but here one might discuss the merits of a 1930s train set with a man who has spent his whole life considering such, or haggle over a clay tobacco pipe with a septuagenarian who lives for her store, then rest in a café not called Costa or Starbucks next to a cobblers, a fishmongers and a button store, all of whom occupy prime real estate. London it is not.

Indeed, unlike London, Paris and its citizens have an inexhaustible passion to preserve their history

by a rather strict code entirely absent in the UK – planning laws are some of the toughest in the world; local authorities set caps on how much landlords, both commercial and domestic, can charge, avoiding the hideous feeding frenzy that London now suffers, as rapacious landlords and foreign investors tear down our heritage to build luxury flats. Many of the little shops that made London what it was have been forced out of business by rates that are linked to rents; many of the city’s young creatives are forced to leave the city, as they can’t afford the rents, leaving a conurbation that is rapidly losing its soul.

We’ve all seen developers and property magnates turn our cities into enlarged homogenized shopping malls, ripping the guts out of London and New York by tearing down the familiar and the beautiful in favour of nondescript, multinational store fronts. This hasn’t happened in Paris, and you can smell the city’s vibrancy and history as soon as you hit the street. The French capital overflows with individuality and a very pronounced joie de vivre. Parisians have realised that a real city has diversity and colour that is never a consequence of bending over for foreign investment companies, and is achieved simply by being itself, reflected both in citizens and establishments.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

I think we have to applaud Paris for just that. n

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Paris Guide SLEEP

DRINK

Hotel du 7e Art Small budget hotel dedicated to vintage Hollywood film in Le Marais. £90 a room. www.paris-hotel-7art.com

La Chope du Chateau Rouge 40 Rue de Clignancourt 75018

Pavillon de Montmartre Clean, decent rooms 10 mins from Sacre Coeur. £75 a room including breakfast.

Le Crillon The perfect location on Place de la Concorde, this is one of the world’s great hotels. www.rosewoodhotels.com Holiday Inn Gare de l’Est Good location, crazy interior. £90 a double room if booked last minute. www.holidayinn.com Hotel de St. Germain Excellent location, average £100 per night.

Pigalle Country Club 59 Rue Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Paris 75009 Open 6 pm till 2 am daily Le Petite Taverne 3 Rue de la Huchette, 75005 Open 6pm-2am daily Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus 5 Rue André Antoine, 75018 6pm-2am daily Chez Camile 8 Rue Ravignan, 75018 12pm-2am daily La Feline 6 Rue Victor Letalle, 75020 Tues-Sat 12pm-2am La Divette de Montmartre 136 Rue Marcadet, 75018

EAT Chez Louisette 136 Avenue Michelet, Clignancourt, Saint Ouen 93400 Krung Thep 61 Rue de Belleville, 75019 Chartier 7 Rue de Fauborg Montmartre 75009 Open every day from 11:30 am to midnight (doesn’t take reservations) Le Souk 1 Rue Keller, Paris 75011 Restaurant L’Esquisse 151 bis, rue Marcadet Paris 75018 Pied de Cochon 6 Rue Coquillière, Paris 75001 24 hours/seven days a week

Café La Laverie 1 Rue Sorbier, angle 70, Rue de Ménilmontant, 75020

LOOK/BUY Les Puces De Vanves 14 Avenue Georges Lafenestre, 75014 Les Puces de Montreuil Avenue du Professeur André Lemierre 75020 Marché Aux Puces de Paris 10 rue Marie Curie, Saint-Ouen Église de St. Germain-des-Pres 3 Place Saint-Germain des Prés 75006 Musée Rodin 77 Rue de Varenne 75007

The Chap Dines

KASPARS AT THE SAVOY Reviewed by Gustav Temple www.thesavoylondon.com

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here does one go for lunch to mark that fateful descent from one’s early fifties to one’s mid-fifties? Wouldn’t it be tragic to choose some achingly hip joint in Shoreditch, Portland or Berlin, where the menu, mostly consisting of kimchi, is printed in braille on a rusty vintage advertising sign?

The venue for such an occasion would have to be old, stylish and with décor unchanged since the 1930s, but still spruce – much like the birthday boy. An establishment where the menu is unpretentiously classic (without a twist), printed on quality vellum in legible-sized print. Ideally situated on a metropolitan street that retains an old-world charm and not too many McDonalds.

That place, my friends, is the Savoy, Strand, London. Specifically Kaspars Seafood Restaurant.

Do not be misled by the name; the crustaceans at

Kaspars are adequately accompanied by plenty of species that once roamed the land, presided over by Kaspar the Cat. This Art Deco sculpture was created in 1927 to take his place at tables of 13 guests, after the unfortunate incident of 1898, when diamond magnate Joel Woolf found his dining party of 14 at the Savoy reduced by one.

His cavalier disregard of superstition proved fatal – he was murdered two weeks later in Johannesburg.

Ever since then, Kaspar the Cat has been offered as the ersatz 14th guest to any table of 13.

Today there was no need for a 14th guest at our table for two. My dining companion was not an unsuperstitious diamond magnate, but nightclub impresario, style writer and fashion lecturer Chris Sullivan. Our similar vintage made conversation over the menus somewhat inevitable – a discussion of which foods and drinks

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caused each of us the most heartburn. We reached our respective selections via a process of elimination, with the happy result that Chris remained on dry land with steak and red wine, while I plunged recklessly into Kaspars’ impressive seafood selection.

Chris chose a Hereford Rib-eye steak with béarnaise sauce, accompanied by a Louis Latour Cotes de Beaune-Villages, while I chose a Domaine Cordier Pouilly Fusse to wash down a whole grilled Isle of Skye lobster. To commence proceedings, at least one of had to have champagne, and only one of us was intolerant of effervescent drinks (though curiously Chris requested sparkling water). And the only starter to have with champagne in a seafood restaurant is of course oysters. Win-win, I felt, on that score. Nevertheless, Chris got his taste of the sea in the form of an excellent bisque with espelette and fresh lobster.

Once the half dozen Jersey Rock oysters and lobster bisque arrived, there followed a discussion, which admittedly lasted a little too long, about which drinks cannot be taken with oysters. Various sommeliers solemnly joined us to impart their wisdom, until a chap at a neighbouring table piped up, clearly bored of the whole topic: “It’s vodka. It pickles the oysters inside you and makes you sick.”

Satisfied that we were in a room full of experts, we commenced our repast.

The room of Kaspars is something like you’d

imagine a bar on the Titanic. An Art deco colour scheme of turquoise, silver and gold, dotted with potted palms, blots out the grey vista of the Thames outside. One could easily imagine Bertie Wooster and chums hurling bread rolls at each other in such an establishment, though the new décor was installed as recently as 2010, during a three-year refurbishment of the Savoy. The bottleblonde Russian pianist tinkling out Candle in the Wind was the only reminder that we were in the less raucous 21st century.

We ordered side dishes, including some excellent chive and truffle mash, but really, is there any meal more complete for two men in their mid-fifties than a fine cut of Hereford beef and a whole lobster? When it came to pudding (what man of any age does not want pudding?) we were pleased to see that the peach melba created in the late 19th century by Escoffier for opera singer Dame Nellie Melba still graces the menu, though since neither of us is an opera singer we plumped for the puddings more fit for our stations: Chocolate Fondant and Sticky Toffee Pudding.

Kaspars has done an excellent job of reinvigorating a legendary restaurant, by providing food whose classic simplicity doesn’t require too much attention, staff who are courteous without being obsequious, and décor that made the unappetizing task of turning 54 into a thoroughly pleasant experience. n

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Peter Gosbee and John Minns take a pause from their antique rummaging to sample the perfectly legal delights of smoking their pipes indoors at C&S Chamberlen Tobacconists

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he 1st of July 2007 is a date that should have left an indelible mark etched into the very core and sinew of your being, as it was on that fateful day the smoking ban in the United Kingdom came into play.

Overnight, smoking went from being sacrosanct to unclean. Only a spell in one of HM’s splendid prisons remained as a sanctuary to indulge in this suddenly outlawed practice. So, imagine our surprise when we stumbled across premises that allowed us to smoke, and positively encouraged us to do so, without the need to slop out, eat porridge or wear a stripy jacket.

May we, therefore, draw your attention to Christopher Chamberlen’s splendid tobacconist shop in Hastings, East Sussex.

As one perambulates along George Street, Hastings, a blue, welcoming bouquet appears and you detect the old enamel signs that signal you have reached a cornucopia of all things combustible.

We become enveloped by the sublime smoke at the entrance, then a mirage-like image appears: a tobacconist’s shop with a window display that would have settled comfortably within any Dickens novel. Upon entering this fumatory paradise, the distinctive perfume of cured tobacco permeates the air, each blend jostling for nasal attention. Display cases are resplendent with every shade and texture of beautiful briar, and the counter is liberally supplied with cut-glass ashtrays offering their deep embrace for your noble ash.

Awaiting us behind the mahogany counter is the proprietor, Mr. C. Chamberlen, a man as characterful and enchanting as his establishment. At the tender age of 13, Mr. Chamberlen found himself on the Isle of Wight, drawn to a distinctive, colourful, century-old tobacconist run by one Joe Siggins. Seeing his young admirer’s passion, Mr. Siggins made him a gift of several counter-top advertising boards (which are still in Mr. Chamberlen’s possession). Mr. Siggins had unknowingly handed over the precious mantle of passion, beginning Chamberlen’s long and driven career in the specialist tobacco trade.

It is quite easy to see that a passion for tobacconalia rules supreme in this realm. Rows of fragrant cigars are lined up, awaiting the moment they are specially selected by wise fingers. Sleek modern pipes bristle next to regal Victorian meerschaums; a whole case of estate pipes (vintage pipes, moderately smoked, restored to grandeur) offers a wealth of shapes, styles and prices to fit every pocket.

Due the nature of this shop, one is able to test specialist tobaccos on the premises legally. Feeling slightly like naughty schoolboys behind the bike sheds, a fine blend is produced from a selection of jars and we get stuck right in. Plumes of mellow smoke gift the air with their aromatic twang, and the world stands still. Mr. Chamberlen informs us that many chaps frequent his shop and “are very polite, loyal customers” (as we would expect). In this shop you can discover the style of pipe that would have been regularly seen in 1932, which shape of cigar was de rigueur in the 1950s and what colour match heads

would have been in the Victorian era. After years in this most interesting trade, our host has experienced many an odd occurrence.

“A gentleman from London rang and said he had purchased over 100 Cohiba cigars from registered cigar merchants in Cuba. We arranged a meeting and I got together over a thousand pounds ready for him. Upon opening the boxes, however, instead of high quality cigars, we discovered nothing but rolled banana leaves!”

“Another chap bought himself a rather nice jet lighter but didn’t understand the mechanism. He returned to the shop and enquired if he could return the lighter – for one you didn’t have to flip the top, because he had set his suit on fire! About an hour after he had purchased the second lighter, he accidentally set it off while walking home, which resulted in him burning off his entire jacket pocket.”

As is apparent from the constant comings and goings by members of the public, it is not just aesthetic and product which keeps an establishment such as this going. Welcoming and insightful service from the very moment of entry engages the individual, in a way seldom seen in this world of automated checkouts and online purchases. Many customers are known by name and pop in for a daily catch-up. There seems to be real sincerity and community emanating from this venue, nourished by face-to-face interaction and care from both sides of the counter.

With our pockets stuffed with neat little pouches of fresh tobacco, we drifted out of the front door of C&S Chamberlen on perfumed clouds.

C&S Chamberlen, The Tobacconist & Cigar Merchant, 15 George Street, Hastings, TN34 3EG

THE FLUMMOXER From a corner of his shop, Mr. Chamberlen unveiled what will be our flummoxer for this special centenary edition.

Solid bronze lips grasp at a vestal protuberance... but what is it for?

Send your answers to chap@thechap.co.uk

Dr Phil Collier correctly identified last issue’s Flummoxer as a champagne tap or champagne screw, for which he wins a pair of Fox Cufflinks.

Future Fashion

APOCALYPSE CHIC Chap reporter Darcy Sullivan and shutterbug Clayton Hartley discover what we’ll be wearing in the post-Brexit, post-Trump wasteland

“What we found was a chilling portent of tribal sects battling for Earth’s dwindling resources: water, glutenfree Oreos and buttons. Most survivors will be women – men will be kept in luxurious breeding pens, prized for their headwear and letter-writing abilities”

F

or 100 issues, The Chap has been the thinking person’s style guide, exploring exciting new fashion trends such as day cravats, co-respondent shoes and monocles. Now it is time to look forward to the next 100 issues, and preview what we’ll be wearing in a future that looks increasingly bleak. As hackers raid our bank accounts, politicians stoke reactionary nationalism, global warming floods our coasts and Love Island becomes a suicide watch, it is quite clear that we are heading for the apocalypse.

Most of today’s designers, tailors and style mavens have yet to wrap their minds around the inevitable Thunderdome scenario. So I, together with my valet/photographer Clayton Hartley, braved the fashion-forward LondonEdge trade

show, to see what the future will look like. (You can tell it’s the future because they stuck the words ‘London’ and ‘Edge’ together.)

What we found was a chilling portent of tribal sects, battling for Earth’s dwindling resources: water, gluten-free Oreos and buttons.

The two main factions appeared to be goth-like warriors and 1950s-inspired glamazons (though retro brand and main sponsor Collectif may have had something to do with that). We learned that most survivors will be women – men will be kept in luxurious breeding pens and prized for their headwear and letter-writing abilities (This is not confirmed; I’m just putting it out there).

And so, dear reader, join us on this photojourney into the mad world of tomorrow. It may be the last fashion advice you ever receive.

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2 1 (Previous page) This piece in Megan Crook’s collection exemplifies the hot look for A/W 2021: WWA (Womblez with Attitude). We both got one.

2 Fun fact: Most of today’s zombies are vegan, to preserve their figures. Kudos to makeup artist Jassi Lall for simulating the supermodel of the future.

3 Got a frantic journey through an abandoned Tube line overrun with mutants, walking dead or Ballers fans? Keep the horrors at bay with this stylish and functional backpack from Mad Pax. Bonus: it can hold an entire defensive arsenal of flare guns and Lynx.

4 Jaw blown off by the Customs Union Death Squads? No problemo, monsieur.

Zoastra (not her real name, probably – I was too scared to ask) is modelling a playful blend of #iamanastywoman and folk horror.

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6 Cowls will stage a comeback, as they offer comfort and protection from ID Drones and toxic masculinity, which in coming years will coalesce into a radioactive cloud.

7 Soon our sun will be reduced to a pale green light that recedes year after year, like a lost dream we can never reach. You know what that means: it’s Gatsby time!

8 The stylists at LondonEdge embodied the three little words every woman yearns to hear: Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

9 10 One of these is Mr. Hartley trying on a hat.

The other is a cybernetic mandroid created by the Tyrell Corporation solely to satisfy the pleasures of the women of the future. The mandroid is also trying on a hat.

11 (Overleaf) Our minds reeling from the dystopian partywear, we were on the verge of breakdown when we spotted an oasis: High-waisted trousers, silk waistcoats, spearpoint-collar shirts – were we hallucinating from the Soylent Green smoothies we had for tea? No, we had discovered On the Sunny Side, a vintage-style menswear outfit run by Sunny van Zijst. The fuschia-tressed Netherlander explained that she designs her own clothes with a 1930s/40s feel, often using end-of-line fabric stocks to keep prices down.

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“It’s hard for men to find well-fitting vintage wear,” Sunny said, “especially in places like Scandinavia, where people are taller and have longer legs. After World War II, people really wore their clothes to rags, and what pieces are left over are usually in small sizes.”

Van Zijst’s stall attracted a lot of attention at LondonEdge. Perhaps – just perhaps – the future might not be a fantastical nightmare of radioactive ne’er-do-wells and man-made fibres. After all, where there are tweed knickerbockers, there is hope. n

“As hackers raid our bank accounts, politicians stoke reactionary nationalism, global warming floods our coasts and Love Island becomes a suicide watch, it’s clear we are heading for the apocalypse” 169

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