The Chap Issue 110 by thechap

ISSUE 110

WINTER 2021

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

Jason Watkins “When you wear clothes you make statements. If you choose not to make an effort, that in itself is a statement. I think you should express your personality in what you wear”

JEREMY HACKETT

The brand’s founder reveals his sartorial coda

AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHT COCKTAILS Phileas Fogg’s global voyage via a swizzle stick

SWASHBUCKLING BOUNDERS The real pirates of the Caribbean 10>

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ISSUE 110

£6.99

A SUIT FOR E V ERY OCC A SION. EXPLORE THE COLLECTION AT

C AVA N I . C O . U K

John Hepburn commences leather tanning in Bermondsey

Samuel Barrow & Brother is formed

Hepburn & Gale merges with Ross & Co

Make and supply saddles, belts and cases to officers and soldiers during the Great War

Hepburn & Gale merges with Samuel Barrow & Brother to become Barrow, Hepburn & Gale

Continue to make and supply official government Dispatch Boxes, notably for Churchill as Secretary of State

Major contribution to the war effort, notably “L” Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade

HRH Princess Elizabeth proclaimed Queen Elizabeth II and officially photographed with her Dispatch Boxes

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Proper Chaps Carry Proper Bags. Proper Bags From Barrow Hepburn & Gale. ‘Barrow, Hepburn & Gale have been making travel goods for generations, and although fashions are constantly on the change, their quality has always been superlative. They are supplied not only to the home market, but the whole world, for the good reason that British craftsmanship in this class of goods has always been admired. At a time when a flourishing export trade is absolutely essential to the country’s survival, no manufacturer can do his country a better service than to produce goods so well made and designed that they may properly be called ambassadors of goodwill.’ Everything In Leather – The Story Of Barrow Hepburn & Gale, published in 1948.

thechap@barrowhepburngale.com | barrowhepburngale.com |

@barrowhepburngale

Editor: Gustav Temple Picture Editor: Theo Salter Circulation Manager: Andy Perry

Art Director: Rachel Barker Sub-Editor: Romilly Clark Subscriptions Manager: Jen Rainnie

Contributing Editors: Chris Sullivan, Liam Jefferies, Alexander Larman

GUSTAV TEMPLE

LIAM JEFFERIES

CHRIS SULLIVAN

ALEXANDER LARMAN

DAVID EVANS

The editor of The Chap for the last 20 years is also the author of The Chap Manifesto, The Chap Almanac, Around the World in 80 Martinis (Fourth Estate), Cooking For Chaps and Drinking For Chaps (Kyle Books) and How To Be Chap (Gestalten). He is currently working on a book without ‘Chap’ in the title.

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. @cjp_sullivan

Alexander Larman is The Chap’s Literary Editor. When neither poncing nor pandering for a living, he amuses himself by writing biographies of great men (Blazing Star) and greater women (Byron’s Women). His book about Edward VIII’s abdication,The Crown in Crisis, was published last year. @alexlarman

David Evans is a former lawyer and teacher who founded popular sartorial blog Grey Fox Blog nine 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. @greyfoxblog

ALF ALDERSON

DARCY SULLIVAN Darcy Sullivan writes about artists, aesthetes and algorithms. His articles have appeared in The Comics Journal, The Wildean and Weird Fiction Review. He is press officer of the Oscar Wilde Society and curator of the Facebook pages ‘The Pictures of Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Arkham Hillbilly’.

JEAN-EMMANUEL DELUXE

JOHN MINNS

Alf Alderson is an awardwinning adventure travel writer whose work appears regularly in the world’s leading newspapers, magazines and websites. He has also written and contributed to a wide variety of guidebooks on adventure travel, skiing, surfing, cycling, hiking, mountain biking and camping.

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

John Minns has been a collector, buyer and seller Jean-Emmanuel is a French writer, music impresario and DJ. of antiques and collectables from the age of nine, when Born in Rouen, he studied in he first immersed himself Sheffield, where an association in the antique world by with Pulp led to him setting up foraging London antique his own record label in France. markets in the morning He brought the music of April March to the attention of French before school, then selling his finds to his eager school audiences and then to Quentin pals. His passion is still as Tarantino. He is the author of strong today. Ye-Ye Girls of French Pop.

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

Subscriptions 01442 820 580 contact@webscribe.co.uk

NICOLE DRYSDALE Nicole is a self-taught home cook who has been working as a freelance recipe developer and food stylist for the past 10 years. She will be sharing recipes culled from her grandmother’s recipe notebooks. She is also a member of a ladies’ cricket team and is learning to play the double bass. One day she hopes to have a pet ferret which she will call Mrs Washington. @nicolethechap

Email chap@thechap.co.uk Website www.thechap.co.uk Twitter @TheChapMag Instagram @TheChapMag Facebook/TheChapMagazine

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

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.

CONTENTS 8 AM I CHAP?

Readers submit their photographs for the ultimate sartorial assessment

12 GLOBAL EXPLORATION

Torquil Arbuthnot explores the various approaches one may take to the adventure of exploration

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.

16 ASK THE CHAP

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

32 P IRATES

‘Wisbeach’ ponders queries from readers on matters sartorial

FEATURES 22 INTERVIEW: JASON WATKINS

Gustav Temple meets the actor whose wide range of roles has included forensic pathologists, serial killer biographers and editors of national newspapers

hris Sullivan on the men and women who plundered the Spanish fleet off the C coast of the West Indies in the 17th century and founded a society based on a surprisingly egalitarian code of conduct

•

WINTER 2021

22 SARTORIAL FEATURES 44 JEREMY HACKETT

Gustav Temple meets the man who founded the Hackett brand in the eighties and has since turned it into a global powerhouse of classic English style

106 COOKING FOR CHAPS

Nicole Drysdale persuades us that salads are not just for summer

110 T RAVEL

Chris Sullivan takes an extended passeggiata from Milan along the Italian Riviera

61 THE CHAP WATCH

120 M OTORING

62 S KI WEAR

REVIEWS

A collaboration with the Camden Watch Company has yielded a stunning new timepiece Alf Alderson on the range of clothing visible on the slopes, from the sublime to the ridiculous

70 R OBINSON’S SHOES

On a chance visit during a sojourn in Belfast, Nat Bocking found himself in the hands of a man who truly seemed to know what shoes he needed

76 GREY FOX COLUMN

David Evans dusts off his winter woollens and visits the Campaign For Wool to find out why wool is the most versatile material of all

LONGER FEATURES 82 LINDSAY DUNCAN

Gustav Temple meets the actress to discuss her part as Jane Digby in Around the World in 80 Days and working with Alan Rickman on Noel Coward’s Private Lives

90 JULES VERNE

Olivier Woodes-Farquharson worships at the shrine of one of the most influential authors of the 19th Century, whose legacy continues to shape both adventure writing and scientific innovation to this day

100 A ROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHT COCKTAILS

We track Phileas Fogg’s global circumnavigation via a cocktail from each of the cities he visits

Our new automotive column by Actuarius looks at the history of Brooklands Motor Circuit and the Napier Railton

128 A NNE SEBBA

Alexander Larman meets the biographer, journalist and historian to discuss Winston Churchill, Russian spies and Mrs Simpson

134 BOOK REVIEWS

New books Ghosts of the West, Widowland and The Secret Royals

138 ART

Liam Jefferies meets Craig Simpson, dapper dauber of paintings rooted in the jazz age

144 FIFI CHACHNIL

Our French correspondent meets the Parisian maker of saucy lingerie with a strong seam of Anglophilia

151 WILDE WIT

An invitation to enter a competition to try and match the wit of Oscar Wilde

152 FILM: LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

Gustav Temple reviews the new sixties-set thriller by Edgar Wright

157 ANTIQUES

John Minns on the acquisition and collection of antique stamps

162 CROSSWORD

Cover photo: Joe Alblas

ISSUE 110

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

Terence Smith (real name Terence Smith) donned his brand-new Chap Cravat, got on bended knee and requested the hand of Miss Alexandra Crabbe in the grounds of Castle Howard, location of the original television series of Brideshead Revisited. And how did our valiant chap fare at the feet of his beloved? “The young lady in question,” quoth Terence, “wilted at the Chappish onslaught, cufflinks, star lapel badge and of course the killer cravat, so how could she refuse?” The Chap is delighted that our cravats, as well as turning any plain cove into a dashing bounder, also yield results of the above magnitude, and we wish the happy couple a splendid union, whensoever it should take place.

“Dear Sir,” writes Hoptimus Prime, “I am pictured sitting in the vaults of the old headquarters of the Midland Bank. I can only afford tap water in this rather expensive establishment and so should greatly appreciate Chap status to make up for my enforced sobriety.” Sir, on the latter point, you may rest assured. On the former, however, we are wondering how much tap water you ordered, as it appears that the entire room has been filled with the stuff.

“Here’s a recent shot taken at a wedding,” writes Bernard Shapiro, “scruffy though I may be due to enforced Covid lockdowns. It’s 35 degrees, hence the Bombay bowler and the unbuttoned collar. I’ve been given a vapour stick because I’m damned well not permitted to smoke my pipe in the grounds, and the wedding photographer is sticking his lens up my nose so often I’m about to throttle him. The shutterbug keeps hearing the words “I AM bleeding well smiling.” Sir, it sounds like a delightful wedding. When a chap wearing a pin-striped suit, tie and pith helmet describes himself as ‘scruffy’, at least the staff on the editorial board here were smiling.

“This plate photograph was taken on a recent visit to Salford art gallery and museum,” writes Paul Eckersley. “The suit is a three-piece Barleycorn tweed suit Cordings of Piccadilly, the shirt from Revival vintage and, whilst not visible, button braces from Darcy. Brown boots. The Albert chain and fob are stamped for Birmingham 1888 and of course, there is a watch at the end of it. I have always struggled somewhat when it comes to keeping my tache under any degree of control. At times it resembles a yard brush and at others a little bit like ‘whacko’ Jimmy Edwards, although Debonair helps to prevent it acting as a soup strainer.” Sir, there was a time when museums exhibited interesting items with a sign explaining what they were. Nowadays we get ‘M is for Miniature, Moustache, Mondays’. M, however, also stands for Marvellous, Moustachioed, Man.

“Further to the ‘Was I A Chap’ section in your latest sumptuous edition,” writes William Walker (a chap from Leeds), “I was prompted to submit, for your discerning dissection and probable ridicule, an image of Mr. Nelson Wallace (on the left) and my humble self, William Walker (on the other side).” Sir, how could you have known that we would be devoting large portions of this edition to Around the World in 80 Days? Quite uncanny, sir. Your Passepartout looks like a suitably inscrutable gentleman’s gentleman, although you might want a word with him about donning tweeds for indoor work purposes.

“Here is a photo taken at East Somerset steam Railway at the 1940s weekend,” writes Steve Jenkins. “Do I classify as a Chap and pass all the requirements to be a Chap?” Well now, sir, that is an almost impossible question to answer. There is no actual printed list of ‘all the requirements to be a Chap’; one simply knows a Chap when one meets one. It may take a cocktail or two and some light badinage to get the full picture. However, suffice it to say that a man wearing vintage tweed knickerbockers, a spearpoint collared shirt, Madras tie and fair-isle sweater, while balancing a birdcage on his head, is unlikely to be anything else but a Chap.

John Stoten sent us three photographs of himself clad in various garments, with facial variants indicating that they were taken some time apart, all taken in establishments in which refreshments are offered, as well as hand sanitizer. If Mr. Stoten only has the three Chappish outfits pictured, then he has some sartorial work to do. If, however, this is but a fragment of his wardrobe, The Chap says keep spreading the good word, sir, and perhaps don the pinstripe ensemble a little more often than the other two.

Arbuthnot

A Chap’s Guide to Explorers Torquil Arbuthnot explores the various approaches one may take to the adventure of exploration

ost chaps when venturing abroad do so for the purposes of leisure or to escape creditors. Their days are spent not lounging on the beach in ‘swimwear’ but in propping up the cocktail bar of the Hotel Splendiferoso or at the chemmy tables in dear old Monte. Some chaps, however, are of a

more adventurous, nay foolhardy nature, and toddle off to foreign climes in a spirit of exploration and discovery. The reasons why fellows strike off into the unknown with a machete and prismatic compass are multifarious, but the most common types of explorer are described on the following pages.

The Gimmicky

The Foolhardy

A sudden rush of blood to the head, or one whisky too many, will convince some chaps that circumnavigating the world on a unicycle while dressed as a penguin is a top-hole idea. Usually a good night’s sleep will put this idea to rest, but occasionally the folly will persist. One comes across such solitary people on one’s travels, traversing the Gobi Desert on a space hopper or visiting all the world’s countries that end with the letter N. Whether they are self-consciously ‘wacky’ students or simply barking mad, it is usually best to avoid them. If they are merely eccentric, they may be worth passing the time of day with, and the encounter will make an amusing chapter in one’s travel memoir. Fortunately for the gimmicky traveller, the locals are taught at an early age that all Englishmen are mad and therefore they are afforded patience and hospitality by the average Mexican peón or Siberian moujik. If lucky, the gimmicky traveller will appear in a brief paragraph of his local newspaper and, if unlucky, in its obituaries column.

It is as a red rag to a bull to tell the foolhardy explorer that no-one has ever crossed a certain desert or scaled a particular peak and lived to tell the tale. The reckless explorer will take such statements as a challenge and as an affront to his red-blooded English manhood, and will bound off undaunted like an overexcited puppy. The foolhardy explorer is to be admired for his pluck and sheer bloody-mindedness. Often he will set out on his expedition woefully unprepared – attempting to climb a mountain in plimsolls with a stepladder, for example, or crossing the Pacific in a boat made from empty tobacco tins. Occasionally this type of explorer does make it through (Thesiger crossing the Empty Quarter of Arabia, for example, or Heyerdahl stepping off the Kon-Tiki en to the beach of the Raroia atoll), but this is rare. More often the solitary traveller (for no one in their right mind will accompany them) is last seen in a leaky canoe off the coast of Togo, or as a tiny dot through the telescope, clambering slowly up the notorious Thanatos Ridge of Mamostong Kangri.

The Avaricious

The Scientifical

The avaricious traveller will set forth, not with dreams of noble exploration, but with the purpose of replenishing his wallet. An avid reader of Rider Haggard and Jules Verne, he will set off on expeditions to discover the ‘lost’ something or other. This quest may involve nothing more tiring than ambling into the foothills of the Arizona desert with a pickaxe over his shoulder to find the Lost Dutchman Mine. There are grizzled prospectors in the saloons of the Americas who will sell one a map of such lost mines for the price of a drink. Occasionally, however, the avaricious explorer will set his sights higher and set off to discover the fabled city of El Dorado or the hidden treasure of the Knights Templar. As a sideline he will attempt to purchase land. With a bit of hard bargaining, a large chunk of Uzbekistan can be bought from a local warlord for an assortment of costume jewellery, some clockwork mice and Charlotte Rampling’s telephone number. After several exhausting months in the Amazon jungle or the Nama Karoo desert, he will emerge in ragged clothes, not with gold and jewels, but with an array of life-threatening tropical diseases and insect bites.

The scientifical explorer is usually the bestequipped, being supported by the Royal Society of Thingummies and sponsored by various multinational corporations. His expedition will consist of hundreds of native bearers and pack animals, carrying not only microscopes and butterfly nets but also enough chairs and tables to furnish a large house in the Shropshire borders. The aim of the expedition is usually to discover something geographical or medicinal, be it the source of the Limpopo, the highest peak in Antarctica or a cure for Green Monkey Disease. Although well-kitted out, the expedition will not be without its dangers, as local chieftains will look askance at columns of palanquin-borne scientists traipsing through their back gardens. They may well take umbrage and the explorer will be lucky to avoid being dropped into the Sacred Volcano. Upon returning successfully to London, however, the scientifical explorer will be knighted, have a mountain range named after him, and spend the rest of his days contentedly cataloguing his vast collection of Madagascan dung beetles.

The Bloodthirsty

The Missionary

This explorer’s only aim is to slaughter as many of God’s creatures as he can, whether ‘for the pot’ or to stuff, mount and display in the ancestral home. He carries with him a well-thumbed copy of the I-Spy Book of Endangered Species, which he carefully ticks off every time he bags one. He gives the animals a sporting chance by letting them charge bellowing at him before he despatches them with a dum-dum from his Martini-Henry. Of private means, his safaris will be well-victualled, with many of his expedition’s pack-mules carrying cases of gin and jars of Gentleman’s Relish. If he runs low on supplies, Fortnum and Mason can deliver via parachute drop. He will be traditionally attired in a poplin safari suit replete with multiple cartridge loops, sola topi with leopardskin hatband, veldtschoen from Abercrombie & Fitch, and a tobacco pouch made from a baboon’s scrotum. Occasionally he will be hired to kill a notorious man-eating tiger or lion that is eating all the local railway company’s employees. He will die a noble death, gored by a Cape Buffalo, trampled by an enraged scimitar oryx, or falling off a bar stool at the Muthaiga Club.

The missionary explorer used to be a religious maniac who made a nuisance of himself failing to convert the heathens to Christianity. Nowadays, the missionary traveller is just as tiresome but more likely to be an environmental zealot or rabid vegan, hectoring the Kalahari Bushmen to use fair-trade coffee in their macchiatos and not to eat sausages. They try to ingratiate themselves with the local populace by wearing native garb but end up looking like the lead in the Penge Amateur Dramatics Society’s production of Ali Baba. The locals will tolerate these explorers for as long as they prove useful (as sources of televisual programmes on their laptops, for instance) but once they have seen 93 episodes of Grand Designs, the missionary will be ceremonially sacrificed by being chiffonaded with a tomahawk and thrown to the hyenas. The canny chap will equip himself with a magician’s set from Hamleys and an astrological almanac. A few simple conjuring tricks and the ability to predict eclipses of the sun will result in the explorer being declared a god, and he can see out the rest of his days in a hammock being fed slices of pawpaw by adoring handmaidens. n

the Chap... By Wisbeach

An advice column in which readers are invited to pose pertinent questions on sartorial and etiquette matters, and even those of a romantic nature. Send your questions to wisbeach@thechap.co.uk

Mike George: I am writing to ask your advice, since it will soon be the birthday of a lady friend. What would be suitable as a gift? I don’t want to be too charming, as I need to remain a bit of the cad in this field. Wisbeach: Sir, it was a tradition among Chinese emperors of the Ming Dynasty to select gifts for important dignitaries that only they could give. This tradition was reciprocated much later by the British, with the aim of impressing the Emperor and presenting Britain as scientifically advanced. One such example was a mechanical model of the solar system, known as an orrery, illustrating the relative positions of the planets to the Earth. When this gift was given to the Emperor in 1793 it was worth around £14,000, over one million in today’s money. The ultimate aim of giving such a valuable and unique gift was to pave the way for favourable trade negotiations for the British in China and to place a permanent British ambassador there.

I suggest, sir, that you take a similar approach with your lady friend, by gifting her an item that only you could provide. A hand-carved netsuke, for example, or a toothbrush mug made from old bottle tops. If you get it right, you may be in a position to place a permanent ambassador in her heart.

... William Walker: I am wrestling with a bit of a conundrum, and seek your expertise. Regarding matters of the heart, is it ever acceptable to offer a lady a pearl necklace?

1940s/50s REPRODUCTION CLOTHING

Wisbeach: Sir, I refer to my reply to the correspondent above. If the pearl necklace is one that only you can provide, it will likely be warmly received.

...

Pelham ‘Pinkie’ Gristle: I am writing on behalf of my uncle, Montague ‘Chaps’ Gristle. He has asked me to thank you for publishing four of his ‘epistles’ in issue 109 of your journal – or is it magazine? On your advice, I’ve started Bartitsu classes at the Cheam Academy of Physical

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query is that Raffish eau de Cologne is indeed suitable for gentlemen of any age. It is not named after the European sportsman you mention, but after Ursquine ‘Raffish’ Leadbetter, our Monte Carlo correspondent. The other gamblers in the chemin de fer rooms know that when they smell the scent of Raffish, it is time go and lock up their grandmother’s jewellery case.

...

Peter O’Connor: Are you familiar with semi-rimmed red-gold eyeframes innovated by Essel, later Essilor, named Nylor due to nylon thread in the eyeglass groove securing the part of glass without frame, later imitated by Cutler & Gross as 0422 or 0267, in silver? Wisbeach: No sir, I must admit I am not. Why, have you left a pair in our cloakroom? n

Excellence. They’re jolly good fun, and I’m throwing some great shapes! Uncle Monty says that now you have bestowed him with a suitable appendage he can commence a new career as a man of letters. My uncle is currently “winding up his affairs”, prior to leaving his Sanatorium and crossing the Hindu Kush. You may not be aware, but uncle Monty is the founder of Gristle’s Potted Shrimps. They are unavailable in the UK, as the President of Burkina Faso (Roch Marc Christian Kabore) has the exclusive import rights to these Morecambe Bay delicacies. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is your aftershave suitable for teenagers, as well as chaps? And is it named after the Spanish tennis player, Raffish Nadal? Wisbeach: Ah, Pinkie (if one may), so glad we could be of assistance to dear uncle Monty, and indeed his strapping nephew. The answer to your

Photo: Joe Alblas

Features •

Interview: Jason Watkins (p22) 21 the Caribbean The True Pirates of

(p32)

Interview

JA SO N W A TK I N S Gustav Temple meets the actor whose wide range of roles has included forensic pathologists, serial killer biographers, editors of national newspapers and nearly the landlord of a house full of louche chaps

thing. The Mike Leigh thing came along and I’d always enjoyed improvising at drama school. The thing about Mike is that he draws on real people for his characters, then puts them on the screen and fits them into the story. I’ve always enjoyed observing

ou may not recall this, but way back in the early 2000s you auditioned for a part in a sitcom we were developing with French & Saunders. You were to play the louche landlord of a boarding house full of caddish reprobates. Needless to say you’d have got the part, had it been commissioned, but after that we saw you pop up frequently on television screens in other programmes. Well, then The Chap must have been responsible for the launch of my career in television!

“David Niven was part of Hollywood and knew all the film stars of the time. He was our access to it. He takes you to the exotic, to somewhere different. He had a rather wonderful moustache, didn’t he? You’d imagine he was always immaculately dressed”

Your first film break, aged 22, was in Mike Leigh’s High Hopes. Did you see this as an auspicious start to a glittering career in showbusiness? That was really early on. I’d done lots of small scale touring, fringe theatre above pubs and that sort of

Photo: Joe Alblas

Nyle Bellamy (Peter Sullivan), Phileas Fogg (David Tennant), Passepartout (Ibrahim Koma) and Bernard Fortescue (Jason Watkins) at the Reform Club Photo: Anika Molnár

ordinary people and Mike is the best proponent of that. Kings Cross was so different in the 1980s. The one little bit of a building where we filmed it has now been preserved within the architectural design of the area, so you can still see a little bit of High Hopes in modern-day Kings Cross.

boyish side of me was quite excited to see it on screen, with the classic James Bond opening titles, and thinking, gosh, I’m actually in it. After a lot of television work you appeared in Paul Weiland’s charming 2006 film Sixty Six. Would you agree that this is the sort of film that the UK used to produce in abundance but now sadly only rarely? Yes, it’s a wonderful story, based on the experiences of the writer/director. It was his story, getting into the World Cup final in 1966. Really he was ahead of his time, with the whole globalisation thing that’s happened since then. My character was like the Amazon of its time, the big supermarket trying to

You then appeared in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies in the year of Tony Blair and Cool Britannia. Did you find yourself thinking, things can only get better? I suppose that was a fascinating time, Cool Britannia and everything. I was only in a few scenes of that film with Hugh Bonneville and Brendan Coyle, we were all in the same type of scenes. The

take over the local corner shop. I played a lot of those little men, (a) because I’m quite little, and (b) because I was brought up in Hounslow, which has got is own unique accent. I find those little men throwing their weight around characters interesting. The film reminded me of the golden age of British cinema, even some of the kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s, the sort of films that rarely get made here any longer. Yes, I was inspired by things like Play for Today and Abigail’s Party and the early Alan Bennett plays. Talented actors like Jonathan Pryce were on the television. They were plays that happened to be on the television. It was nice to see that intelligent

“Also in Taboo, playing Solomon Coop, he was a nasty piece of work. There is a relish in those kinds of characters, and it all comes from observing people and working a lot in the theatre. I’ve been able to draw on all those things for parts like that, which makes me feel like a genuine character actor”

detail of character and dialogue. Television has become a lot more filmic, with fast editing and a higher quality visual content. If you look at things like Line of Duty, they’ll have these 15-minute scenes of dialogue, and you think, how did they get that one past the script editor? It’s nice to watch something like Sixty Six where the intimacy of the story really connects with audiences.

“When I was at RADA you had to have evening wear. You had to buy separate collar, collarless shirt, studs, cufflinks, the whole thing. That’s what you’d need to wear for things like Chekhov. Since then I’ve always had this eye out for all the paraphernalia of evening wear. I’ve got some from Drakes, Richard James, some nice Turnbull & Asser ties” I was delighted to see you in a principal role in series 4 of Line of Duty. What was it like working with the great Jed Mercurio? Jed’s a bit of a phenomenon and a polymath. He trained as an RAF pilot and he’s got quite a brilliant mind. I really enjoyed working with him. Making those programmes is like a dramatic version of W1A [a BBC comedy series about itself, penned by John Morton]. You’re really a slave to the writing. Line of Duty is quite flat and fast, you don’t do too much acting. It’s the dialogue and the plot that’s driving you forward, and that’s why 15-minute scenes can hold, because that one scene flips the whole story upside down in one sentence. The same with W1A, the writing is so sharp that you don’t want to get in the way of it. Jed Mercurio and John Morton are flipsides of the same coin. I’ve learned over the years that I can occupy both the drama and the comedy element of their type of writing.

“A voyage around the world in eighty days, Phileas?” Photo: Anika Molnár © Slim 80 Days/Federation Entertainment/Peu Communications/ZDF/Be-Films / RTBF (télévision belge) – 2021

Photo: Joe Alblas

Looking at your television credits, you seem to hop comfortably from cosy sitcom characters to hard boiled criminals and police officers. Do you enjoy this rather large range, not to mention your penchant for playing historical characters? Also in Taboo, playing Solomon Coop; he was a nasty piece of work. There is a relish in those kinds of characters, and it all comes from observing people and working a lot in the theatre. I’ve been able to draw on all those things for parts like that, which makes me feel like a genuine character actor.

ensemble pieces, trying to cram in hundreds of cameos by famous actors. It all felt a bit rushed for an hour and a half. I agree. These long television adaptations have enabled great novels, Dickens for example, really to be explored properly on film. Especially as Dickens wrote weekly episodes in the first place, it works when translated to the screen. When you take a classic book like Around The World in Eighty Days, you’re able to breathe and take your time to really explore it.

“I’ve got a Richard James classic blue dinner jacket. I got talking to a stylist who suggested I went to the Burlington Arcade for some accessories. New & Lingwood, all those little gentleman’s shops. Also a few suits from Chris Kerr, the Soho tailor. Drakes is quite formal but with a bit of colour, I’ve got so much stuff from there”

Tell us about the role you play in Around the World in 80 Days. All I’ve been given is a tantalising set of photos of you with some impressive mutton chop whiskers. I play Bernard Fortescue, editor of the Daily Telegraph. He’s a friend of Phileas Fogg, they meet every day at the Reform Club and Phileas isn’t really doing very much with his life. Then of course this bet comes in and he says, I’m going to go around the world in eighty days, and everyone else scoffs at that. Bellamy, played by Pete Sullivan, and Fortescue don’t believe he can pull it off. Our version is a kind of deconstruction of the book, but don’t let that put you off. The scale of it is mouthwatering. I play the father of an invented character named Abigail and she wants to go around the world with Phileas Fogg, but I want to stop her doing that. Then it turns out that I’m a more complicated character than you might think. Fortescue himself was an adventurer when young, so why should he stop his daughter doing it? So there is a sort of classic father-daughter relationship. It wasn’t in the original novel and gives the story more depth and substance. There are lots of tangents going off from the novel that bear fruit and it’s a wonderful adventure across the globe. Perhaps it’s more modern and complex than the original novel, and of the previous adaptations. The world has changed so much since we first started filming.

Going back to David Niven, would you agree that he was in a class of his own, rather than being just another cinema actor? I remember seeing him on Parkinson. He was so urbane, so effortless. Sometimes actors try too hard, but he’s got this easy assurance of a great storyteller, and this wonderful gentle way of telling stories and being entertaining. He wasn’t just well connected, he was part of Hollywood and knew all the film stars of the time. He was our access to it. He takes you to the exotic, to somewhere different. He had a rather wonderful moustache, didn’t he? You’d imagine he was always immaculately dressed.

Perhaps it will work better as an eight-part series. I found all the previous versions, even the one with David Niven, presented more as

There is a general view these days that actors are not the best dressed bunch. They

Phileas Fogg (David Tennant) and Bernard Fortescue (Jason Watkins) Photo: Anika Molnár

that in clothing. Recently there’s been this great push for better menswear and it’s all out there.

wear all the nice clothes on set and then are seen loitering about unshaven in hoodies. Would you agree with that? I remember going to watch a press thing for a new comedy film. These two guys were promoting it on Good Morning Britain, and one of them was fairly well dressed but the other looked like he had literally just got out of bed. Towelling shorts and a T-shirt. I thought, why not make an effort? What are you saying by not putting any nice clothes on? I like my clothes a lot, and when you wear clothes you make statements. If you choose not to make an effort, that in itself is a statement. I think, why not? You can express your personality in what you wear. Even if you want to fit in, you can express

Actually, we started it! Yes, your magazine has become a kind of touchstone for style. I really enjoy evening wear. I don’t do many photo shoots but I did one for Harrods Magazine in clothes by Bruno Cucinelli. It was rather extraordinary gear and hugely expensive. I probably looked the best I’ve ever looked. It was a twist on the traditional with a pleated shirt. There was no bow tie; it wasn’t formal evening wear. Even Dunhill have recently really gone for it, with almost wraparound doublebreasted jackets. When I was at RADA you had

to have evening wear. You had to buy a separate collar, collarless shirt, studs, cufflinks, the whole thing. That’s what you’d need to wear for things like Chekhov. Since then I’ve always had this eye out for all the paraphernalia of evening wear. I’ve got some from Drakes, Richard James, some nice Turnbull & Asser ties.

is quite formal but with a bit of colour; I’ve got so much stuff from there. What sort of shoes would you wear with black tie? In terms of shoes, I do like George Cleverley. For The Crown premiere I wore a very dark blue tuxedo, so I went for a very dark brown shoe. It’s got a little bit of work on it, hole punching and stuff, but it’s on a classic last with a slight point, which I really like. It’s also quite a delicate shoe, dare I say with a bit of daintiness, which goes well with the formal design. n

If you had to attend a formal black tie event, what would you put together? I’ve got a Richard James classic blue dinner jacket. I got talking to a stylist who suggested I went to the Burlington Arcade for some accessories. New & Lingwood, all those little gentlemen’s shops. Also a few suits from Chris Kerr, the Soho tailor. Drakes

Around The World in 80 Days is on BBC1 at Christmas

History

THE TRUE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN Chris Sullivan on the men and women who plundered the Spanish fleet off the coast of the West Indies in the 17th century, and founded a society based on a surprisingly egalitarian code of conduct

“Many might attest that the Spanish deserved such treatment, having raped, slaughtered and subjugated millions of indigenous Incas, Aztecs, Maya and Ramas and robbed them of their last gold nugget, mainly in the name of God”

n hearing the word, pirate, or for that matter, buccaneer, one instantly conjures up that ever-so-endearing image of a chap in knee-high boots, gold earrings, one leg and an eye patch singing ‘yo-ho ho and a bottle of rum’. And, even though this perhaps clichéd conception of a devil-may-care rogue is in some ways true, your common or garden pirate was a reluctant adventurer who reacted against cruel and unjust circumstances meted out by the authorities. It was society and its treatment of them that made them outlaws. But as the man said, “One man’s outlaw is another man’s freedom fighter”.

The term buccaneer originally described a rather disparate group of individuals mainly drawn from British, Irish, Dutch, Flemish and French stock, whose ranks included castaways, escaped convicts, refugees – both religious and political – escaped bonded slaves, Maroons (African slaves who’d escaped the Spanish) so-called mutineers and indigenous Carib Indians. Drawn together by their mutual hatred of the Spanish, they initially inhabited the forests of Northern Hispaniola and eked a meagre existence by killing and selling the wild cattle and pigs that roamed the countryside. The name ‘Buccaneer’, derived from the French ‘boucan’, refers to the wooden frame they employed to cure their meat. The Spanish, in a reckless fit of pique, decided that the bucaneros’ rather unkempt presence was irksome and so attempted to round them up and cart them off to gaol or slavery. When that failed, they then tried to starve them into surrender by killing and driving away the beasts they lived off. The once peaceful but now starving and irate buccaneers joined together as a gangcome-army hell-bent on a mission to steal as much Spanish property, kill as many Spaniards and rob as many Spanish ships as was humanly possible.

In 1630, with the Spanish hot on their trail, the buccaneers moved to the small island of Tortuga and banded together under the ‘Confederacy of the Brethren of the Coast’, soon capturing Spanish ships and arms with which they fortified the island. By nature lawless and by inclination violent, they existed under a stern code of discipline and sailed under a set of drawn up articles that were known as the Custom of The Coast. Even though governed by strict guidance, some buccaneers were said to have gone rather over the top when dealing with the Spanish. The Frenchman Francis L’Ollonais, known as The Flail Of The Spanish, was heralded for his penchant for torturing Spanish captives. He would often tear out the tongues of his victims in an effort to discover the whereabouts of their treasure, and was once reputed to have cut out the heart of a Spaniard with his cutlass and chewed on it. Curiously L’Ollonais ended his days at the hands of native South American Indians, who ate him. Another pirate captain, Dutchman Roche Brasiliano, decided it appropriate to roast a few Spaniards over a fire while still alive, just because they would not tell him where their pigs were

Tomas De Torquemada

“With a vast harbour able to shelter five hundred ships, sympathetic bureaucrats and the perfect location at the centre of the trade routes, Port Royal became pirate Valhalla. Port Royal in the mid 17th century had more alehouses, gambling dens and brothels than any other place on earth. Jamaica became the centre of buccaneering activity in the Caribbean and therefore the world”

viewed in relation to the times. The Spanish had led the way in the International League of Qualified Torturers via the auspices of the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas De Torquemada. Many of the Tortuga-based buccaneers such as L’Ollonais had been indentured slaves on the Spanish plantations and had suffered unbelievable cruelties at the hands of their captors, from whom they learnt the gentle art of brutality, while Brasiliano had been tortured to the brink of death by the Inquisition at Campeche Mexico. Many might attest that the Spanish deserved such treatment, having raped, slaughtered and subjugated indigenous millions of Incas, Aztecs, Maya and Ramas and robbed them of their last gold nugget, mainly in the name of God. After Pope Alexander VI’s papal bullof 1493 not only sanctioned but encouraged slavery of non-believers, the Spanish jumped on the slave trade to facilitate their empirical zeal and transported almost as many from Africa to the New World as did the English. Posthumous reputations have for centuries relied on patronage. The Sea Dogs of the Armada – Sir John Hawkins, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake – were privateers and slavers, the latter nicknamed ‘my pirate,’ by Elizabeth I.

corralled. At other times he would happily cut off an offending Spanish limb and let said victim watch his own appendage roast. Yet, however excessive many of these barbarities appear, they must be

Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard

the vulnerable colony. With a vast harbour able to shelter five hundred ships, sympathetic bureaucrats and the perfect location at the centre of the trade routes, Port Royal became pirate Valhalla. Port Royal in the mid 17th century had more alehouses, gambling dens and brothels than any other place on earth. Jamaica became the centre of buccaneering activity in the Caribbean and therefore the world. In 1664, Sir Thomas Modyford was made governor of Jamaica and landed with 700 planters and their slaves, marking the wholesale introduction of a slavery-based plantation economy in Jamaica. At first, he tried to subjugate the buccaneer but, when Britain declared war on Spain in March 1665, he began reissuing even more letters of marque. Soon the rabid buccaneers ruled the high seas, securing the island for the British crown. With their new-found wealth, the pirates let rip in the depraved enclave that was Port Royal and engaged in “all manner of debauchery with strumpets and wine.” Piracy slipped into high gear, with the likes of Henry Morgan upping the ante by fielding vast fleets of armed brigands. Born in Llanrhymney, South Wales in 1635, Captain Henry Morgan pushed the buccaneers of Port Royal and the art of piracy to a new level. After travelling to the Caribbean in 1663 as a soldier, he soon fell into the pirate life, joining the crew of the buccaneer Mansvelt in Tortuga, and, after the older man’s demise, took over the captainship of the pirate flotilla. Morgan soon carved out a name for himself as totally fearless, using the most extreme methods to discover the whereabouts of Spanish booty. Having earned both his letter of Marque and the nod from Governor Modyford in 1688, Morgan – now more ‘privateer’ that ‘buccaneer’ – pulled together his 700-strong bunch of mad bastards and attacked Puerto del Principe and Bello at the Isthmus of Panama, returning to Port Royal with 500,000 pieces of eight, a vast cache of jewellery and 300 slaves. His most daring move was to attack the so-called ‘cup o’gold’, AKA Panama City – the gateway to the Spaniards’ coveted South America – with 40 ships and 2000 men. He captured the quiet port of San Lorenzo on the Caribbean side of Panama, then marched for eight days through the jungle to the city. Outside Panama, outnumbered 3-1 by the Spanish, the ragged and starving buccaneers killed the soldiers and took the city. After an orgy of bloodletting they blew up Panama and left with 750,000 pieces of eight (in today’s money enough for a minor European principality).

THE PIRATE’S MODUS OPERANDI Favouring small, fast and easily manoeuvered cedar sloops carrying as many as 50 men and 11-14 guns, the pirates were hard to catch and, as resident in the islands, they knew the waters far better than any foreign captain. Lying in wait in some shadowy inlet, they monitored ships as they left port burdened with booty, then boldly sidled up to the vessel and took it. The British pirates favored cannon, while the French buccaneers preferred small arms and knives and simply shot at the helmsman, incapacitated the rudder and then swarmed aboard, pistols cocked and knives clenched between teeth. Soon they realised that there was more to piracy than pure vengeance and discovered that a good living was to be had by plundering. In fact, it was the Tortuga buccaneer who precipitated the bankruptcy of the Dutch East India Company. And as word got around, their ranks were bolstered by all manner of miscreants, including former seamen disillusioned by the harsh treatment aboard Navy vessels, mutineers and able seamen captured after an attack and coerced into signing ‘The Articles’. Many such seamen had been pressganged, often bashed over the head and carried unconscious on board, to find themselves under the rule of some tyrannical British Royal Navy Captain. Many pirates had been petty criminals or political dissenters, all banished to the Caribbean by the courts to work out their sentence as slaves on the plantations. By the mid 17th Century, the British West Indies had become a dumping ground for thousands of so-called malefactors, who had been sold by their governments to landowners to work the sugar plantations and prevented from returning home when their they had worked out their contract. At this time the slave trade was in full flow and it’s been estimated that 40 percent of all pirates were black slaves who’d escaped the plantations. The pirate community was the only community in the Western world where blacks had exactly the same opportunities and rights as their white confederates.

AN ALMIGHTY FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH By 1655 the British had wrested Jamaica from the Spanish, and early governors offered letters of marque (papers that legalised their piracy) to buccaneers wanting to settle in Port Royal, as long as they continued to harass the Spanish and thus aid

However, England had signed the Treaty of Madrid in July 1671, thus making the Panamanian venture unlawful. They were arrested and brought back to the Tower of London, only for King Charles to take particular interest in the pair. Soon Morgan was in the company of rich young nobles and feted by young ladies as the toast of London. A knighthood followed in 1674 and the next year he was made Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. Another name synonymous with piracy the world over is Edward Teach, or Blackbeard, as he came to be known. He was said to have hailed from Bristol, Jamaica or Carolina, depending on who told the story. A former privateer (licensed pirate) out of Port Royal, Teach (or Thatch or Tash) began as a deckhand and, after serving his apprenticeship under Captain Hornigold, terrorized the seas from Virginia to Honduras. A huge giant of a man, Blackbeard struck fear into his combatants by boarding ship with a pistol in each hand, six in his bandolier, black gunpowder smeared around his eyes with lighted tapers attached to his deadlocked hair, while his Irish drummer banged out a mighty rhythm. A great reader of history, Teach knew that striking such fear into the enemy meant an easy capture, little resistance and modest fatalities amongst his crew.

The head of Blackbeard

on the streets, exchanging his tales of piracy for pennies. His name was Israel Hands. Robert Louis Stephenson might well have heard his ripping yarns while hanging out in the London docklands and featured him as the scurrilous villain in his landmark novel, Treasure Island. Two other names have slipped into folklore as pirates of note – not because they were particularly ruthless but because they were of the fair sex. Anne Bonney and Mary Read were both crew members on board the ship of pirate captain Calico Jack and, having only recently become aware of each other’s identity and sex, put up a memorable fight before being captured alongside their leader in Negril Bay, Jamaica, everyone else having scarpered. At their trial, to everyone’s utter bewilderment, it was discovered that the two crew members who had staged this entirely sensational last stand were in fact women disguised as men. Mary Read was born in London, first becaming a ‘footboy’ to a French lady, then ‘seaman’ aboard a British man-of-war, then a ‘cadet’ footsoldier in Flanders. She got married and then boarded The West India Man for passage to the Caribbean. Pirates led by Calico Jack with Anne Bonney in male attire attacked the ship. Read, revealing a display of excellent swordsmanship, put up such a good fight that she was promptly invited to join the crew of buccaneers and readily accepted. Anne Bonney was the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Irish lawyer who had migrated to Carolina. Disguised as a man, she frequented the waterfront dives, where she met and married itinerant sailor John Bonney, but was soon swept off her feet by the dashing pirate leader ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham (known so because of his penchant for calico underwear). Jack’s courtship technique was

“A huge giant of a man, Blackbeard struck fear into his combatants by boarding ship with a pistol in each hand, six in his bandolier, black gunpowder smeared around his eyes with lighted tapers attached to his deadlocked hair, while his Irish drummer banged out a mighty rhythm.” His final fight occurred off the coast of Carolina. Teach was trapped on deck with only two men and fought like a demon only to be “wounded some twenty-five times, eight of which were made by shot and pistol” and as a result died fighting until the last. One of Teach’s crew skedaddled before the rout. Shortly after he turned King’s Evidence, he was ostracized and forced back to London, where he found himself penniless and begging

Mary Read

similar to taking a ship: “No time wasted, straight up alongside, every gun brought to play, and the prize boarded”. Such was Rackham’s expertise that Bonny joined Jack and became a pirate. Curiously, it was peace that heralded the Golden Age of Piracy in the West Indies in the first part of the 18th Century. After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, even though the European powers lived peacefully, many a legalized plunderer and pillager was left out of work, and so they continued their practices without government sanction. Yet even though the situation had changed, one thing did not and that was the articles – now the accepted moniker for the Custom of The Coast. Now even stronger, the Captain was elected and commanded only in ‘fighting, chasing or being chased,’ received the same rations as his crew and might be voted out if guilty of cowardice or cruelty. A duly elected quartermaster doled out the booty according to rank and adjudicated in disputes, while a Pirate council made of all the crew decided on where to go and whom to attack. By the dawn of the 18th century, piracy on the high seas had shifted slightly and centered on New Providence in The Bahamas, which by 1716 had become a veritable ‘nest of pyrates’ all of whom preyed on the merchant ships traveling to and from Virginia. A new Port Royal, it featured a natural inlet big enough to contain 500 pirates’ sloops but too shallow to allow entry to pursuing warships. Opportunist entrepreneurs opened bars, gambling houses and brothels that catered to the pirates’ every need. Subsequently, in 1717 English pirate captains Thomas Barrow and Ben Horn gold declared New Providence a Pirate Republic with them as governors, to be joined by prominent pirate leaders Charles Vane, Calico Jack Rackham, Thomas Burgess and Blackbeard, while a tented city full of miscreants grew under the name of Nassau. And it was here that the pirate caricature grew. While at sea, most wore sailcloth trousers, jerkins and leather doublets coated in pitch, when on shore they really pulled out the kit. Aping English dandies, the pirates would adorn themselves with plundered silks, satins velvet and lace, tricorn hats with plumes, silver buckled heeled shoes, even applying a bit of powder to both wig and gloriously battered face. And then there was the jewellery, as gaudy as possible: long hooped earrings, massive rings, pearl necklaces and heavy gold chains with emerald encrusted crosses. By the end of the 1720s the Caribbean pirate’s day was almost over. The Piracy Act of

Anne Bonney

1721 had delivered a killer blow by extending the same sentences to those who dealt with pirates as they did to the pirates themselves, thus ostracizing a whole chunk of sympathizers. Pirates were not only attacking Spanish ships, which attracted little sympathy, but also innocent merchant ships that plied goods to needy settlers. As pirate sympathy dissipated, more of them were caught and hanged, provoking a last gasp of pirate savagery by men like Edward Low and George Lowther. The pirate legacy is still apparent in the West Indies today. Jamaica’s national maxim ‘out of many comes one’ reflects the entirely mixed bag of nationalities from which the pirates, and as a result the country’s inhabitants, are drawn. And as colour was never an issue among these democratic and egalitarian buccaneer scoundrels, they all procreated to create the melting pot that is Jamaica today. The pirate captain Henry Morgan attracted a rather large contingent of Welsh, Scottish and Irish pirates. The resulting accent, as well as the fact that many of Jamaicans still have British names (Lloyd, Morris, McGregor, Marley) is a direct consequence of such piratical action. n

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SARTORIAL

Interview: Jeremy Hackett (p44) • The Chap Watch (p61) • Ski Wear (p62) • Robinson’s Shoes (p70) • Grey Fox Column (p76)

Interview

JEREMY HACKETT Gustav Temple meets the man who founded the Hackett brand in the eighties and has since turned it into a global powerhouse of classic English style

Main photographs: Digby Fairfax

“One morning Manolo Blahnik walked into the shop, and he was always in a rush. He said, ‘that tweed three-piece suit in the window, can I try it on?’ So right there in the middle of the shop, he took off all his clothes and tried it on. ‘Yeah, great,’ he paid and off he went wearing the suit”

n an unseasonably warm October day, I was to meet the founder of Hackett at 14, Savile Row, where JP Hackett opened for business in 2019 in a grand four-storey building previously occupied by Hardy Amies. My sartorial deliberations before setting off for Savile Row produced a conundrum: what should one wear to meet the man most heavily associated with tweed, in Town? A spot of research had revealed that Mr. Hackett has a thing against black suits, except for formal wear. And what had I decided to wear to this interview? A black suit. Should I shatter all sartorial protocol and don brown in town to flatter my subject, or should I stick to my guns and wear what I felt was right?

This was the burning question that opened the interview. I read that you’re not a big fan of the black suit, and I debated whether to wear what I feel comfortable in – a black suit – concluding that you, as a man of style, would rather I didn’t dress in a way that was calculated to please. Oh, absolutely, one hundred per cent. If you’re comfortable in your clothes, you look as if you own them rather than simply putting them on. It would be the opposite for me: if I put on a black suit I would feel so self-conscious and uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be me. You have to dress for yourself.

I don’t care about fashion. I’ll look at fashion, and if there’s something that I think works for me, then I’ll take it and reinterpret it for Hackett.

Did you know AA Gill? He used to say that, just before leaving the house, you should change one thing about your outfit at the last minute. I did know AA Gill, but it wasn’t his quote. It comes from Diane Freedland, editor of American Vogue.

On the way here, I saw a youngish chap with a striking hairstyle in a very smart green suit and a polka-dot scarf, but the trousers came no lower than half way down his calves. I think we can blame Tom Brown for all that. Having said that, I hate trousers that fold over at the bottom. The break should be just right. On a pair of khaki chinos you can wear them a little bit shorter, with loafers and coloured socks.

Have you ever taken the advice yourself ? I have on occasion. I’m not very good at wearing pocket squares. I like them, but when I’ve got a tie on and put in the pocket square, I think I’m overdoing it a bit. But if I’m not wearing a tie, then I will put a pocket square in, because it makes it look as though you’ve paid attention to dressing rather than just throwing a jacket on.

“My father used to say, ‘I’m too poor to buy cheap shoes’, and that’s an axiom I’ve held to. The people that used to come to the shop and buy vintage shoes, often bespoke ones from George Cleverley, were real establishment aristocratic figures”

Tell me about the Townhouse Tweed. Where did the colours come from? It’s our new signature tweed, and as you can see from looking about the building, the colours are all taken from the different colours on the walls of each room. So there’s the teal of that showroom, the pink from the cutting room, the yellow of this corridor. The green of the events room we felt was too bright, so we left that one out. Let’s go back to the origins of Hackett. You must have come across Bill Hornets in the early days, when you were selling vintage menswear in Fulham? Bill used to have a shop on one of the corners near us in Fulham. We were on the corner of Harwood Road, off the New King’s Road.

What about the Pitti Uomo look, with loafers and no socks and trousers like sausage skins? The whole thing about no socks is that half those guys are in the retail business and what do they sell? Socks! Most men haven’t got a well-turned ankle, shall we say.

You were selling second hand clothes in the eighties, weren’t you? I started the business in 1983 with Ashley Lloyd Jennings. Prior to the Fulham shop, we had a shop in Covent Garden selling shoes – Edward Green, Wildsmith loafers, and we were the first importers of Alden Shoes into the UK.

I stopped wearing shorts in hot countries when I saw how terrible my legs looked in them. I do wear shorts when abroad, but never sandals. I’d wear espadrilles or a lightweight loafer, or even canvas plimsolls.

Who were your customers? A lot of City men came to us specifcally for those Wildsmith loafers.

[At this point Mr. Hackett removes his jacket and I ask permission to do the same]

Has there always been a select group of men who really care about getting the best quality clothing and dressing properly?

Right, we’re both in shirtsleeves now! Gosh, we’ll be taking our ties off next!

“I bought these in Portobello Market early one morning. I got them for three pounds, thinking that was a very good price for a nice pair of unworn riding boots. I got them home and looked inside, and written in ink it said HM The King”

Oscar Wilde said, if you want to know a man’s true character, look down at his shoes. My father used to say, “I’m too poor to buy cheap shoes.” That’s an axiom I’ve held to. The people that used to come to the shop and buy vintage shoes, often bespoke ones from George Cleverly and the like, were real establishment aristocratic figures. I used to go down to Portobello Market at five am and there would be guys with big bags of shoes, sometimes all bespoke ones with trees. Was there a point when the supplies of good quality vintage menswear began to run out? Oh yes, because we were selling so quickly and couldn’t keep up with it, so we decided to start making new stuff. I remember one day at the shop, I was wearing a beautiful Huntsman covert coat, and as I was opening the door to open up, the first man to walk in said, can I buy it? One morning Manolo Blahnik walked into the shop, and he was

Yes, though it’s getting rarer. You do have people who are just shoe nuts, especially in Japan. You can open a magazine in Japan and there’ll be a doublepage spread with about twenty different pairs of black Oxfords. To the average person in England, that’s just a black shoe.

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always in a rush. He said, ‘That tweed three-piece suit in the window, can I try it on?’ So right there in the middle of the shop, he took off all his clothes and tried it on. ‘Yeah, great,’ he paid and off he went wearing the suit. I heard you have strong feelings about red trousers but that ironically you started the whole trend? We sold a lot of red corduroy and moleskin trousers, which when they’ve been washed a few times and faded a bit can look really good. What I don’t like is extremely well-pressed red trousers. I want them to look more lived-in and washed out, like Nantucket red.

“I’ve got a couple of pocket squares made in honour of the coronation of Edward VIII. I don’t like wearing them when they’re too contrived, which is the difference between the Italians and the English. An Englishman will just shove it in, almost as an afterthought, whereas an Italian will fiddle about and make sure it’s completely perfect”

I bought these in Portobello Market early one morning. They were thrown in a bag outside a furniture van, wrapped in greaseproof paper. I got them for three pounds, thinking that was a very good price for a nice pair of unworn riding boots. I got them home and looked inside, and written in ink it said ‘HM The King’. So I took them to George Cleverley, who took one look at them and said, ‘Oh, Duke of Windsor’.

You’ve expressed admiration in the past for David Hockney. What is it about his style that you like? It’s a general sense of adventure with his clothing. We sold him about ten pairs of corduroy slippers once. He really liked those. The New Romantics used to come into our Covent Garden store and buy those slippers, because we were right opposite the Roxy.

They look so tight and constricting. What size are they, about a seven? Yes they are. People were much smaller back then. Because it says HM The King, they were never delivered, because he abdicated after only a year. Cleverley told me that they ended up in the market because they were probably at the home of a bootmaker, who couldn’t deliver them to Edward because he was no longer king. Then the bootmaker would have died and the boots were

What else did they buy apart from slippers? Just slippers. I notice that rather lovely pair of riding boots there on the mantelpiece.

lost among all the chattels taken away by the house clearance people. I’ve also got a couple of pocket squares made in honour of the coronation of Edward VIII. Sometimes I wear them. I don’t like to arrange them carefully, I just shove them in. I don’t like them when they’re too contrived, which is the difference between the Italians and the English. An Englishman will just shove it in, almost as an afterthought, whereas an Italian will fiddle about and make sure it’s completely perfect. I’m going to a black tie event tomorrow and I’ll probably wear a black and white polka dot pocket square.

“I read the guide book for what you have to take when going to the tropics by boat. Apparently you’re not allowed to wear a white tuxedo until you get past portside. I love the idea of someone getting it wrong and the monocles dropping in horror” What do you think about these celebrities who go to black tie events wearing a black shirt and no tie, deliberately messing with the rules? It isn’t for me. Formal dress isn’t fancy dress. It’s a funny thing; it’s a moment when people should look their best. Like morning dress at a wedding, you’re going to be photographed a lot and should look your best. I was at Ascot a few months ago, and it was appalling how badly some people were dressed. Wearing brown shoes, for a start. Good god! This brings me back to my earlier point about not wearing tweed to come and meet you on Savile Row. I’d have had to wear brown shoes in town. I think if people try and impose the brown in town rule today, that’s just being pretentious. Though I do like some of that old fashioned stricture, like not wearing brown until after

both my parents were. I was adopted when I was six. In the last twenty years I’ve found my birth parents, though my father had died. He was a surgeon in the US airforce and my mother was a nurse. They met in one of the US bases near Oxford. So I’m actually half American. Which is why I think I’m drawn to the whole Waspish look. My father was into motor racing, he drove an E-Type Jaguar. My mother had great taste and had all her clothes made. She moved to Australia and that’s where I met up with the whole family ten years ago. It explains my interest in motor racing and vintage cars. Someone sent me a book about motor racing which had a photograph in it of my father in the E-Type Jaguar he had for racing. He had numerous cars.

6pm beyond the Chiswick Roundabout. Yes, I do like that! I read the guide book for what you have to take when going to the tropics by boat. Apparently you’re not allowed to wear a white tuxedo until you get past portside. I love the idea of someone getting it wrong and the monocles dropping in horror.

“The Townhouse Tweed uses colours from all the rooms here. We felt that the green of the events room was too bright, so we left that one out” What sort of background do you come from? My father was in the textile business and he sold furniture and soft furnishings. He was working class,

Do you have any vintage cars of your own? I’ve got a Mini. I’ve got nowhere to put a vintage car and deal with all the maintenance.

Hor nets

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Each of the Hackett tweeds fashioned into teddy bears

“My grandmother used to manage the leather goods department at the Army & Navy store in Victoria, and she used to get Winston Churchill coming in to get stuff repaired but never to buy anything. Typical old money!”

Charlie Watts had a huge collection of vintage cars but he didn’t have a driving licence. Charlie used to come to our shops, and we used to make suits for him in Sloane Street, but I never met him. I kept going into the shop and they’d say, you’ve just missed Charlie Watts. When people ask me about stylish people, I always namecheck David Hockney and Charlie Watts. What about any younger types? Maybe I don’t go to the right places, but I struggle to think of anyone stylish. Ryan Gosling looks great in a dinner jacket but I don’t know how he dresses normally. Eddie Redmayne looks pretty good.

on Savile Row and I always thought they should have called it ‘Abercrombie & Titch’. I recall when I first went to New York in 1976 and the original Abercrombie & Fitch was about to close. I remember walking down this long corridor and they had beautiful stuff there but it was starting to look tired. The equivalent in England at the time

I noticed on the way here that both branches of Abercrombie & Fitch have closed. Did you hear about our protest agains the shop opening in 2012? I did. They were selling kids’ clothes in the one

would have been the Army & Navy Stores. My grandmother used to manage the leather goods department at the one in Victoria, and she used to get Winston Churchill coming in to get stuff repaired but never to buy anything. Typical old money! Good quality leather goods are something I’ve always valued.

I notice there is now a café on Savile Row. Is the Row headed in the same direction as Bond Street? Well, the café is owned by the guys who own Cad & The Dandy, and there’s a new valeting place. I think that adds to the atmosphere of the Row. Those big global brands only want to be on Bond Street, they don’t want to come here. Most of the buildings are leased by the Pollen Estate, and they very specifically didn’t want us to appear to be a chain. Which is why this shop is called JP Hackett instead of just Hackett, so it’s the only shop with that name. I’m here a lot and meet a lot of the customers, so it feels more personal. n

I’ve never understood why perfectly well dressed chaps walk around with some horrible rucksack. As often as possible I don’t carry a bag at all. Though now you see footballers carrying these clutch bags from the seventies that have come back into fashion.

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Sartorial

DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY Alf Alderson clips into his skis to check out the different styles of ski wear to be seen on the slopes during the Season

ou’ve just enjoyed a capital morning on the slopes of your favourite ski resort and, not unreasonably, you decide to take a break from the action with a morning coffee, or perhaps something stronger – and why not? You are en vacances, after all. This is the time to sit back and indulge in a spot of people watching, which with a little luck may throw up individuals attired in pretty much every ski fashion from the last 100 years. Not all of it is pleasing to the eye, and some may even result in involuntary gasps of alarm/ howls of laughter, but here is a brief outline of what you may encounter as you sip the first espresso, bombardino, Jagermeister or genepi (location dependent) of the day.

THE WOOL AND TWEED BRIGADE The pioneers of downhill skiing were, on the whole, well-heeled Victorian and Edwardian Brits, and they would naturally have turned to wool and tweed fabrics as they explored the mountains of the Alps, France and Switzerland in particular. By and large, their clothing was an extension of that worn for country sports, with robust tweed jackets, plus fours, woollen socks and balaclavas, leather gloves and stout leather boots providing insulation and protection from the elements. Such attire may be seen today among the esoteric cliques of telemark skiers that are occasionally encountered in some ski resorts (more commonly in the US and Canadian Rockies than Europe); these ‘free-heelers’ (see below) may also be

The Wool and Tweed Brigade

seen to sport a variety of facial hair, while the ladies usually ski in flowing skirts. The smoking of pipes as well as carrying of traditional canvas rucksacks is also popular among true enthusiasts. Their chosen form of downhill locomotion, the Telemark ski, is a traditional design which dates back to the 19th century and was invented in Telemark, Norway (hence the name); unlike modern alpine skis, Telemark skis do not have a fixed binding for the ski boots – the heel is lifted on turns and, without going into detail, this makes it considerably more difficult exercise than ‘regular’ downhill skiing. There is one plus point to this, however, in that the inconvenience of itchy, heavy and bulky woollen fabrics is forgotten due to the intense concentration and application required to master the infamous ‘Telemark turn’.

WHERE TO SEE THEM Usually found in the most remote and shabby mountain restaurants or emerging from tents, caves and other budget accommodation.

THE HOLLYWOOD GANG This coterie of the skiing world is unfortunately not often sighted these days, despite their rather elegant appearance. They present a style that was popular in the fifties and common among Hollywood stars venturing to glitzy resorts such as Sun Valley, Idaho (which, incidentally, opened the first ever chair lift in 1936, based on a banana boat hoist). Fashions characteristic of the era include loose-fitting stretch pants for both men and women,

The Hollywood Gang

The French Connection

invented in 1952 by Munich-based company Bogner, and body-hugging down jackets, first sold by the American enterprise Eddie Bauer in the 1930s. There was also something of a military look to some ski wear of this period – zip-up ski jackets with button-down breast pockets, and headwear in the form of forage caps with ear flaps were popular, perhaps reflecting the seemingly permanent war footing of the west in the mid-20th century and also, in the USA, influenced by the 10th Mountain Division, a number of whose members went on to work in the ski industry after being demobilised in November 1945.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION The 1960s and 70s saw France get into skiing in a big way. Strange that it had taken our continental cousins sixty years to follow the snowy mountain path trailed by the Brits but, at the same time as developing several modern ski resorts in the French Alps, the French also bought their indefinable je ne sais quoi to the mountains. Ski heroes such as Jean-Claude Killy of Val d’Isere sped to victory down the race courses (Killy even won one race after finishing with a broken leg) and ski fashion – for ladies in particular – became as flamboyant as the race scene, with furs popular in headwear and jackets, skin-tight ski pants above the new plastic ski boots and – for both men and women – colourful ski jumpers topped off with jackets in nylon and polyester materials which were lighter and more weatherproof than woollen fabrics. And, of course, there were Moonboots; but let us not dwell on that… Ski fashions at this time had a bright and colourful va va voom about them which echoed the

WHERE TO SEE THEM Older skiers in more upmarket destinations such as St. Moritz and Courchevel may occasionally be seen sporting a style akin to this, while the military aspect of it may be found among oldschool ski touring afficionados, who eschew ski lifts and instead hike up the slopes in search of their purgatorial pleasures.

The Pastel and Neon Nightmare

buzz and vigour of the period. Despite the fact that skiing was still, by and large, restricted to the fat of wallet, it chimed well with sixties pop culture, and the outfits worn by David Niven descending the slopes of Cortina d’Ampezzo in The Pink Panther (1963), George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and Robert Redford as a Downhill Racer (1969) perfectly capture the ski styles of the era. Towards the end of this period came the invention of breathable Gore-tex fabric, which meant a fellow could now work up a sweat on the slopes or in the après-ski bar without humming like a two-week-old Camembert.

THE PASTEL AND NEON NIGHTMARE When the 1980s arrived, any skier of taste and refinement was well advised to keep their gaze on the mountains and divert it away from the Technicolor array of outfits schussing down slopes from Aspen to Zermatt. Whoever was responsible for the pastel onepieces and phosphorescent ski jackets and pants that littered ski resorts through the 80s and 90s has never owned up, although personally I believe C&A (remember them?) had much to do with it. In theory, a one-piece ski suit is a good idea, as it provides better insulation and prevents the ingress of snow when one wipes out, but in practical terms they leave much to be desired; they can become too hot on warmer days but, more to the point – and this applies especially to the ladies – when the morning coffee or afternoon schnapps begins to work its way through one’s system, using the conveniences becomes highly inconvenient. Add to this the fact that these wardrobe misadventures were manufactured in a range of

WHERE TO SEE THEM Sixties chic has never totally gone away, especially in France – don’t be surprised to see ‘ski bunnies’ in Moonboots and tight ski pants anywhere in the French Alps, while chain smoking lounge lizards in casual ski-themed jumpers (i.e. bearing images of snowflakes or reindeer), slacks and loafers prop up après-ski bars here and there, despite not having been seen on a ski slope since their teens.

The Sunny Scandis

awful pastel hues that resembled the interior decor of a 1980s American motorhome, and this was probably the nadir of ski fashion. The 90s provided stiff competition for the 80s, as neon pinks, acid greens, blazing oranges and golden yellows became the colourways of choice on the slopes. Freestyle skiers such as American Glenn Plake, famed for his dyed Mohican haircut (see photo on previous page) sported these eye-watering colours in ski movies such as the tortuously titled Blizzard of Aahhhs, and the younger and more naïve members of the skiing community saw fit to emulate their heroes and visually assault the rest of us.

THE SUNNY SCANDIS The first two decades of the 21st century saw the Scandinavians offer their own take on brightly coloured ski attire. As the inventors of skiing, they were thoroughly entitled to do so, having sat back for at least a century watching the rest of the world strut about the slopes attired in varying degrees of awfulness. Because impeccable design style appears to be second nature to the Nordics, companies such as Norway’s Norrona managed to produce stylish, if expensive, ski clothing in bold, bright and sunny colours that actually put a smile on your face as opposed to a grimace. Similar modes were produced by Canadian brand Arc’teryx, and while very much being designed to be seen (which actually has a practical benefit, should one be unfortunate enough to require assistance on the mountain) there’s a certain irony to the fact that this higher end, vibrantly coloured ski gear was particularly popular with freeride and backcountry skiers, who would venture out into the wilds in search of perfect powder where few others were likely to see their beguilingly bright outfits.

WHERE TO SEE THEM Your best chance of sighting an eighties one-piece or a nineties neon outfit is at an après-ski party, when the era is often the theme of fancy-dress parties. Other than that, you may see the occasional older skier bulging out of a one-piece, too parsimonious to change the outfit they purchased forty years ago and blissfully unaware of the amusement they are providing for their fellow skiers.

Earth calling

in favour of Brexit still see fit to venture to the Alps every winter (what’s wrong with the Scottish Highlands?) and are as unadventurous as the ski gear they are currently wearing. Today, ski clothing manufacturers are using eco-friendly fabrics with ever-increasing enthusiasm. French company Picture, for example, combines highly technical designs with sustainably manufactured fabrics – their new ‘Lab Line’ of ski gear uses a recyclable polyolefin composition fabric which is chemical, PFC and solvent-free, while at the same time offering excellent waterproofing and breathability and being exceptionally lightweight – a far cry from the heavy, moisture absorbing tweeds and wools of yore. This is not to say that traditional fabrics don’t still have their place in the mountains; merino wool is a standard fabric for modern base layers, while companies such as Huddersfield-based McNair (pictured above) produce classy heavyweight woollen mountain shirts that would not have looked out of place in 1930s Chamonix. All of which means that today’s skier can be as retro or as modern as they wish, while remaining warm, dry and stylish on the slopes. n

WHERE TO SEE THEM There are plenty of these loud but stylish ski outfits still around – perhaps not surprising given their premium price tags and the snobbery of the sport. Indeed, I still wear a bright orange Arc’teryx jacket myself. They’re usually to be seen on the more challenging slopes, particularly the off-piste and backcountry terrain, since anyone prepared to spend several hundred pounds on a ski jacket or ski pants is invariably an adept skier (or someone with more money than sense).

EARTH CALLING Before the restraints of the Unpleasantness forbade anyone to venture into the mountains (the fresh, crisp air and remote mountainsides being a Covid death trap, obviously) ski clothing had begun to take on a distinctly boring look. The earthy browns and greys, muted blues and olive greens of urban fashions had become de rigeur during the last full ski season. From a British point of view at least, this has a certain irony, since many of those skiers who voted

Footwear

ROBINSON’S SHOES On a chance visit during a trip to Belfast, Nat Bocking found himself in the hands of a man who truly seemed to know what shoes he needed

“I may be crazy, but this shop is not about the cash register. I could just ring up a sale to you now, but I want to give our customers the fit you can only get with custom-made shoes elsewhere, by sizing each one correctly. Then the customer will keep coming back”

he puddle I was standing in was soaking into my socks, signalling that the rubber soles of my favourite boots (Clarks Chelsea Beeswax, if you care to know) had reached the end of their life. It transpires that the raised cleats on the edge of the sole are hollow, so if the apparently thickest part of the sole wears out it creates a large and unrepairable hole. I presume that the few micro-grammes of rubber this saves in the mould over millions of pairs adds up and so improves Clarks’ bottom line. Two years’ wear from one pair of boots was a pretty good return on my investment, since I bought them in the Muswell Hill branch of Clarks – which had

been trading there for 90 years – on the day they closed down, due to rising rents and falling sales. ‘Bootstrapping’ one’s way out of poverty is an interesting analogy. The term originated in the 19th Century to describe an impossible task, for a person cannot lift themselves up by pulling on their own bootstraps. It was also a common bit of wisdom in the past that the working classes were trapped in poverty because they could only buy the affordable but poor quality boots, as opposed to the expensive but hard-wearing ones, so they paid more in the long run. I was born with a congenital deformity in my hip joints and, despite wearing corrective orthotics

all through my growing years to realign my gait, my left heel always wears down more markedly than my right. For this reason I have never had much satisfaction from cheap shoes, nor much happiness in buying expensive ones. I can shred a pair of Converse in a month and Dr Marten’s quality control has slipped terribly over the years, so finding a decent pair of boots that I can trust to fit me comfortably and be affordable but hardwearing and with production that is fashion-proof is still a holy grail. It was by a long circuitous route that I found myself in Robinson’s Shoemakers in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. My journey of twenty minutes

down the A2 out of Belfast also involved trying on and disappointedly returning several pairs of boots I had ordered online from the likes of Barbour and Loake, after traipsing round shops in the Cathedral Quarter. Just as my dogs were starting to bark, I came across a tiny shop as it was closing: Robinson’s Shoes, Belfast. Natives in Northern Ireland are natural interrogators. I suppose establishing who someone is and why they are there is natural defence, given the history, so the salesman quickly established that I was working in film; I didn’t have time to come back tomorrow; my budget was more major feature than movie of the week; I wanted comfort and suitability over fashion but I wanted really good mileage out of my investment. The young chap said I’d probably find more of what I wanted in their outlet store in Carrickfergus, as the stock in the Belfast shop wasn’t discounted but all the actors filming in Belfast came in here (this yielded quite interesting business intelligence for me too). When I reached for the brass door knob on the following Saturday in Carrickfergus, I expected a brass bell to tinkle as I opened it, but I was greeted by a large light and airy room lined with

racks of shoes and a solitary leather wing chair. The proprietor was a white-haired gentleman named Robin, who asked if I was in a hurry, as it would probably take him an hour to find me some shoes. As I sank into the leather chair I suspected, with some joy, that I was going to get a very comprehensive education about footwear. “What size do you normally wear?” Robin asked. “Normally a 43 but it varies according to the maker.” “Quite,” he agreed. Robin produced a nice pair of brogues. “These are not what you want but they will tell me what shape your feet are.” The fit seemed acceptable but Robin had me walk around the store and then tie the laces. It made a big difference. He pushed a finger down the heel and frowned. He got out another pair in a different make. He pushed his finger down the heel and pressed across the arch, “How does that feel now?” It did feel different to the first pair but I couldn’t say why. “The width is right for you but it’s too long and this last is too high.” “Look at my shoes,” Robin said. “One foot is a half size smaller than the other, but I wear shoes the same size to show you something: see those

creases across the arch? The shoe that fits has no creases and these shoes are a year old. The shoe that doesn’t fit is all creased here, because it slips as it bends with my foot.” There certainly was a difference, but I still wasn’t sure if this was just some sales flim-flam. He picked up the two shoe lasts that the makers of each shoe had used, and explained that there were 27 different lasts across the different manufacturers that he sold. After trying on three different shoes to get my size, Robin declared I was a 9H and unfortunately he didn’t have any shoes in the styles I wanted in stock today. Because of Brexit and the pandemic, he’s got several containers coming so he’ll call me as soon as they arrive and I can order from the website. He proudly pointed out that his website return rate is less than one per cent. “I now sell to 114 countries. People in America get our shoes delivered within three days.” I confessed to my long quest for satisfactory shoes, and Robin’s expression was like a priest offering the benediction of the church to a new convert. His was the Way and the Light. “I may be crazy, but this shop is not about the cash register. I could just ring up a sale to you now, but I want to give our customers the fit you can only get with custom-made shoes elsewhere, by sizing each one correctly. Then the customer will keep coming back.” After retiring early, Robin got into the shoe business by buying a small shoe-repair shop. This led to his making shoes. He shows me a pair of his own. They’re quite beautiful to behold. I admit to wishing I could have such things but I can’t afford

to spend probably £500 on hand-made shoes. “Try six times that,” he corrects me. “That cordovan leather cost me £300 a metre, when you could get it.” This is why Robin thinks there is a niche he can fill. Robin is also a borough councillor and the chair of the Positive Carrickfergus body. “It's nonpolitical,” he says, a disclaimer one often hears in Northern Ireland, out of necessity. He leads me to the upstairs of the shop, which has been turned into a museum. It’s the first project Positive Carrickfergus has achieved with lottery money. So Carrickfergus is literally bootstrapping its way up. The shop was once a coal merchants called Kelly and they had ships going all over Ireland and Scotland. In the distance through the windows you can see the cranes of the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. Each of Kelly’s ships was called the Bally-something and each was bigger than the last. After a long life and numerous owners, the Ballyrush was broken up only in 2003. One of the friends of the museum had been a plater at Harland and Wolff and had an ancestor who worked on the Titanic. He donated his ancestor’s spirit level. Robin really needs to be discovered by people who want to support retailers who are flying in the face of ‘fast fashion’ and disposable culture. Holding on to the values of service, integrity and offering products that return their investment in quality will keep the customer coming back to his store, even if the price tag is a little bit more. It’ll be worth every penny in the long run. n

Style Column

GREY FOX COLUMN David Evans dusts off his winter woollens and tweeds and visits the Campaign for Wool to find out why wool is the best fabric of all www.greyfoxblog.com

s winter tightens its grip, we turn our attention, naturally, to wool. For millennia this wonderful material has kept sheep and their wild forebears both warm and dry. The pre-domestication origin of the species is lost in the mists of time and may now be extinct, but early animals would have been initially hunted and later domesticated for their meat, milk and skins. Once they were farmed, their fleeces would have been plucked as they moulted or, once an appropriate tool

was available, shorn and the wool made into cloth. It would be fascinating to know how man discovered the skills of spinning and weaving to make cloth to replace skins for their clothes. The advantages of using a renewable resource would have been clear – to provide a skin you need to slaughter the animal – wool comes from the fleece which regrows each year. The Campaign for Wool organises an annual Wool Week at which the virtues of wool are extolled. In Cumbria, the local sheep,

“The Campaign for Wool describes other properties: it’s a natural insulator, breathable, biodegradable, resilient and elastic, odour resistant and fire resistant (for the pipe smokers among us) and, unlike man-made fibres, it doesn’t shed indestructible microfibres into the environment”

resistant properties that make wool such an ideal material for our clothes: warm, water resistant and sustainable. The Campaign for Wool describes other properties: it’s a natural insulator, breathable, biodegradable, resilient and elastic, odour resistant and fire resistant (for the pipe smokers among us) and, unlike man-made fibres, it doesn’t shed indestructible microfibres into the environment. At this year’s Wool Week, the Campaign for Wool collaborated with Hackett to produce their Townhouse Tweed. Launched by Jeremy Hackett (profiled elsewhere in this issue) and the Campaign chair, Nicholas Coleridge, the tweed was developed in collaboration with Lovat Mill. Using a 29-micron Cheviot wool yarn blended with wools from New Zealand and the UK, the yarn is spun, woven and finished in the UK. A perfect wool combination, the New Zealand wool imparts softness to the handle while the British wool adds durability. The Hackett Townhouse tweed colours were based on the vibrant colours of the rooms at 14, Savile Row. Tweed can be a fascinating

Herdwicks, spend much of their time on the fell in all weathers, developing tough fleeces that keep them warm and dry. Handling a fleece leaves one’s hands greasy with lanolin, which helps the animal shed the heavy Lakeland rains. While Herdwick fleece is often too harsh for clothing (although I have a very stylish Herdwick tweed jacket) it is these weather

vehicle for colour and this fact was used for the early Scottish estate tweeds, which reflected the colours of each estate’s environment, partly to provide camouflage for those stalking deer or shooting game birds. You can still have your own personal tweed designed by Araminta Campbell in Scotland. I love the idea of an inner city tweed, showing the grime and colour of urban life. Such a cloth is indeed available from Dashing Tweeds, who are in some ways the urban equivalent of Araminta Campbell, whose designs reflect the rivers, stones, heather and vast rain-laden skies of Scotland rather than the hard, grimy surfaces of the urban environment. In September or October I dig out my knitwear and tweeds and shake them all out in the garden. As a counter-moth measure, I will have cleaned and brushed everything at the end of the winter before putting it into storage for the summer. Sometimes repairs are necessary (climate change has been a licence for moths to promulgate profusely in London) but after a good pressing, tweeds and flannels always look perfect for the chillier months. London Craft Week has been steadily increasing in size since its inception in 2015. The word ‘craft’ has rather homespun connotations to many, and it’s interesting that a language as rich as ours doesn’t have a vocabulary to describe skills that depend on the human hand, eye and experience and which apply to everything from mechanical engineering to woodcarving. This year’s exhibitors alphabetically covered everything from automotive through candle making, embroidery, leather working and paper making to woodworking. This autumn I was asked to mediate a panel discussion at the new Chelsea Barracks development in London between five premium but very diverse British brands: Edward Green (shoes), Floris (fragrances), Ettinger (leather goods), Bentley

Motors and Johnstons of Elgin (cloth, knitwear and clothing), all of which manufacture in the UK. The oldest of these brands dates from the early 18th century and the youngest is nearly 90 years old. The skills of their workers and designers have developed over decades, or even centuries, underlining their international reputations for product quality. In my travels around many British workshops, mills and factories over the last ten years, I’ve noticed that the workers tend to be in middle age and beyond. Of course, this isn’t always the case; in some places it’s been great to see young people learning real and important creative skills. However, British manufacturing needs young people to ensure its future and companies like Bentley Motors, Ettinger and Johnstons of Elgin have invested much in future skills. Issues such as sustainability and the nature of a quality product were also discussed. British products can be pricier than those made in other parts of the world, where wages and living and working conditions aren’t so high. While British manufacture will never be as it was in the glory years of the previous two centuries, it’s good to see the standing that British goods have as luxury items around the world. Sadly, in the UK itself, many consumers still prefer cheap to quality and show little interest in the high quality products made in the UK. While not everyone has the budget to buy quality goods, many cheaper products remain unworn and are eventually disposed of, going into landfill and wasting money that could be spent on fewer but higher quality items. I recently acquired a perfect example of British manufacture in the shape of a briefcase from Royal Warrant holder Ettinger. The case is made from bridle leather and arrives with that waxy bloom that protects and nourishes the leather. Beautifully made, cut and stitched, this is a luxury item that will outlast me and, like all the best leathers, its appearance will improve with age – a sure sign of a quality product. A recent example of the rise of British manufacturing in certain sectors is the launch by Bremont of a collection of watches with movements made at their new watchmaking facility in Henley. British watch and clockmaking was once a world leader (think of Harrison, who invented the marine chronometer in the 18th century, and Smiths Industries, which made

high quality watches and movements in England until the middle of the last century). Reviving any manufacturing heritage of that sort, once lost, is a costly business. It’s taken brothers Nick and Giles Ashley some years to acquire the workforce skills and the expensive specialist machinery required to develop a new proprietary movement, but it has now been completed – the first watch to have been manufactured in any scale in the UK for fifty years. Bremont’s watches have, over the last couple of years, become more attractive visually and their new limited edition Longitude is no exception. It contains a piece of brass from the Flamsteed meridian line of longitude at Greenwich; a bit of a gimmick perhaps, but many of their watches contain bits of old aircraft and other historic artefacts (including a piece of Stephen Hawking’s desk) and I rather like the idea. While on the topic of British watches, I wanted to mention Fears Watches again. This Bristol-based watchmaker was revived by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, a descendant of the founder, and recently celebrated its 175th anniversary with the launch of two archiveinspired vintage-style rectangular watches assembled in the UK from overhauled ‘new old stock’ Swiss movements. They are examples of how one man’s dream can create a beautiful, quality product. I met Nicholas recently, who

told me that, during the first covid lockdown, he left his business to work stacking shelves at a local supermarket, to avoid having to close the business and lay off his employees. This is a brand worth our support and typifies the many young impressive entrepreneurs that I meet running small British businesses. My blog reaches its tenth anniversary as you receive this issue. It’s meeting exciting, stylish and creative people like Nicholas Bowman-Scargill that makes me determined to keep the blog going for at least another ten years. Hopefully, like my Ettinger briefcase, it too will improve with age. Campaign for Wool: oliverbrown.org.uk Hackett: hackett.com Lovat Mill: lovatmill.com Araminta Campbell: aramintacampbell.co.uk Dashing Tweeds: dashingtweeds.co.uk Edward Green: edwardgreen.com Floris: florislondon.com Bentley Motors: bentleymotors.com Ettinger: ettinger.co.uk Bremont Watches: bremont.com Johnstons of Elgin: johnstonsofelgin.com Fears Watches: fearswatches.com n

LONGER FEATURES •

Interview: Lindsay Duncan (p82) • Jules Verne (p90) Around the World in Eight Cocktails (p100) • Cooking (p106) • Travel: Italian Riviera (p110) • Motoring (p119)

Photo: Joe Alblas

Interview

LINDSAY DUNCAN Gustav Temple meets Lindsay Duncan to discuss her part as Jane Digby in Around the World in 80 Days, as well as working with Alan Rickman on Noel Coward’s Private Lives

“If anyone else played Lady Hester Stanhope or Jane Digby I’d be furious. Digby is so far away from me but God, what a woman!”

down on the plane. Then I saw the huge queue at Cape Town Airport. Everybody was having their temperature taken, even though they hadn’t had a single case yet. Then, the day I left, the first case in Johannesburg was announced and life changed forever.

ou’ve been filming Around the World in 80 Days in South Africa, I believe? Just one episode, a long time ago now, in fact pre-pandemic. Well that’s ruined my second question, which was ‘what was it like filming with pandemic measures?’

You’re playing Jane Digby, English aristocrat famed for her remarkable lifestyle and love life who ended up living in Syria married to Arab prince Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab.

I’ve done quite a lot of filming with pandemic measures, actually. When I went out to South Africa in February 2020, there were already rumblings about something. I’d just been on a plane with hundreds of people and I actually went and bought some hand sanitizer for the first time ever. The chemist told me it was flying off the shelves and I thought, this is weird! I was sufficiently anxious to take wipes to clean things

Yes, I was so excited when I read the script, because I already knew about her. A guy called Joe Boyd recommended a book to me years ago called The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanche. Joe had met this wonderful eccentric woman Lesley, who writes accounts of women who led extraordinary lives. It’s odd that one of them ended up in the adaptation

Photo: Joe Alblas

She was known as the Queen of the Desert. When she rode into Damascus dressed in her best finery and faced down the suspicious locals, one sheikh said “What can we do with her? After all, she is not merely a woman.” I heard there is a film about her in development, The Lady Who Went Too Far.

of a book that preceded her life. I got such a frisson from this Jane Digby. What a good idea to flip her into this episode of the series of Around the World in 80 Days. It won’t come as any surprise that I loved doing this production. It was only disappointing that I wasn’t in a whole series about Jane Digby! Because there is so much rich material there, both in her character and her life. I was also taken by the fact that on Desert Island Discs, Arsene Wenger said he would take Around the World in 80 Days as his book. How about that for a recommendation, because he’s quite a guy.

I’m bewildered that they haven’t called me yet! If anyone else played her or Jane Digby I’d be furious. Digby is so far from away from me but God, what a woman! Enabled, like Hester Stanhope, by her income, she also had the confidence of someone with her upbringing, combined with her character, and acted out her incredibly romantic approach to life and relationships. The world was something she could not resist; she just wanted more and more of it and she was able to do that. Someone poor wouldn’t have been able to trot around Europe,

Have you heard of a woman called Lady Hester Stanhope? I have, she was referred to in the account of Jane Digby’s life. She was a great traveller, wasn’t she?

Photo: Joe Alblas

“Navigating the desert is nothing like stomping across the fields in rural England. No afternoon tea and putting your feet up. You’d be sleeping with your beloved sheik in a tent the whole time. I’d love to think I could because I’m romantically attached to the idea, but I know that I’d be screaming for a taxi after a while”

having love affairs with half of the royalty. Jane Digby could that, but she certainly had a character that required feeding. This period of her life that’s in the series was by all accounts her happiest, and it was the life that was furthest away from her own. She lived in the desert and learned everything about that. She added Arabic to her eight other languages, learned to ride camels. Even though I suppose an aristocratic country woman would be pretty well equipped, it doesn’t mean you can live in the desert with other tribes. I think she was friends with Sir Richard Burton, wasn’t she? Yes, and like him she was a great linguist. If there was anything missing in her education, she quickly hoovered it up, learning not only to speak but also to read all those languages. The reason she was

in Syria in the first place was because her heart had been broken yet again. She was interested

in archaeology and actually knew what she was talking about. This was a woman who was having a dazzling love life but was also doing substantial things. She could not have been respected by the tribes and families she met unless she had been impressive. Some white woman dithering about in the desert because she fancied this guy would not have played well. There was an enormous amount of pride in those tribes, for their culture and their way of life. And she subscribed to it so completely and with such respect for them. Her relationship with her last husband and great love was because of their mutual interests and shared respect, and how

amazing that it all happened in the 19th century! In her more familiar milieu, eventually her family were embarrassed. She was considered to have gone a little too far. And when she married an Arab, that was too much for the family. She knew what it was to be reviled by certain sections of society and that would have been very painful. But having gone to a completely different world, it was a clean slate for her. She was embedded. When they weren’t living in the desert they were living in Damascus, so they were still basically in an Arab world. She didn’t want anything else. You couldn’t take many aristocratic women from the

Photo: Joe Alblas

with Alan Rickman in 2001. Do you remember doing that?

19th century away from their country piles and drop them in the desert. There would have been warfare kicking off all the time. Navigating the desert is nothing like stomping across the fields in rural England. No afternoon tea and putting your feet up. You’d be sleeping with your beloved sheik in a tent the whole time. I’d love to think I could because I’m romantically attached to the idea, but I know that I’d be screaming for a taxi after a while.

That was one of the most precious things, that production. I still feel emotional talking about it, partly because Alan was a friend as well as someone I worked with. It’s still quite raw that he’s not here any more. I literally spent years on stage with him, if you add up all the performances over the years. It was such a joy to discover a play I thought I knew and find as we worked on it that there were layers to it that I hadn’t got the first time around. As well as being witty and seductive, there were emotional layers between all of us during that collaboration with Howard David.

We mentioned coincidences earlier and while doing my research, I realised that I’d seen you in a production of Private Lives

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We managed to mine those layers and I had more and more admiration for Noel Coward.

of it while sitting on a horse. So I had to learn it phonetically, and because it’s so unfamiliar it’s difficult to remember, with such a different soundscape. My next-door neighbour’s son Otto happened to be reading Arabic at Oxford. He had just come back from a trip to the Middle East at a point when I was struggling with my Arabic. He said that I was with Arabic where he had been when he first arrived at Oxford, ie nowhere! Then they had to find an Arabic speaker who lived in Cape Town and he was on set, but he wasn’t really a teacher. He tried to teach me the Arabic alphabet but I didn’t have time. I just needed to learn the sounds.

Sheridan Morley said of Coward: “He understood better than anyone the elliptical twin-level technique . . . having a character say one thing but thinking and meaning something entirely different.” [Laughs] Yes, of course! The possibility of doing that is something you want to find in the writing, and as an actor you want to be able to deliver that. And that’s what audiences love. Through Coward and his writing, the audience were absolutely with us, they had a really great time. You want to feel those lines of connection singing out and coming back to you all the time. I’ve had it before, and since, but you don’t get that all the time.

So if you happened to be on holiday in an Arabic-speaking country, could you go into a restaurant and order something?

How did you cope with having to speak Arabic in Around the World in 80 Days?

Since a lot of it was about the attributes or the failings of a camel, probably not! Should I find myself haggling over the price of a camel, it might come in useful. n

Well, obviously I couldn’t learn the whole language, not having several years at my disposal, but I had to learn something for the part before getting out there. It was difficult and I had to deliver some

Around The World in 80 Days is on BBC1 this Christmas

Biography

JULES VERNE Olivier Woodes-Farquharson worships at the shrine of one of the most influential authors of the 19th Century, whose legacy continues to shape both adventure writing and scientific innovation to this day

“Captain Nemo maintains a pathological loathing of oppression, and in particular imperialism, but we are never sure why. For every moment of terror that he imbues in his captives, there is a moment of tenderness and vulnerability, all against a backdrop of a never-ending exploration of the wonders of the ocean’s depths. Here indeed is the quintessential antihero, enigmatic to the last”

he most translated author in history, as quite a few children are unnecessarily taught, is Agatha Christie. Some, naturally, believe this to be a mark of distinction; others take a sniffier view. Whilst her plots are fiendishly clever, her writing style has dated abominably, meaning that – whisper it – some of the translations could actually be an improvement on the originals to the modern reader. No such accusation could ever be levelled at the author in second place on that list, the incomparable Jules Verne. Christie may have made the whodunit her own, but Verne’s legacy plunges far deeper. A deliriously exciting writer of action

adventure, he was – even more than H G Wells – the true pioneer of science fiction before it even had a name, and almost single-handedly inspired the entire movement of thought, fashion and retrofuturistic design that we now call Steampunk. And forget Marvel; Verne’s novels established a timeless and self-contained Universe a century before anyone had heard of Iron Man or Captain America. Verne’s outlook was always likely to be broad. Born on 8th February 1828 to Pierre and Sophie Verne in the French town of Nantes, he was surrounded from an early age by the big ships and shipbuilders that serviced that busy port city via the mighty river Loire. His prodigious imagination even

“Hetzel had rejected Paris in the 20th Century in 1863 for being ‘utterly unbelievable and too pessimistic’. Set in 1960 – therefore a century in Verne’s future – the novel follows an arts graduate’s increasingly forlorn attempts to make it in a dystopian society where culture and people play an increasingly minor role to business and technology”

father desperate for him to follow into the legal profession. He duly moved to Paris and graduated (experiencing the 1848 revolution first-hand along the way), and soon accepted a job offer from his brother-in-law as a stockbroker, but always rose two hours early so that he could write every morning before going to his paid job. By the late 1850s he had tentatively started writing adventure novels, and with his extra income he reconnected with the shipping influence of his youth and, with his wife, the young writer was drawn repeatedly to Britain, sailing there on the first of over 20 trips to the island that would shape many of his future characters, including the unflappable Phileas Fogg from Around the World in 80 Days. He developed a particular affinity with Scotland, sailing there directly on more than one occasion on one of his succession of yachts, which he always called the Saint Michel. While playing around with an adventure novel tentatively called Voyage en Ballon, Verne’s great break happened in the early 1860s when he met PierreJules Hetzel, already renowned as publisher for Victor Hugo, George Sand and Honoré de Balzac.

then was immersed in climbing aboard those mighty vessels and sailing pretty much anywhere. These memories would later inspire many of his stories. Verne started writing plays and poetry from an early age, but he first had to overcome a traditional

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Still from Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959)

Keen to launch a family magazine combining fiction and science education, Hetzel had found – in Verne’s breathless but scientifically wellresearched prose – his missing jigsaw piece. With a few editorial interventions, including changing its name to Cinq Semaines en Ballon (Five weeks in a Balloon), Hetzel published Verne’s first adventure novel in early 1863, and drew up a long-term contract with the overjoyed Verne to produce two or three texts a year in the same vein, to be serialised in Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation before appearing in book form. The true masterstroke happened when Verne’s next book, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, was published the following year. Verne had had the idea, supported by Hetzel, that this would be the first of a series of hugely ambitious novels that would be called the Voyages Extraordinaires, with Verne’s aim being to “to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format that is [my] own, the history of the universe”. The concept of a ‘Literary Universe’ was conceived, with characters from certain books occasionally appearing or being alluded to in others, and with each story possessing

a relentless drive to travel, explore, experiment and push the boundaries of the scientifically possible. The public was hooked, and not just in France. First out in 1864 was Voyage Au Centre de la Terre (Journey to the Centre of the Earth), where eccentric and ludicrously impatient German professor Otto Lidenbrock believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very centre of the earth. He therefore makes his way to the Snaefellsjokull volcano in Iceland with his nephew Axel, finds a local guide called Hans, and the trio discover and explore a stunning but dangerous subterranean world with tornadoes, cave-ins, mighty underground oceans, 12-foot humanoids and more than a few prehistoric animals, all lit by electrically charged gas near its ceiling. They eventually get spewed out of another volcano, which they learn to be Stromboli in Sicily. The tale is bonkers, but utterly riveting. The professor is infuriating – Verne’s sly dig at the Germans, who were hardly friends of France at the time – but the plot is unrelenting, and the imagination vast. Anyone who has read The Lost World can be under no illusion as to where Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspiration came from. It is also rigorously researched. Verne was able to draw on the emerging schools of palaeontology and

Captain Nemo, played by James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

geology in a convincing way, and without letting it hinder the story. One of the 20th Century’s great science luminaries, Arthur C Clarke, maintained: “The reason Verne is still read by millions today is simply that he was one of the best storytellers who ever lived; and Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a particularly flawless specimen of his art”. Hollywood clearly agreed, with over a dozen adaptations of it over the years. Markedly different, but equally effective, was 1870’s Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). The action starts immediately, when in 1866 ships from around the world keep sighting a sea monster that could be a vast whale and which is damaging shipping. The US government gathers a team to capture the monster. After five months of frustration, they locate the monster in the Western Pacific, are attacked by it, and after the three men are hurled into the Ocean, discover it is in fact a vast submarine. We are then introduced to two of the most influential creations in 19th Century literature. The first is the captain of the vessel, the utterly mysterious and inscrutable Captain Nemo. The name itself is telling: Latin for ‘Nobody’. His age is impossible to gauge, although he is an amazing

physical specimen, and his exact origins are deliberately obfuscated. All Arronax, our narrator, can tell is that he appears to be of South Asian heritage – a fact often overlooked by Hollywood casting directors. Nemo is hugely complex. A vastly rich scientific genius who can converse in many languages, he refuses to go on dry land, except deserted islands and Antarctica; he only uses products of the ocean, foregoing many landassociated luxuries; and he maintains a pathological loathing of oppression, and in particular imperialism, but we are never sure why. Yet he is courageous beyond reproach and maintains a deep and mutual devotion to his crew, while clearly possessing a dark soul that can snap in an instant. For every moment of terror that he imbues in his captives, there is a moment of tenderness and vulnerability, all against a backdrop of a neverending exploration of the wonders of the ocean’s depths. Here, indeed, is the quintessential antihero, enigmatic to the last. The other creation that has transcended the story is the submarine itself, the Nautilus. A conception of wonder, both by Nemo himself in the novel and of Verne’s imagination, the Nautilus

is described as a 1500 cubic metre ‘masterpiece containing masterpieces’, travelling at up to 43 knots on sodium batteries, with the sodium distilled from seawater and the batteries providing electricity as well as propulsion. It is not just way ahead of its time with its engineering (Verne accurately predicted battery powered submarines decades before they were developed), it is also ecologically sound, providing a carbon neutral footprint at a time of exponential growth in industrial pollution. The Nautilus – more than any other literary invention – is the inspiration behind Steampunk. Its retrofuturistic feel, specifically bringing out the perfect balance between technology and design, between form and function, embodies perfectly the Steampunk ideal – all the more powerful bearing in mind the word itself was not coined until 1987. Verne’s prophetic influence on this subgenre continued with many other works, notably Robur the Conqueror and its sequel Master of the World, where the protagonist flies his huge multi-rotor airship, the Albatross, across the world’s skies, causing panic and awe everywhere.

his 50s, leaving him partially blind. 1886 proved especially traumatic. First his mother and then his publisher Hetzel died. Further, on 9th March, as Verne returned home, his mentally ill 26-year-old nephew Gaston suddenly became violent, grabbed a pistol and shot Verne, the second bullet lodging in his left leg and leaving the now world-famous author with a limp for the rest of his life. Verne died on 24th March 1905 at his home in Amiens. But by then, his body of work had been immortalized, with novels such as Around the World in 80 Days, Michael Strogoff, The Mysterious Island and many others adding to his lustre. Indeed, it is hard to overstate both the scale and scope of Verne’s lasting influence. Famed American submarine designer Simon Lake started his autobiography with the words, “Jules Verne was in a sense the director– general of my life”. Igor Sikorsky was equally unequivocal, citing Robur the Conqueror as his main source of inspiration in developing the world’s first functioning helicopter. Edwin Hubble, the legendary astronomer latterly of telescope fame, was clear in stating Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon as his main reason for giving up a career in law to pursue a hugely successful life in science. For writers with foresight, mere death seldom spells an end to how they shape future events, and this is no less true of Verne; indeed, in 1989, he was still capable of surprise. While rummaging through Verne’s affairs, his great-grandson stumbled across a manuscript called Paris in the 20th Century. Although written in 1863, Hetzel had rejected it at the time for being ‘utterly unbelievable and too pessimistic’. Set in 1960 – therefore a century in Verne’s future – the novel follows an arts graduate’s increasingly forlorn attempts to make it in a dystopian society where culture and people play an increasingly minor role to business and technology. Among a host of other predictions, the novel describes – with astonishing prescience – cars with internal combustion engines, underground railway networks, skyscrapers, elevators, department stores, synthesizers, harnessed wind power, feminism, and even a mechanism sending quick messages across vast distances that sounds frighteningly like the internet. Although published in 1994, it is hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that it had been written 130 years earlier. Perhaps Jules did, after all, secretly develop one of his gloriously described machines, one that allowed time travel into the future. Either way, as acclaimed US author Ray Bradbury wrote, “We are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne”. n

“Among a host of other predictions, the novel describes – with astonishing prescience – cars with internal combustion engines, underground railway networks, skyscrapers, elevators, department stores, synthesizers, harnessed wind power, feminism, and even a mechanism sending quick messages across vast distances that sounds frighteningly like the internet” In all, Verne wrote 54 novels within the Voyages Extraordinaires, all of which remain in print and voraciously devoured to this day. Verne’s enormous output came despite continual health challenges. He increasingly suffered from colitis, giving him severe stomach cramps, as well as Bell’s palsy, a temporary form of one-sided facial paralysis caused by damage to the facial nerve. He then developed diabetes in

Drink

AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHT COCKTAILS Gustav Temple follows in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg with cocktail shaker and swizzle stick in hand, to sample the cocktails from each city he visited on his circumnavigation

Brindisi, Italy

here are as many cocktails as there are cities in the world, and Phileas Fogg’s route in Around the World in 80 Days took him through some of the major drinking centres of the globe. It is not recorded in Jules Verne’s book what particular tipples his adventuring hero partook of while passing through Brindisi, Suez, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco or New York. So as an addendum to both the book and the new television adaptation, we have compiled a list of cocktails, with their recipes, whose origins are in or very near each of the eight cities Phileas Fogg passed through on his journey around the world.

NEGRONI Phileas Fogg’s first port of call on his transglobal adventure was Brindisi in southern Italy. Not a city particularly known for its cocktails, we must look further north to Milan, where a popular drink invented at the Caffe Camparnino in the 1860s was the Milano-Torino, made with equal parts of Campari and Amaro Cora. The owner’s name was Gaspare Campari. Visiting Americans requested the addition of a splash of soda water and this new version became known as the Americano. Fast forward to 1919, when Count Camillo

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General Pascal Olivier, Comte de Negroni

Count Camillo Negroni

Negroni was in the Casoni Bar, Florence, and asked for an Americano with a bit more bite to it. The bartender swapped gin for the soda water and the Count was hooked, always requesting the same combination on future visits to the bar. Other customers adopted the drink and it soon became known as ‘the Negroni’. This convenient story was recently upended by a modern-day descendant of the Negroni dynasty, one Colonel Hector Andres Negroni, who claims that the Negroni cocktail was actually invented by General Pascal Olivier, Comte de Negroni, a Frenchman who introduced his fellow officers to his signature vermouth-based cocktail in 1870. His descendant also claims that Camillo Negroni never existed at all, but he would say that, wouldn’t he?

NEGRONI RECIPE: The joy of this simple cocktail, as well as its complex sweetand-sour flavour, is in the making. All the ingredients can be poured directly into the glass over ice and then stirred with anything resembling a swizzle stick. • • • •

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1 oz London Dry Gin 1 oz Aperol or Campari 1 oz Good quality sweet vermouth Garnish with a slice of orange

Joe Scialom

Harry Craddock

Suez, Egypt

Joe Scialom remained at the Shepheard’s Hotel until 1952, when it was destroyed during the second Egyptian revolution. Joe was then imprisoned on suspicions of espionage and later exiled from Egypt by President Nasser after the Suez Crisis. The talented barman was snapped up by Conrad Hilton and taken to Puerto Rico and then Cuba to run Hilton’s hotel bars. Another revolution, this time Castro’s Cuban one, sent Joe on the move again, and he remained in the employ of the Hilton group, setting up bars all over the world in their hotels.

SUFFERING BASTARD During the Battle of El-Alamein, Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps were stationed in Egypt, and Rommel was fond of boasting that, “I’ll be drinking champagne in the master suite at Shepheard’s soon.” This was a reference to the Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, where British officers would constantly bemoan their hangovers to head barman Joe Scialom at the Long Bar. Joe was the ideal bartender: an Egyptian-Jewish former chemist who spoke multiple languages and had an extraordinary memory for names, faces and which drinks his customers liked. Joe created the Suffering Bastard as a hangover cure, using ingredients that could be sourced locally. Even the ribald British officers baulked at the vulgar name and it became known as the ‘Suffering Bar Steward’. The cocktail became so popular that, in 1942, Joe Scialom got a telegram from the British front lines requesting eight gallons of Suffering Bastard (they no longer cared about the vulgar name) to be delivered to the front at El Alamein, by then under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery. At the next confrontation with the Germans, Monty and his troops turned Rommel away and pushed him westward towards an eventual defeat.

Bombay, India BOMBAY No2 The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 was written by Harry Craddock, head barman at the American Bar in the Savoy Hotel, London. Born in Stroud in 1875, Harry was a bit of a globetrotter himself. He worked at Hoffman House and the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, becoming a US citizen in 1916 and drafted into the army at the end of the First World War. As soon as Prohibition did him out of a job, he hot tailed it back over the Atlantic to England, where his American accent landed him a job at the Savoy and led to his penning what was seen as the definitive cocktail book. By 1926 there were so many Americans drinking at the Savoy that it became known as the 49th state. As well as inventing the Corpse Reviver,

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Harry’s signature blend was the White Lady. In fact, so attached was he to his recipe for a White Lady that he buried one, in a cocktail shaker, within the walls of the American Bar in 1927. Despite numerous searches, the ancient relic has never been found. Harry was invited to return to the USA after Prohibition was repealed, but remained in England, taking over as head barman at the Dorchester Hotel. Harry’s Bombay No.2 appeared in the Savoy Cocktail Book’s 1930 edition, among 699 other recipes.

SUFFERING BASTARD RECIPE: • • • • •

1 oz (30ml) Bourbon 1 oz Dry Gin 1 tsp fresh lime juice 1 dash Angostura Bitters 4 oz chilled Ginger Beer

Shake all ingredients except the ginger beer over ice in a cocktail shaker. Pour unstrained into an Old Fashioned glass and stir in the ginger beer. Garnish with a sprig of mint and an orange wedge.

Singapore SINGAPORE SLING Sir Stanford Raffles opened the Raffles Hotel in Singapore in 1887. The hotel’s Long Bar quickly became a popular haunt for British expatriates, and by 1899 at the helm was Chinese-born Ngiam Tong Boon, who had run away from his home town of Hainan and worked on a French ship before winding up at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. One of the most popular cocktails there was a Gin Sling, enjoyed by, among others, Noel Coward in the 1930s. Ngiam Tong Boon added his own flourishes, which included the addition of cherry liqueur to give the Singapore Sling its bright pink colour. Unfortunately, Boon never recorded his exact recipe and when the Japanese invaded Singapore in 1942, they used the Raffles Hotel as a transit camp for prisoners of war until 1945, and were not very interested in making Singapore Slings for them.

BOMBAY No.2 RECIPE:

• • • • • •

1 dash Absinthe 2 dashes Orange Curacao 3/4 oz Dry French Vermouth 3 /4 oz Sweet Italian Vermouth 1 1/2 oz Brandy tir all ingredients and strain into coupe glass S

SINGAPORE SLING RECIPE: • • • • • • • • •

Ngiam Tong Boon

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1 oz Gin 1/2 oz Cherry Heering Liqueur 1/4 oz Triple Sec 1/4 oz Benedictine D.O.M. 1/2 oz Lime Juice 4 oz Pineapple Juice 1/4 oz Grenadine Syrup 1 dash Angostura Bitters hake over ice in a cocktail S shaker and serve in a tall glass, topped up with soda water.

The hotel’s only source for the recipe, which they hand out on a printed card to all guests, is based on a handwritten note handed in to the bar by a guest in 1936. Since then, heated debate has raged about the Singapore Sling’s true recipe, with some bartenders insisting that it can be made simply with equal measures of dry gin, cherry brandy and Benedictine, topped up with soda water. The recipe reproduced here is the one that the Raffles Hotel is still serving its guests, more than 100 years since Ngiam Tong Boon disappeared back to China.

Hong Kong THE GUNNER Before Britain’s handover to China, the most popular cocktail among the expat community in Hong Kong was called a Gunner. Since this cocktail is non-alcoholic, we shall pass over it, offering the recipe only for those who really insist on drinking cocktails without alcohol in them. Trader Vic

Yokohama, Japan BAMBOO COCKTAIL

San Francisco, USA

Like all great cocktails, the origins of the Bamboo are shrouded in mystery. “I have had three Bamboo Cocktails, and I am totally bamboozled because of all the booze”. This was penned in 1886 in an American newspaper, referring to a new drink that was sweeping the nation. The man credited with inventing the Bamboo was one Louis Eppinger, a German barman who, after running various saloons in the United States, including the Bureau Saloon in Portland, came to work at the Grand Hotel, Yokohama in 1890. There is evidence that the Bamboo already existed before he got there, although perhaps in Eppinger’s mind, as the cocktail had been served to English sailors passing through the Pacific port of Portland where he had his saloon. Englishmen would certainly have delighted in a cocktail that contained their beloved sherry. The only other well-known cocktail made with sherry is the Adonis (two parts Oloroso sherry, one part sweet vermouth, two dashes of bitters), but that came after the Bamboo in the early 20th century.

MAI TAI Victor Jules Bergeron, better known as Trader Vic, opened his first restaurant in Oakland, San Francisco in 1934. They served Polynesian food, adding dishes from France, China and America in what would today be called ‘fusion cuisine’. Trader Vic, along with Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, or Donn Beach of Don the Beachcomber’s Bar, started what became known as Tiki culture, with influences from south east Asia, the Caribbean and Hawaii. They did this mainly through cocktails, though it spawned a whole industry in kitsch homeware and sculpture. One evening in 1944, Trader Vic was entertaining two friends from Tahiti at his bar and made them a special cocktail from some Jamaican rum. He mixed it with fresh lime, orange curaçao, some rock candy sugar and a splash of French orgeat syrup, shook it over shaved ice and stuck half a lime shell and a sprig of mint on top. His Tahitian friend took a sip and declared “Mai Tai-Roa Aé”, Tahitian for ‘Out of this world’. As soon as the drink became a national success and was exported to Hawaii by Vic, his Tiki rival Ernest laid claim to inventing the Mai Tai, leading to a lengthy legal battle in the 1970s. Trader Vic summed up his feelings privately by saying “Anyone who says I didn’t create this drink is a dirty stinker.” Vic won the case and never set foot in Don the Beachcomber again.

Louis Eppinger

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THE GUNNER RECIPE: • C oat

the inside of a highball glass with Angostura Bitters. Fill with equal parts ginger ale, ginger beer, stir and garnish with three slices of fresh lemon.

BAMBOO COCKTAIL RECIPE: • 1 • •

Manhattan Club

•

New York, USA MANHATTAN

1/2 oz Fino Sherry (ideally Tio Pepe) 3/4 oz Dry Vermouth 3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth tir all ingredients in a mixing S vessel and strain into a chilled coupe glass.

MAI TAI RECIPE:

Once again, the origins of this classic cocktail are the subject of huge speculation and heated arguments in cocktail bars. At one end of the bar are those who insist that the recipe was invented by Dr. Iain Marshall in 1874 for a party by Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill. The party was being held in the Manhattan Club in New York, hence the name of the cocktail. Those on the other end of the bar declare that Lady Randolph Churchill was pregnant with Winston in England at the time, giving birth to Winston in November 1874. Suddenly, a voice emerges from the shadows at the end of the bar. “You’re both wrong,” it says in a voice marinated by rye whisky, “the Manhattan was invented in the 1860s by a man named Black, who lived along the street from a renowned cocktail bar in New York called Hoffman House.” “A man named Black!” the others scoff, swigging from their glasses. Finally, the first sensible voice emerges, this time from behind the cocktail bar from the bartender himself. “It is impossible to determine the true origins of such a popular and simple cocktail. The only important thing is that it is made properly, with Rye whisky rather than bourbon, and with Italian Vermouth rather than French. The reason for this is that French vermouth is a sort of wine whereas the Italian variety is more of a cordial.” There is a stunned silence at the bar, broken only when three voices simultaneously utter, “A Manhattan made with rye whisky and Italian vermouth, please.” n

• 2

oz Dark Jamaica rum oz Orange Curaçao 1 /4 oz Orgeat Syrup (or Plain Sugar Syrup) 1 /4 oz Rock Candy Syrup 1 Lime

• 1 /2 •

• •

Cut the lime in half, squeeze its juice over shaved ice in a mai tai glass (or any decent sized tumbler), saving one spent lime shell. Add the remaining ingredients and enough shaved ice to fill the glass. Shake by hand and garnish with the lime shell and fresh mint.

MANHATTAN RECIPE: • 1

1/2 oz Rye Whisky oz Italian Sweet Vermouth 2 Dashes Maraschino Syrup (from a jar of Maraschino cherries) 1 Dash Angostura Bitters

• 1/2 •

•

Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with one maraschino cherry.

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Cooking

WARM WINTER SALADS Nicole Drysdale advocates the preparation of salads that are not just for the summer months Share your creations with Nicole on Instagram @nicolethechap

salad in winter? Who would want such a thing? These warm winter salads are certainly no ploughman’s lunch. By using warm toppings on a bed of leaves, these salads are elevated into a position of sitting comfortably at the centre of the table on a winter’s evening. All three are so easy to cook with minimal effort, and although they can be served as a whole dish, there are also different accompaniments that could be added to each. The gravy/dressing for the chicken salad is actually how I make my gravy when I’m doing a full on roast. It’s packed with flavours of lemon and garlic and has a real zing to it. If you wanted to bring those flavours down a notch, I would suggest adding more water and another spoon of gravy granules. If green beans aren’t your thing, tender stem broccoli, asparagus or mange tout could be your substitute. If you wanted to add a side dish, a simple homemade coleslaw of grated carrot, white onion and thinly sliced white cabbage dressed in mayonnaise would go very well. The Roast shoulder of lamb with the harissa is such a beautifully colourful plate to serve. I’m not encouraging lazy cooks, but this really takes minimal effort for such a tasty dish. I love slow and low cooked lamb, with the result being meat

that falls apart and more than enough easily to feed six. Shredding the lamb and adding the extra spoon of harissa at the end means that every bit of meat is covered in flavour. As lamb is quite rich, the red onion, delicious in itself, helps to cut through the richness and give a bit of a crunch. And the yoghurt/tahini dressing adds the coolness and brings it all together. Any salad leaves could be used but I like to use mostly baby spinach, as the flavour doesn’t interfere too much with the lamb. If you wanted to add something extra, I would probably go for a good flatbread. The butternut squash, red pepper and beetroot salad is also such a colourful dish. Squash goes lovely and sweet when it’s roasted and sits very well with the earthy beetroot. I’ve tried this salad with different homemade honey and mustard salad dressings, but I just can’t find one that works as well as Briannas Dijon Honey Mustard Dressing. I don’t mind using shopbought sometimes, if I feel I would be compromising flavour just for the principle of having everything homemade. By all means make and use your own dressing but do give this one a try, especially with this particular salad. This salad also goes very well with a roast chicken, as an alternative to the traditional trimmings. Hopefully these recipes show that, like colourful ties, salads are not just for the summer months.

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Roast Chicken with Lemon Dressing Serves 4 Prep Time: 5 Minutes Cooking Time: 2 Hours

Ingredients Whole Chicken 2 Lemons 4 large cloves of garlic Couple of sprigs of thyme Drizzle olive oil 1 Bag of baby spinach 1 Bag of rocket 1 Bag of baby potatoes (500g) 1 Bag of green beans (200g) 1 tbsp chicken gravy granules Knob of butter Salt & Pepper Method 1. Pre-heat oven to 180. 2. Prep the chicken by placing the garlic, thyme and lemons (halved) into the cavity. Drizzle with a little oil, season and place into a deep-sided oven tray. 3. Cook in the pre-heated oven for 1 hour 30–1 hour 45, or until juices run clear. 4. Once the chicken is cooked, take out of the oven, remove the lemon, garlic and thyme from the cavity and place back into the oven tray alongside the juices from the chicken. Place the chicken on a plate and allow to rest covered in tin foil to keep warm. 5. While the chicken is resting, cut the potatoes in half and boil for 20 minutes or until cooked. Add the green beans for the last 8 minutes. 6. Make the gravy/dressing by placing the oven tray over a medium heat on the stove and bring to the boil. Remove the garlic from the skin and crush it into the gravy. Use the back of a spoon to squeeze out the juice from the lemons. Add approx half a cup of water and continue to simmer. Once reduced slightly (5 minutes or so) remove the lemons and thyme. Add the gravy granules and small knob of butter and stir until thickened. 7. Use a large serving plate and start by putting down a bed of the leaves. Shred the chicken and place on top of the leaves along with the potatoes and green beans. Drizzle over the hot gravy and serve. Method 1. Remove the lamb from the fridge an hour before cooking. Serves 6 2. Pre-heat oven to 180. Prep Time: 10 minutes 3. Using a large frying pan brown the lamb in a drizzle of olive oil Cooking Time: 4 Hours for a couple of minutes all over. Ingredients 4. Place the lamb in a large deep-sided oven dish. Rub with 2 Shoulder of Lamb tablespoons of the harissa paste, season and pour a glass of 1 Red onion water into the bottom of the dish. Drizzle of red wine vinegar 5. Cook in the pre-heated oven for around 2 hours, then baste Tsp sugar with the juices, cover with foil and place back in the oven for a 250g Natural yoghurt further 2 hours. 2 tbsp tahini 6. Thinly slice the red onion and place in a bowl with the red Juice of half a lemon wine vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt. Allow to sit for a couple 2 bags salad leaves of hours, giving it a mix every so often. 1/2 cucumber 7. In a small bowl mix together the yogurt, tahini and lemon juice. Drizzle olive oil 8. Once the lamb is cooked (it should fall apart and be easy to 2-3 tbsp harissa paste shred with a fork) remove from the oven dish and shred all Salt & Pepper the meat. Place back into the oven dish and stir through the remaining harissa paste. Place back in the oven for 15 minutes. 9. Use a vegetable peeler and peel long strips of the cucumber. 10. Take a large serving dish and layer the salad leaves, cucumber, shredded lamb and top with the red onion. Serve with the bowl of yoghurt and tahini dressing.

Roast Lamb with Harissa

Butternut Squash, Red Pepper and Beetroot Salad Serves 4 Prep Time: 20 minutes Cooking Time: 1 hour

Ingredients 2 Bags of mixed leaves 2 Red peppers (cut into bite-sized pieces) 1 large butternut squash 4 Raw beetroot 2 Cloves of garlic (crushed) Drizzle of olive oil Salad dressing (see article) Salt & Pepper Method 1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Pre-heat oven to 180. 2. Cut the tops off the beetroot and place in the pan of boiling water for 20 minutes. 3. Peel, half and core the squash. Chop into bite sized pieces. Place in an oven dish, drizzle with olive oil and season. Place in the oven for 15 minutes. 4. After 15 minutes stir in the peppers and garlic. Place back in the oven for a further 20 minutes. 5. Once the beetroot has boiled, strain, peel and cut into wedges. Drizzle with olive oil , season and place in the oven for 20 minutes. 6. Once all the vegetable are cooked, assemble on a large serving dish on a bed of the salad leaves and drizzle over the dressing.

Lemon Tart Serves 6 Prep Time: 10 mins Cooking Time: 1 hour 10 (plus chilling)

Ingredients Pack of sweet shortcrust pastry 140g Caster sugar 150ml Double cream 4 Large eggs Juice and zest of 3 large lemons

Method 1. Take the pastry out of the fridge 20 minutes before using. 2. Roll out the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin and line a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin, trimming off the edges. Gently press into the edges and prick the bottom with a fork all over. Pop back in the fridge for 15 minutes. 3. Pre-heat the oven to 160. 4. Remove the tart from the fridge and cut parchment paper to fit the bottom and sides. (Crush the paper up then unwrap it; makes it fit easier!) Fill the bottom with baking beans and bake in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes on a baking tray. 5. Make the filling by whisking (by hand) all the ingredients. 6. Remove the baking beans and paper and cook for a further 15 minutes. 7. Using a jug, fill the tart with the lemon filling. The easiest way to do this is to keep the tart in the oven while filling, to avoid spillages. 8. Continue to bake for a further 25-30 minutes or until just set. You want a bit of a wobble to it. 9. Remove and allow to rest. The tart is best served at room temperature with a good dash of double cream.

Travel

THE ITALIAN RIVIERA Chris Sullivan lands in Milan and takes an extended passeggiata around the coast of Northern Italy

“Just as I arrived the heavens opened, Old Testament style – thunder, lighting, frogs etc – so I randomly alighted on Pasticceria Orneto, a caffe overlooking the bay full of boats and the adjacent beach, opened in 1953 and entirely unchanged since”

any of the uninformed regard Milan as a rather ugly industrial city, but the reality could not be further from this perception. As the first leg of my sojourn around Northern Italy and the Italian Riviera, I was entirely enamoured of a city centre that is as remarkable as many any of the great Italian cities. The Duomo di Milano is a classic of Renaissance architecture, while the breathtaking glass-domed arcades and art deco features are sights to behold. I was there to DJ at the opening of Milan Fashion Week, so added to the wonderful vistas surrounding one was a cavalcade of beautiful people rarely ever seen in one place at one time. I arrived post-Covid and found that, despite the regulation vaccination passes and multiple and exhaustive online form-filling, which took an entire frustrating day, the journey’s only hitch was a few unscrupulous taxi drivers trying to charge me double the fixed rate of 80 euros from Milan Malpensa Airport to the centre. So I took a far more reasonable 13-euro train instead.

On the first day, I took in the aforementioned Duomo (as one does) and walked about aimlessly, ending up in the utterly remarkable restaurant Santa Lucia, which served me one of the finest yet simplest pasta in tomato sauce this scribe has ever tasted, followed by an equally astounding steak with sautéed potatoes. I eased it down with a bottle of my favourite wine, Sesti Brunello di Montalcino 2018, putting

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Milan

me in the perfect mood to play my brand of Latino funk to a crowd of Milanese hepcats that evening. The next day I awoke at 11 am to a temperature of a stonking 32 degrees (it was late September) so I took myself to the art deco swimming baths, Bagni Misteriosi, where they offer drinks, food and a DJ who, although not to my taste, didn’t intrude too much, after which I took to the rooftop bar at the Rinascenti department store, whose 7th floor proffers a rather wonderful view of Milan. Come Saturday, Milan was heaving with people and it was rather too much for a gentle soul such as I, so I availed myself of a slap-up lunch at the tiny Latteria di San Marco, washed down with a bottle of Chianti Classico, a couple of grappas and a large espresso. This fortified me for the train journey from Milano Centrale to Santa Margherita on the famed Italian Riviera and directly opposite Monaco. The two-hour journey took me to a typical Italian seaside

resort, where one might imagine Fellini plotting up his next film and taking his evening passeggiata. Just as I arrived the heavens opened, Old Testament style – thunder, lighting, frogs etc – so I randomly alighted on Pasticceria Orneto, a caffe overlooking the bay full of boats and the adjacent beach, opened in 1953 and entirely unchanged since. They served me a rather fine Ligurian sandwich with rescinseua cheese, grilled aubergine, chickpea pancakes and peppers, accompanied by few small beers and a macchiato to finish. Thus fuelled, I wandered the town and found it to be a charmingly unpretentious place full of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers, alongside typical Italian delis, pastry shops and hardware stores. That night, on the recommendation of Italian gourmand Marco Maccarpane, I sidled up a back street and into Trattoria di Pino, to sample the awe-inspiring Cappon Magro, the King of Ligurian seafood salads, with prawns, clams (or whatever fresh

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Portofino

ity to the sea, and then a plate of fritto misto di mare (fried mixed seafood) that was above and beyond the call. And then there was the dessert: a delicious pana cotta with fresh strawberries and raspberries with a caramel sauce. The next day the sun politely took its hat off and I walked the rather perilous 5 km coastal road to Portofino. On the way I visited some rather marvellous little beaches, such as Paraggi, well worth a visit. As I reached Portofino I was a little confused. Basically, it’s a tiny port the size of a fivea-side pitch, replete with big yachts and a gaggle of Rolex, Louis Vuitton and Dior outlets. Packed with tourists and souvenir stores, it wasn’t my bag, but nevertheless, with its pastel coloured buildings leaning over into the sea, it’s worthy of its reputation. As I was there, after a pint of draft Moretti (12 euros) I thought it my duty to partake of supper as the sun went down, so I sat and looked out to sea and enjoyed a magnificent dinner at Dai Gemelli, right on

“The fare was really rather fine and the view unimpeachable, but the tang of Gucci loafer was very much in the air, so I got the bus back to Santa Margherita and had a few pints in a bar full of builders” seafood is available on the day) atop bruschetta with celery, potatoes, carrots, beans and artichoke, all covered with a tangy sauce made from eggs, breadcrumbs, vinegar, parsley, garlic, capers, olives and anchovies. A new dish for yours truly, it was simply incredible. Next up was stunning Spaghetti Vongole, benefitting immensely from the restaurant’s proxim-

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Latteria di San Marco

Santa Margherita

the harbour, which served me a rather special spaghetti with seafood followed by a Genoese fish dish with sea bream, sea bass, snapper, amberjack, san Pietro and gurnard. The fare was really rather fine and the view unimpeachable, but the tang of Gucci loafer was very much in the air, so I got the bus back to Santa Margherita and had a few pints in a bar full of builders. But I wasn’t quite done with Liguria just yet, having seen many amazing photos of Cinque Terra (a region comprising five towns) and its almost mythical bay, Verazza, surrounded by pinkstuccoed five-storey buildings. I took the train from Santa Margherita and changed on to a tiny train at Levanto, two stops later exiting the broken-down station down a rickety staircase into a street that led to what I can only describe as the Italy of a bygone era. Although similar in shape and size, Verazza is the polar opposite of Portofino and looks like the harbour location in Plein Soleil or The Talented Mr. Ripley. Very much like a film set in the Naples or Sicily of the fifties, gangs of scruffy kids played hide

and seek, old men in shirtsleeves sat outside the church next to even older ladies dressed in black. There were no fancy restaurants or bars, just a pizza place and a trattoria full of families, while on the seafront perched a family run bar/restaurant called Beloforte, cut out of the rocks some 100 feet up. Here I paid half of what I’d forked out at Portofino for a far superior meal, with a far better view and far better service. I left when the sun went down, feeling that I’d sampled the proper Italy.

“One doesn’t see ugly new skyscrapers, brand new copycat blocks of luxury apartments or ugly shop facades of chrome and aluminium. What we see is not so much a locale that has resisted change but one that respects its past”

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Verazza

Looking out over Santa Margherita from my balcony on my last morning, I noticed the logo on the paper bag I’d been given from Ricci, a local food shop. A simple blue monotone logo with an illustration of a harbour that might have been drawn in the 1930s, it dawned on me that what is so special about this region is their total respect for their heritage and history. One doesn’t see ugly new skyscrapers, brand new copycat blocks of luxury apartments or ugly shop facades of chrome and aluminium. What we see is less a locale that has resisted change but more one that respects its past. We in the UK could learn a lot from the Italians in this respect, as they know the wealth of what they have in the long term and not the short, whereas in the UK it’s all about making money now and screw the future, while tearing down the old wonderful heritage buildings and putting up the new. The Italians know that history has a currency and that legacy is not only long lasting but is passed on to our loved ones. n

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Beloforte

Motoring

Brooklands Motor Circuit Actuarius fires up a brand-new motoring column by fixing his sights on Britain’s first and foremost motor racing circuit

rooklands! Is there any other name, or any other motor circuit, that stirs the soul in quite the same way? Although Australia may lay claim to the first purpose-built car-racing track at Aspendale, it only beat Brooklands by a year, being opened in 1906 to the Surrey venue’s inauguration in 1907. However, Aspendale was speculatively built within a horse-racing course and only lasted a few years, while the vision and impact of Brooklands would be altogether more radical and far reaching. Born of a wish to stimulate the British motor industry by providing an up-to-date proving ground, rather than specifically as a venue for motor sport, this 2¾ mile long kidney-shaped circuit was built by Hugh Locke King and his wife Ethel, among the then sleepy meadows near Weybridge. Although its

“Brooklands became home to not only the car and motorbike community but also the fledgling aviation industry. The latter would be referenced in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, where the starting point in the film has cars racing around banking and an aircraft crashing into a pond of effluent”

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“The between wars era saw a more mobile populace seeking new thrills in the emerging mechanised age and although ‘The Right Crowd and No Crowding’ was the advertising tag line, the circuit saw large numbers turning up to watch the dashing men and women roar around the banking” nearest neighbours were the London mainline and a sewage works, it still provoked local outrage. An understandable response, given that the wide pristine concrete track with large radius banked corners at each end must have looked shockingly futuristic to the inhabitants of Edwardian England. The novel method of construction led to one of Brooklands’ less admirable traits, in that it was notoriously bumpy from the very start. In particular the bridge over the river Wey became a high point, as the rest of the track sagged either side and numerous cars would be photographed here with all four wheels off the ground. Resurfacing work became a constant if inadequate solution for the rest of the track’s life. The oddballs, chancers and visionaries soon converged on this new venue, as ‘the village’, a collection of wooden sheds and workshops, sprang up adjacent to the paddock. It became home to not only the car and motorcycle community but also the fledgling aviation industry. The latter would be referenced in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, where the starting point in the film has cars racing around banking and an aircraft crashing into a pond of effluent. The specialist tuners and car dealers would remain virtually unchanged until the Second World War but the aviation side would expand hugely, with Vickers and Hawker becoming major tenants. Hugh passed away in 1926 but he did at least live to see his dream realised, while Ethyl would remain at the centre of circuit life up to its closure. The between wars era saw a more mobile populace seeking new thrills in the emerging mechanised age and although ‘The Right Crowd and No Crowding’ was the advertising tag line, the circuit saw large numbers turning up to watch the dashing men and Vintage racers give a taste of Brooklands in the 1920s

Parry Thomas’s Babs

women roar around the banking. The women drivers were sometimes seen as something of a novelty; famously Barbara Cartland organised a ladies-only race for the cameras, but they do seem to have been generally treated as the equals of the men. They certainly competed on equal terms with the diminutive Canadian Kay Petre battling Gwenda Stewart in 1935 for the women’s lap record, which then stood at around 135 mph. At the time the overall record stood barely 10 mph faster.

Although a qualified success in its purpose of promoting development (a shot of your latest car aviating as it came over the crest of the Test Hill would always help sales) there has been debate ever since about Brooklands promoting a ‘certain type of car’ at the expense of all round good performers. This has even been cited as one reason why Britain didn’t fare well in pre-war Grand Prix, but the flipside was the birth of the ‘Brooklands Special’. Usually low-slung with rudimentary streamlining

Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird

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Single seat Bentley, the Pacey Hassan Special

“From ‘single seat Bentleys’ to ‘Flat Iron Rileys’, from the dashing Tim Birkin to the pugnaciously gifted Freddy Dixon, Brooklands provided thrilling sport with a dash of flair”

Special’, one of many big-engined Brooklands cars built by him, with the most famous being the Chitty Bang Bang series. Christened in reference to a bawdy WWI term, they would later inspire Fleming’s children’s book and the subsequent film. From ‘single seat Bentleys’ to ‘Flat Iron Rileys’, from the dashing Tim Birkin to the pugnaciously gifted Freddy Dixon, Brooklands provided thrilling sport with a dash of flair. Sadly there were inevitably tragedies. British Movietone’s cameras caught the horrific moment ‘Bentley Boy’ Clive Dunfee fatally went ‘over the top’ of the banking at 130 mph. The newsreel can be found online but the edited sequence manages to capture not just the fate of Dunfee but also what was so magical about this circuit. A large car thundering past a gaggle of smaller cars on the banking, bouncing in unison as they leap from crest to crest on the broken surface at 100 mph plus, is still as stirring a sight today as it was in 1932. Of course all parties have to end, and the curtain was brought down on Brooklands as a racing circuit with the outbreak of World War II. The need for safe aircraft operations resulted in large breaks being cut out of the iconic banking, and by the end of the War Vickers had effectively taken over the site. It continued as a major aircraft factory until closure in the mid 80s and the official founding of

and conforming to the standard format of the biggest engine for any given class in the smallest chassis it would fit in, these cars and their drivers epitomised the dashing pre-war racer. The larger cars (usually powered by war surplus aircraft engines) remain the most enthralling. Malcolm Campbell’s original Blue Bird, progenitor of a speed record dynasty, started its life as the aero-engined 350hp Sunbeam raced at Brooklands in 1920. Later Blue Birds were designed by Brooklands based Reid Railton and built within the village at Thomson and Taylor, a company co-founded by Parry Thomas, who raced his special ‘Babs’ at the circuit before dying at her wheel during a world speed record attempt on Pendine Sands. Babs had started life as Count Louis Zborowski's ‘Higham

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Concorde at the Brooklands Museum

“A large car thundering past a gaggle of smaller cars on the banking, bouncing in unison as they leap from crest to crest on the broken surface at 100 MPH plus, is still as stirring a sight today as it was in 1932.” the museum. Originally centred around the clubhouse, village and Members Banking, the museum has now grown to include the Weybridge banking and a large collection of vehicles and ephemera. If you pay it a visit, make sure you take the time to hunt out the Art Deco airfield control tower, now surrounded by a trading estate but preserved and intact. You may also want to find a quiet, isolated spot on the majestic sweep of what remains of the track, close your eyes and take a moment to think of those long lost fabulous days, when heroes and heroines dared to risk all here in the pursuit of speed and glory. n

Brooklands Clubhouse

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Classic Automobiles THE NAPIER RAILTON John Cobb was born at the turn of the 20th century in Esher. He would follow his wealthy father into the family’s fur brokering business and this provided him with the funds to indulge his motor racing ambitions. Childhood visits to Brooklands can only have helped to encourage any underlying interests in this field, and Cobb would not only race there but he would also go on to become one of Britain’s most accomplished speed record breakers. His early forays into racing at Brooklands saw success at the wheel of Count Zborowski's Higham Special, among others, before purchasing the 10.5 litre Delage that had briefly held the land speed record in 1924. This car would have a successful career in his ownership, not only winning races but also setting various records, including the Surrey circuit’s womens’ lap record with Kay Petre. However, the rise of the single seat Bentleys meant that something very special would be needed to compete at the front from the mid-30s onwards. Thus 1933 saw Cobb commission the ultimate Brooklands car from local company Thomson and Taylor. Their response was the Napier Railton – named for the manufacturer of its engine and their chief designer, Reid Railton. The mechanical heart of the car, the ‘broad arrow 12’ Napier Lion, and its exploits are worthy of an extensive book in itself, but suffice it to say this was a natural choice, and Railton provided it with a chassis that would allow its full potential to be realised on the imperfection of the concrete surface. With functional polished aluminium bodywork, bluff radiator, Union Flags painted on the tail and a bellowing exhaust note, the Napier Railton remains an awe inspiring machine even today. There were wins from the outset, with the lap record soon elevated to a never-to-be-beaten 143.44 mph in 1935. In fact, this combination of car and driver

was so potent that they would go on to break over 40 speed records at both the banked Montlhery circuit in France and the Bonneville salt lake in Utah. Postwar, the old racer was used for testing aircraft drogue chutes and made a star appearance in the film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. It was then raced in historic events by Patrick Lindsay, before Victor Gauntlett bought it and, finally, retirement in a museum in Germany. There it languished until, via a surprise unveiling at the Goodwood Press Day in 1997, it returned home to Weybridge, where it can be seen today at the Brooklands Museum. Cobb, a “typically modest, stoic gentleman cast in the perfect English mould” according to his biographer Steve Holter, would go on to take the Land Speed Record in partnership with Thomson and Taylor immediately before and after the Second World War in the Railton Special, arguably the pinnacle of achievement for Thomson and Taylor, Reid Railton and the Napier Lion. Cobb would sadly perish during an attempt on the Water Speed Record in 1952. His practice runs across Loch Ness in his jet powered boat were watched by a young Richard Noble, who was inspired by what he saw. A most appropriate epitaph then for this icon of the speed world: even as fate finally managed to catch up with him, John Cobb would pass on the baton to the following generation.

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REVIEWS Author interview: Anne Sebba (p128) • Book Reviews (p134) • Art: Craig Simpson (p138) • Interview: Fifi Chachnil (p144) • Wilde Wit Competition (p151) • Film: Last Night in Soho (p152) • Antiques and Collectables (p157)

Author Interview

ANNE SEBBA Alexander Larman meets the journalist, biographer and historian to discuss Russian spies, Wallis Simpson and Winston Churchill’s mother

“My most significant new discovery is not a fact at all. It is my approach to the story – to separate Ethel from Julius for the first time, not to see them as ‘The Rosenbergs’. Julius clearly was a spy, however insignificant. Ethel was an individual who has been brutally denied her voice and her humanity, which I have tried to restore to her”

he biographer, journalist and historian Anne Sebba has tackled figures ranging from Winston Churchill’s mother to Wallis Simpson, and has done so with aplomb, wit and authority. And now, her latest book Ethel Rosenberg deals with perhaps her most hot-button topic to date, namely the innocence and martyrdom of the supposed Russian spy Ethel Rosenberg. We discussed all things historical, biographical and how she managed to change the well-worn narrative when it came to Mrs Simpson. CHAP: Your most recent book, Ethel Rosenberg, is a revisionist account of the life and death of Ethel Rosenberg and her husband Julius. What first drew you to the subject? SEBBA: I didn’t set out to be either revisionist or deliberately provocative but on the other hand I recognised there were several reasons why now, almost 70 years since the electrocution of the Rosenbergs, it was time to tell the story with fresh

eyes. There are still people alive who will remember the event – one hopes – and yet it is far enough away to be less painful. If the proverbial dust has settled perhaps the issues can be discussed with

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SEBBA: For many women who study English at school or university, it’s a key text. Sylvia Plath is a feminist icon and the powerful opening line of The Bell Jar is something many can quote by heart. But I discovered the novel as an adult. Its heroine, Esther Greenwood, is in many ways a parallel to Ethel’s story, although she’s not not based on Ethel, whose name was Esther Ethel Greenglass before she married Julius Rosenberg. The whole novel sums up so brilliantly not just Plath’s recent experience of electric shock therapy, which resonated with Ethel’s barbaric electrocution, but the madness of 1950s America.

less bias and more calm perspective. But the idea for me to write this book arose specifically because my previous book, Les Parisiennes, contained the stories of some women who were spies, and there is something tantalising about women telling lies and behaving furtively. So I was asked if I could choose one of these women in Les Parisiennes and write a whole biography of this person. I remembered the ‘Ethel and her brother story,’ with which I was long familiar, having lived in New York for a few years. I had always believed that Ethel was not a spy but a hostage and was killed as a terrible miscarriage of justice. Surely it was time to take a fresh look at her story and see why she posed such a threat to traditional American values, and was accused of committing ‘a crime worse than murder’ – murdering the American way of life.

CHAP: What were the most significant discoveries that you made in your research? Do you think that there are still documents locked within archives somewhere? SEBBA: Any biographer who thinks theirs is the definitive version and nothing will ever appear again to shift that is delusional and arrogant. On the other hand, I suspect if the Russians had anything that

CHAP: Most people will be familiar with the Rosenbergs from the first line of The Bell Jar. Was this your own starting point when you were younger?

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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

“I’d be thrilled to be remembered for doing my best to be honest and challenging. I suppose my discovery of 15 letters between Wallis and Ernest – the so-called ‘secret letters’, still pristine in their envelopes and intended for just one person to see, and not the world – remains the most important discovery I have made”

too, since so much was taken away at the time of the arrests. I think my most important discoveries in helping me understand the story were in Boston University, where I saw the correspondence between David and Ruth, which indicated they were passionate Marxists and needed little persuasion to help the Soviets, as well as the originals of the prison letters, which I have quoted from in my book. Ethel’s prison letters reveal, I believe, not only what a strong, self-taught writer Ethel was but also that her primary focus in prison was how to guide her sons through life when she most likely would not be there for them. The letters are the incredibly moving testimony of a mother abandoned by her own birth family as well as large swathes of the American establishment, who believed in her guilt after a travesty of a trial. David’s Grand Jury testimony, released only in 2015, is yet another piece of recent evidence, showing that he lied and that his perjury was the only evidence that convicted Ethel. My most significant new discovery is not a fact

proved the Rosenbergs’ innocence it would have appeared by now. The FBI must have documents

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really in the fact that it appeared at the start of a long chain since Ethel’s death. This now includes playwrights such as Arthur Miller and Tony Kushner, who have all chosen to interpret Ethel’s story artistically. I think this shows why Ethel matters; there is an element of American society that is still uncomfortable with what it knows was a gross miscarriage of justice, and finds it necessary to look to artists and writers to make sense of how this great country could allow a woman against whom there was only shaky and weak evidence to be killed. CHAP: Why do you think that Ethel’s story is still relevant today? SEBBA: I always say if my book is about one thing it is about the importance of the rule of law, and when a country is prepared to overlook that and extinguish the life of one of its citizens because of fear, hysteria or mob rule, that is a dangerous moment still apparent in some places. CHAP: Do you think that there have been any similar contemporary parallels in terms of Ethel-esque figures? Could such a miscarriage of justice happen again? SEBBA: As a historian, I always say I hate counter factual history because there are too many variables. But the case of Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe – while not at all the same – is indicative of how a state can play with a woman, by taking a woman who is a mother as hostage. at all. It is my approach to the story – to separate Ethel from Julius for the first time, not to see them as ‘The Rosenbergs’. Julius clearly was a spy, however insignificant. Ethel was an individual who has been brutally denied her voice and her humanity, which I have tried to restore to her. I think even if new evidence is revealed, showing her to be more active in her support for Julius, it won’t fundamentally change the story that she was convicted at the time on tainted evidence. She was not a saint but a loyal wife and she probably knew something and supported Julius. That was not a crime, let alone one punishable by death.

CHAP: Obviously, there will always be naysayers with a topic such as this, who would argue that Ethel deserved what happened to her. What is your response to these people? SEBBA: Julius was a spy but that does not mean that his wife automatically was, just because, as I say in the book, she probably knew of his work and even approved of it. It is not a crime either to think or know something. The crime is to commit an overt act, and the overt act for which she was found guilty was a lie invented by her brother as part of his own plea bargain to spare him and his wife Ruth, who were spies. David has clearly admitted this. The KGB did not think Ethel was a spy. She had no code name and the cables subsequently called Venona stated she did not work. Even those who deciphered the Venona cables were quite clear that this meant she was not working as a spy, and even J Edgar Hoover did not think she should be killed. The deputy attorney general said ‘she

CHAP: E.L. Doctorow tackled the subject in 1971 in The Book of Daniel, albeit in fictionalised form. Was this book an important one for you, both in terms of approach and content? SEBBA: The Doctorow book is a difficult if compelling read, but it’s actually unimportant in terms of content, as it is a novel. Its importance lies

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called our bluff’. Those who argue that she was a communist who risked the stability of the US and therefore deserved what happened to her, do not understand the importance of the rule of law which underpins the foundations of any secure democracy.

take over your life, so it is no good if someone else comes up with a subject for you. But I cannot really explain my process other than to realise how one subject seems to uncover or lead on a trail to another. For example, having written about one American woman who the establishment never understood, Jennie Churchill, I realised there was another who was even less understood, Wallis Simpson. And so on.

CHAP: Your previous books have explored everyone from Winston Churchill’s mother Jennie to the author Enid Bagnold. What are your criteria for finding a subject? SEBBA: I’m not sure I really have one! It can’t be just anyone who fascinates you, since you must find publisher approval. Equally you must feel personally involved in the subject, since this will

CHAP: Are there any topics that you have written about that you’d now like to revisit, either because new material has come to light or because you’ve changed your mind about some of your conclusions?

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SEBBA: No, not really. I believe in the idea that the book I wrote was the best book I could write at that moment in time, given who I was and what I knew and what experiences I had had. Of course I have corrected factual errors, but to revisit? No; I shall leave that to new writers who will take a completely different approach. CHAP: One of your best-known books, That Woman, was the definitive account of Wallis Simpson’s life. What do you say to people who think that you were too harsh on her? SEBBA: Most people think I was too kind to her! I set out by trying to understand her, and discovered in the process that she was the one who was being hunted and wanted to give up Edward and stay with Ernest or even remain alone. But it was too late, as he would not let her go and she had lost Ernest by her own manipulations. My starting point with Wallis was that she was accused of being a Nazi, a whore, a gold digger and an adventuress. I couldn’t quite believe she was all those things at once. She is hard to like but deserves to be understood and, once you understand that Edward was the difficult, weak and childlike one, the whole story that people have always found so hard to understand because they argue she was not beautiful is turned on its head. CHAP: You have been a member of PEN for some time and served on the management committee there. What were the challenges – and privileges – of your role there? SEBBA: The privilege is to live in a country which believes in the rule of law. At the time I was there, serving on the Writers in Prison committee, I went to Turkey a few times to observe the trial of a young woman journalist in prison who faced the possibility of serving 12 years based on tainted evidence. Eventually she was released and now lives in Switzerland.

up your findings with documents and letters and archives, and meeting Simpson’s son led me to the letters. But I am not an academic historian and try to write books that are both factually accurate and documented with source notes, but also readable. CHAP: How would you like to be remembered? SEBBA: I’d be thrilled to be remembered for anything, but ideally for doing my best to be honest and challenging. I suppose my discovery of 15 letters between Wallis and Ernest – the so-called ‘secret letters’, still pristine in their envelopes and intended for just one person to see, and not the world – remains the most important discovery I have made, since they really do change our understanding of Wallis’s mind at the time, and in addition they prove that her divorce from Ernest was collusive, therefore illegal in 1936 terms. Had they been read at the time, they would have prevented her divorce from Ernest going ahead. n

CHAP: A French journalist coined the phrase ‘La Méthode Sebba’ to describe your biographical techniques. What do you think that this means? SEBBA: It’s a great compliment. But being a journalist is what led me to Wallis’ secret letters because I always look for people to interview. I flew off to Mexico and interviewed the son of Ernest Simpson, who had never given an interview before as he lives under another name. I started my working life as a journalist for Reuters and people are at the heart of what I do. Of course, you need to back

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THE SECRET ROYALS

immediately qualifies as a must-buy, but thankfully there is considerably more to Aldrich and Cormac’s book than simply a flattering index. It begins in the reign of Queen Victoria – after a dutiful acknowledgement of the so-called ‘intelligencers’ such as Frances Walsingham who were used by Elizabeth I – and ends with a considered and indepth chapter entitled ‘The Diana Conspiracy’, which, as its name might suggest, explores many of the theories and intrigues around Princess Diana’s death. It is a long book at over 600 pages, but an enthralling one. Ideas are proposed in moderate, rather than sensational, fashions and the cumulative effect is quite fascinating.

By Richard J Aldrich & Rory Cormac (Atlantic, £25)

“Aldrich and Cormac use well-worn but apposite documents, recently unearthed sources and their own informed speculation to evoke a difficult, uneasy period between the early 30s and the accession of Elizabeth II to the throne” The royals have traditionally operated as rather a secretive organisation. Although the likes of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are partially open to the public and a redacted form of their accounts is published annually, it remains undeniably true that we don’t have much of an idea of their activities, especially those that take place behind closed doors. When Prince Philip died recently, details of his will were sealed for 90 years, by which time everyone reading this will be dead themselves, and so any revelations about especially surprising bequests – such as to his ‘riding companion’ Penelope Knatchbull – will have little more shock value than we might find in the affairs of George V. Therefore, it’s little surprise that the security services and MI5 (as well as the FBI, who make numerous cameos here) have traditionally had an ambivalent relationship with an unaccountable and unelected organisation that nevertheless possesses enormous wealth and power. (I’d be fascinated, incidentally, to see Aldrich and Cormac produce a similar book about the relationship between another

Reviewed by Alexander Larman

f the author Anthony Powell it was said that he would judge the memoir of one of his peers, friends or nemeses by whether he was in it. When the book was published, he would stroll over to Heywood Hill and glance in the index. If his name was to be found there – however vituperative the context – he would purchase it. But if it was absent, it would be replaced upon the shelf and no further heed paid to it. I have yet to find the contemporary equivalent from my peers – most of whom seem curiously reluctant to write the kind of autobiographies in which I might feature – but I was very pleased, not only for my last book The Crown in Crisis to be cited in Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac’s excellent study of the relationship between the Royal Family and the security services, but indeed to appear in the index myself as a source. Judged purely on the Powellian criteria, this

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Book Reviews

wealthy, secretive cabal, namely the church and the security services.) And some of the stories found here, although fascinating, stray off the obvious brief. It’s revelatory that MI5 were involved in Rasputin’s assassination, and its account of Victorian interEuropean powerplay is comprehensive yet clear, but given that the security services did not exist until the 20th century, some of this material runs the risk of being included for ‘added value’. Where it excels is in the depiction of Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson and George VI. Aldrich and Cormac use well-worn but apposite documents, recently unearthed sources and their own informed speculation to evoke a difficult, uneasy period between the early 30s and the accession of Elizabeth II to the throne, when it could never be quite clear whose loyalties could be trusted and when a paranoid King George even had his own secret service, whose tasks and responsibilities sometimes ran counter to what the ‘official’ service was doing. And, inevitably, the Duke of Windsor comes across as extraordinarily badly here as he has done in virtually every

“If you wanted a clear and concise examination of this – or any other – twentieth century period, The Secret Royals is a valuable and unmissable read”

biographical account; a selfish, venal man given to treacherous acts. If you wanted a clear and concise examination of this – or any other – twentieth century period, The Secret Royals is a valuable and unmissable read. And it is the icing on the cake that it uses (and attributes) my research into Edward’s would-be assassin George McMahon in July 1936 into the wider, fascinating panoply of what happened when MI5 and the Royals ended up in conflict with one another.

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Book Reviews

SHORT REVIEWS By Alexander Larman

GHOSTS OF THE WEST

WIDOWLAND

By Alec Marsh (Hachette Accent, £9.99)

By CJ Carey (Quercus, £14.99)

adventures of Professor Ernest Drabble and Sir Frank Harris – respectively an academic-cumswashbuckler and his hard-drinking journalistic sidekick – show every sign of becoming as simpatico to Chap readers as the novels of George Macdonald Fraser and Tom Sharpe. Their author Alec Marsh innately understands how to tell a ripping yarn, with a mixture of derring-do, erudition and humour, and the third chronicle in the Drabble and Harris exploits has all the near-death escapes, doublecrossing and skulduggery that a reader might expect, as our two heroes find themselves bound for America in the Thirties on a quest to intervene between the Native Americans and the heavily armed US military. There are flaws, alas, but they are relatively minor. A character is murdered, and we never discover who the perpetrator is, perhaps because Marsh does not know himself. The transatlantic crossing that transports Harris and Drabble to the United States is splendidly done, but takes up the vast majority of the book, meaning that the final action is almost rushed. Yet set against this is the book’s hugely readable enjoyability, with witty quips, duplicitous maidens, rip-roaring adventure and even a decidedly 21st century look at colonialism.

ovels

exploring what would have happened if the Nazis had conquered Britain have been one of the most popular ‘what ifs’ in dystopian fiction, from Robert Harris’ Fatherland to Len Deighton’s SS-GB. All credit, then, to CJ Carey for coming up with a novel that brings an intriguing, at times chilling, twist to the well-worn tropes. Her protagonist Rose Ransom is a so-called ‘Geli’, one of the elite in 1953 Britain, who has a job in a propaganda department censoring classic works of literature to make them more acceptable to the ‘Alliance’, a thinly disguised Nazi party who took power in the country after a peace deal was hurriedly agreed with Prime Minister Lord Halifax. Rose is the mistress of a powerful German and enjoys a measure of freedom not granted to most of the populace. Particular contempt is reserved for the so-called ‘Friedas’, unmarried or widowed women over 50, who are forced to live in degrading and squalid conditions. Yet when Rose is tasked with investigating acts of sedition among the Friedas, she finds herself delving into deep and unpleasant areas. Carey’s novel is a page-turning delight from beginning to end, especially the alltoo-plausible sections involving a restored Edward VIII and Queen Wallis, depicted here in all their ghastly, grabby horror. n

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Art

CRAIG SIMPSON Liam Jefferies meets the dapper dauber who combines sartorial exactitude with meticulously created paintings of the periods that inspire him www.csimpsonart.com @craigsimpsonartist

anchester-born artist Craig Simpson is a man of style, and his works reflect a studied attention to detail that can only be born of a sartorial obsession. Self taught, his works are usually focused on portraiture, interiors and landscapes. A selfconfessed fascination with people compels Simpson to record both the personality and characteristics of his subjects, as is evident in his work. Simpson’s ‘observational oil’ has captured moments in the lives of Brighton-based characters, echoing British 1960s kitchen sink dramas, with solitary interior spaces in Sussex that nod to French and European inspiration. I chatted to Craig about his influences, both sartorial and artistic.

“Bebop and Hardbop were my favourite periods in jazz, and the clothes of that time are a real passion too. So that’s how I ended up concentrating on jazz as a subject matter, it just ticked all the boxes for me and included all my interests in one” 138

‘Big Band’ by Craig Simpson

different subjects and periods, was that I wanted to concentrate on figurative painting. As long as I can remember I’d been interested in the period between the 1940s and 1960s. Bebop and Hardbop were my favourite periods in jazz, and the clothes of that time are a real passion too. So that’s how I ended up concentrating on jazz as a subject matter, it just ticked all the boxes for me and included all my interests in one.

How did you first get into painting? I was very creative growing up, always busy making things out of household items and cardboard boxes, taking mechanical objects apart to see how they worked and then trying to put them back together, and I enjoyed drawing too. Even though I was interested in art and design, I came down to Brighton to study music performance. After four years of studying music intensely, I woke up one day and had the sudden urge to start painting. Even though I was interested in art as a youngster, I had never been taught or studied how to paint or draw. This really appealed to me after many years of technique and theory from studying music. I needed to be creative on my own without the influence of anyone else, and painting seemed to be the perfect medicine.

Your influences also seem to include mod culture and 60s kitchen sink realism cinema. Coming from Manchester and moving down south, I have witnessed a hint of that north/south divide which is summed up perfectly in those black and white 60s films. But it’s the colour palette I can imagine from those pictures I’m attracted to. I now use quite a limited colour palette, mostly primary colours for mixing skin tones as well as brown, ochre, black and warm white, as lead white is unfortunately now unavailable. I’m also fascinated

Your latest collection is centred around the jazz greats of the mid-century. What is it about these subjects that appeals to you? The most important thing, after exploring

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‘Woman in Orange Dress’

with the aesthetic and capturing an almost ‘movie still’ of smoky, poorly lit rooms, focusing on one side of a figure’s features highlighted by a candle or the warm glow of a bulb. I love the way in which these simple scenes create a mood and can tell a story from one image.

but not as easy to pull off as these guys would have you think. The eye was in the detail, the way the soft roll on the shirt collar had to be just so, and a oneand-three-quarter inch cuff on your trousers sitting above the loafer. Details many people wouldn’t notice, but they are what makes a good outfit great. If any of your readers want to explore this style, I’d recommend researching the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan, he was always my personal favourite musician and go-to for style ideas.

Dow much do the subjects you paint influence your dress style? Very much! The clothes I wear are very much inspired by those mid to late fifties hardbop jazz musicians, who were influenced by the ivy league style of the time. It’s an effortlessly cool look, which was modern and sleek and which also complimented the forward thinking musicians and their music. Think button-down regular-fit shirt, high-rise flatfront trouser, 3/2-roll natural shoulder sack jacket and a pair of penny loafers. It’s a super cool look,

How did the John Simons portraits come about? I’d been a customer of John Simons for some years before the portrait was commissioned. I was in London visiting a couple of galleries and popped into the shop. John was there and we were talking about art as well as music and clothes. John was

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‘Harlem Dancers’

showing me some of the modernist miniature sculptures he had made, so I decided to show him some of the portraits I was currently working on. I wasn’t expecting anything to come from it, it was just a pleasure to talk to the man himself. Anyway, a couple of weeks later I received a message from his son Paul, asking if they’d be able to commission a painting of the two of them. Which artists influence your work? There are far too many to name, but I suppose the main artist I’ve taken influence from is Lucian Freud. His technique is groundbreaking and in my opinion he is one of the greatest figurative painters. But it’s not just his painting style that intrigues me, I’m also fascinated by him as a person, painting every day of his life and dedicating his entire life to painting the human form. There are some great ‘Theolonius Monk Portrait’

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photographs of Freud from the 50s & 60s, hanging out with Bacon, Auerbach and Minton in famous Soho bars and clubs. I’m also a big fan of Edouard Vuillard, the French painter and part of the post impressionist group Les Nabis (The Prophet). Vuillard was largely known for his intimate interior scenes of the people he knew, including his family, and combined lavish textures of prints, patterns and colour in the wallpaper and cloth.

Is your work available to purchase? As well as selling the jazz pieces, I also do commissions. Some that I really enjoy working on are working from old 40s/50s photographs of people’s parents or grandparents and creating them into a painting. I use my imagination to transform a black and white image into colour. Having a good knowledge of the era is important to get a realistic representation, down to the colours of the clothing from particular decades. n

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Lingerie

THE ADVENTURES OF FIFI LONGSTOCKING Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe meets Fifi Chachnil, the French designer from a traditional family who reinvented herself in the trail of the post-punk era, establishing herself as the epitome of Parisian chic, who is also a Londoner at heart and a huge fan of Pippi Longstocking www.fifichachnil.paris

“It’s funny, because when I’m in London I am told, “You are so French”, while in Paris I am being labelled with, “You are so English”, or even “You are a nutter”! I took my iconography from cartoons and Hollywood films that depicted idealized visions of Parisian people”

ifi Chachnil’s numerous links with pop culture include dressing Nina Hagen and French-Belgian singer Lio, Marc Almond for the A Lover Spurned music video and styling a film directed by Pierre et Gilles. Fifi’s long list of collaborations also include Emma Bunton for the first Spice Girls LP, Madonna’s dancing troupe for her Rebel Art Tour, Kylie Minogue, Lady Gaga and recently Celine Dion. Fifi is also a pop singer, whose first 1983 single Lhar’ Niflet is a souvenir from her Palace years. Le Palace was a nightclub where all the jetsetters, philosophers, artists and hipsters, from Roland Barthes to Paloma Picasso, used to hang out. Think Studio 54 with a more sophisticated and ‘laissez faire’ attitude. Whether in Paris at the Crazy

Horse or in London at le Baron, Fifi never cease to sprinkle her very peculiar irreverent chic on the fashion game. What’s the nature of your UK connection? I have an emotional bond with the UK that started in the early 90s when I was frequently visiting Britain. I realised how much I loved British people’s fashion sense more than anything else. The simple fact that you could work in the City as a trader but wear an earring and a red hairdo – an attitude which is simply inconceivable in France. On a lot of levels, I felt closer to the English than to my compatriots. When I went to England to pick up my daughters from school, I wore a Vichy dress and a straw hat, noticing that the local schoolgirls

144

also wore exactly the same outfit. I always thought England was just like home. I have many British friends and keep going to London whenever it’s possible. Finally I opened up a shop there and worked with an all-English female crew who I adored, mostly because they have a wonderfully positive and go forward attitude. I don’t want to judge the French too much, but when we launch an idea here, we already know that the whole process will be quite convoluted.

You started in post punk fashion days, when in Paris conceptualism was very hip. When I started up, I drew my inspirations from material other people despised at that time. I was very much into garish and psychedelic colours, whereas the fashion zeitgeist was all about minimalist and tuned-down tones. I made a fuss with my mini-skirts. I had a genuine punk attitude, to the extent of shooting myself in the foot back during my very first interviews. Recently I watched my first TV appearances and was left speechless. To present a circus parade I started by flying on the feet of my then husband. Or when Étienne Daho invited me to show my models, we smoked ciagrettes on the set. The conversation went in all directions in a totally surrealistic way. We were totally overusing freedom of speech. Back in the eighties and noughties, you could absolutely come up with what you fancied. Like this song I did for a TV show with Pierre Et Gilles, King of Oil. I sang that it was his dollars, his cars and his cigarillos which drove me crazy. As we can no longer talk about cigarettes, or say that money can be a seduction tool, it looks quite outrageous today. An assistant born in 2000 took screenshots of this sequence and couldn’t believe his eyes. We were having a hell of a time, as nothing was sacred or serious for us. It was an ‘anything goes’ time that we enjoyed very much without any career plans in the back of our minds.

Despite your obvious fondness for British culture, you somehow epitomise Parisian women’s chic. I love to fit to that image, even if it’s an illusion. It’s an idealized view of me and of my work. A fantasy postcard of the Parisians as we saw in Kiraz’s drawings for Jour de France (a kind of French version of Life Magazine). It’s funny, because when I’m in London I am told, “You are so French”, while in Paris I am being labelled with, “You are so English”, or even “You are a nutter”! I took my iconography from cartoons and Hollywood films that depicted idealised visions of Parisian people. You have many famous British customers. Kate Moss is a devoted customer, who even visited our store during the lockdown. I also had a brush with Kate Middleton. Obviously she did not come to the shop to buy her angora sweater, but she wore a piece from my collection, even if it was a copy crafted by Buckingham knitters. In any case it was an honour.

Do you have any icons of your own? The first and foremost one is Pippi Longstocking, a Swedish little girl with red plaits, long stockings, a pirate father and superhuman strength. She lives on her own without adult guidance, surrounded by many friends. Otherwise I think of Juliette Greco, Anna Karina and Anna Magnani. My icons are not necessarily very glamorous but they show a real freedom of expression.

A few years ago you styled a now legendary défilé (fashion parade) in Le Crazy Horse in Paris – a temple of French sexiness! Back in the fifties, Le Crazy Horse was created by Alain Bernardin. His great innovation from what came before was to idealise showgirls’ bodies by dressing them up with light shades, as if they were wearing very graphic prints. Back in those days, strip clubs were located in seedy areas and he was the first one to upgrade the risqué shows in posh neighborhoods. Choreographer Philippe Découflé called me up in 2009 to design the costumes of his ‘Désirs’ Crazy Horse show. I love to dress up these dancers, as they were not born perfect like models but worked hard on their bodies. I worked very closely with these girls and that défilé remains the fondest and prettiest of my career. Strangely enough, I’ve never done anything at the Moulin Rouge, even though I live right next door to it!

Marcel Duchamp made a point of saying that ‘Good taste is the enemy of art’. It’s true. I grew up in a conservative French family that defended the ‘three colours’ set of rules. Women of the family weren’t allowed to smoke in the street, as it was judged vulgar. After a whole childhood wearing a tartan uniform, I went to Cleveland hoping to find Iggy Pop. I was misinformed, as he was in Detroit then! Anyway, we had fun and every weekend my friends and I used dress up to attend the Rocky Horror Picture show. I came back to France wearing purple shorts and

147

Fifi on the cover of her 2019 album ‘Love’

“I like British people because they are much less afraid to play with colours. See Queen Elizabeth II when wearing an all-neon green twinset. That would be unthinkable for a French official”

wearing an all-neon green twinset. That would be unthinkable for a French official. You’ve been part of a Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition? The same year we closed down our London shop, I was called up for an exhibition at Victoria & Albert named ‘A brief history of lingerie’. I couldn’t believe my ears! What’s the future for the Fifi Chachnil brand in the UK and elsewhere? My bond with England is stronger than ever. For my lingerie line in 1996 we were licensed to Agent Provocateur, until Joseph Corré sold the brand in 2008. But we will return to London for a fashion show at some point. After all the mess everybody had to go through for the last two years, I realized that the important thing was to do less but in a better way. While some brands are constantly opening new stores everywhere, what seemed essential to me was to refine what we do best. This was my way to overcome these difficult times. n

a bright yellow T-shirt. I wanted to radically break up the rules I was raised with. Thinking of using a pseudonym, I picked Chachnil, an Egyptian name instead of a French one. Artists can only challenge the status quo by messing with the rules. It’s the only way to trigger the audience and hopefully generate questions and debates. Whether people adhere to what is proposed doesn’t really matter to me. I like British people because they are much less afraid to play with colours. See Queen Elizabeth II when

148

AWARD WINNING SKINCARE WITH NATURAL INGREDIENTS

SAVE 25% AT URBANJACK.COM USE CODE CM21 Valid until 31.12.21

www.theblitzparty.com Darcy Sullivan poses a challenge to all readers — can you be as witty as Oscar Wilde?

“Wit is the ability to say entirely the wrong thing in precisely the right way” Now that sounds like an Oscar Wilde quote – but it isn’t. Its author is Darcy Alexander Corstorphine, the winner of last year’s Wilde Wit Competition, run by The Oscar Wilde Society. We started this competition in part because so many quotes attributed to Oscar Wilde aren’t really his at all. “Be yourself, everyone else is taken” is a good example. Such faux mots show how influential the Irish writer’s sayings are. People don’t just memorise them, they make them up. The Wilde Wit Competition gives you a chance to do the same. The rules are simple (see below).

Three winners will receive signed copies of Oscar Wilde: A Man For Our Times, a beautiful catalogue of Jeremy Mason’s Wilde collection published by Bonhams, which has been graciously supplied by Mr. Mason. Chap readers are, of course, among the finest of modernday wits, making this magazine the perfect sponsor, along with The Oldie. So if you’re ready to match wits with Wilde – and clever people worldwide, who submitted more than 500 entries last year – show us what you’ve got.

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRIES AT: oscarwildesociety.co.uk/wilde-wit Enter by 15th December 2021 • Up to 10 entries allowed per contestant • All entries must be original • Anyone can enter

“Retirement must be dangerous; no-one seems to survive it”

“To learn from experience is good – to learn from someone else’s experience is even better” Colin Mayo

Bill Stevens

“Good friends come and go, but one’s enemies remain forever faithful” Dr. Ashley Robins

“All great art is the result of beautiful failures” Joke Kokkelkoren

W E I V E R M L I F

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Gustav Temple reviews Edgar Wright’s new sixties-set thriller from a director who is trying to move on from spoofs of genre movies

“We are all haunted by the sixties and can’t let go of the idea that everything was groovy in that overhyped decade. Even Terence Stamp looks like he’s more than ready to move on from the past, but no-one will allow him to” 152

Matt Smith as Soho impresario Jack

ans of Edgar Wright’s trilogy of comedies Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and World’s End, expecting this film to feature amusing fastedit shots of Simon Pegg getting drunk, smoking fags and losing his girlfriend, will find something rather different. The British director, whose most recent film was a much-acclaimed documentary about Sparks, has moved on from spoofs of zombie films and cop shows to reveal his taste for 60s arthouse classics Peeping Tom and Repulsion. Last Night in Soho is a psychological horrorthriller set in the present day and flashing back to the swinging sixties, with a stellar crop of recent talent including Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown)

153

Anya Taylor-Joy as sixties fantasy figure Sandie

and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit). In a natty bit of casting, also in the line-up are 60s icons Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham and Diana Rigg. One can imagine the call to Terence: “Mr. Stamp, we’re casting for a film set in the 60s about…” “When do you need me on set? Tomorrow?” The film opens with floaty, naïve, troubled ingénue Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), obsessed with the sixties and haunted by the memory of a mother who committed suicide when Eloise was seven. She leaves grannie (Rita Tushingham) in Cornwall to head for a course at the London School of Fashion. Films about the fashion industry rarely compel. Nobody wants to see the workrooms, bad drawings and sewing machines behind the glamour of the catwalk, and Edgar Wright whisks us quickly away from scenes of Eloise at college, fashioning cutesy

“Films about the fashion industry rarely compel. Nobody wants to see the workrooms, bad drawings and sewing machines behind the glamour of the catwalk, and Edgar Wright whisks us quickly away from scenes of Eloise at college, fashioning cutesy 60s frocks, into the past that she is fascinated by” 154

Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin Mackenzie

60s frocks, and into the past that she is fascinated by. By listening to Petula Clark and Lulu in her bedsit, Eloise is transported into swinging sixties Soho, where she morphs into fantasy figure Sandie, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who is scooped up by Matt Smith’s seedy impresario Jack with the offer of a career in showbusiness. But Jack turns out to be more pimp than promoter, and Eloise/Sandie enters a world of casting couch exploitation, while the Dansette record player churns out the beat girl classics. Polanski’s Repulsion gets more than a passing reference, as the endless parade of older men in suits knocking on Sandie’s door morph into featureless ghosts crawling out of every corner of the Café de Paris. The film extends its themes to become a ghost story about more than Eloise’s mother, whom she

keeps seeing waving out of mirrors. It broadens into a film about how we are all haunted by the sixties and can’t let go of the idea that everything was groovy in that overhyped decade. Even Terence Stamp looks like he’s more than ready to move on from the past, but no-one will allow him to. Universal Pictures, who produced Last Night in Soho, released a slew of sexy, colourful images to promote the film, fetishising the sexy costumes, yet not one of them contained any of the sixties icons cast by the director to give the film its poignancy. Instead we were given endless shots of the younger members of the cast dressed up in 60s fashions, feeding the public’s appetite for a rose-tinted, cleaned-up, sanitised, pretty-in-pink version of a decade that Edgar Wright is trying to remind us was much darker beneath the surface. n

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S D V D & S Y A R U L BFI B BAL WITH O L A G M O E G N I C D D L N R A O S W K R A M L AND CL ASSICS CULT

ORDER FROM SHOP.BFI.ORG.UK

John Minns advises on the collection and acquisition of stamps, providing examples of some extremely rare ones

The Penny Black

The British Guiana 1c Magenta

The Penny Black was issued on 1st May 1840, bearing the profile of the young Queen Victoria, and is perhaps the best-known and most iconic image on a stamp ever printed. It was the first stamp to appear with prepaid postage and pre-glued, valid for delivery throughout the United Kingdom. Before that, it was the recipient who paid postage to the postman on receipt of a letter on the doorstep, a complicated and time-consuming procedure, now simplified by this pre-paid method and revolutionising the postal system forever. In just over 20 years, 90 countries would adopt this simple system and the term ‘philatelist’ would be created, giving birth to a new type of collector across the four corners of the globe, from Ruislip to Rhargistan.

In 1873, a 12-year old Scottish schoolboy named Louis Vernon Vaughan was visiting his Uncle with his family in British Guiana, a small British colony in the area around the northern coast of South America in the Caribbean. Rifling around in a small box of ephemera at his Uncle’s home, he found some old newspapers, including one with a curiouslooking stamp attached to its corner. The boy, a keen stamp collector, was intrigued. The stamp was an unusual shape with no perforations around its perimeter and in a striking magenta colour. A three-masted ship was visible on the front, with some handwritten notation upon it. Louis could find no other examples in his stamp reference books. What young Louis had found that day would eventually be universally accepted as the greatest and the

rarest stamp ever found in the world, which would later be described as the Holy Grail of stamps. What makes this stamp so rare, and leaves most stamp collectors almost salivating at the mention of its name, is the unusual circumstance of its initial inception and the detailed provenance and ownership that would later follow. After the Penny Black was introduced, stamps (certainly at least for British colonies and affiliated territories) were required to have pre-paid postage (a stamp) denoting a certified numerical amount that would appear upon it – 1 cent in the case of the Magenta – that would later be used for the posting of newspapers, issued by or on behalf of the British government. Due to a mix-up and delay, just a fraction of the stamps required for the Guianians arriving from England appeared at the docks in Georgetown, forcing the postmaster E.T.E Dalton to have extra stamps hurriedly made to cover the shortfall. Using the help of the local newspaper, which had the only suitable printing facilities at that time, he managed to cobble together some stamps. It could be argued that the postmaster had no real authority to do this, and in effect the stamps produced would be fraudulent and therefore fakes. The irony is that the handwritten notation on the stamp that Louis had first noticed was in fact the initial of the postmaster, to prove its authenticity and to deter counterfeiters. When the next shipment of stamps arrived later, the old stamps were disposed of. It is not known how many of the original stamps were printed or survived. To this day only one is known to exist, the one found that day by Master Louis.

The Inverted Jenny Occasionally a stamp becomes rare and collectable through a printing error, mechanical or man-made. This was the case for the now highly desirable Inverted Jenny. In May 1918, the US issued its first 24-cent stamp, showing the image of a Curtis JN.4 biplane. It was affectionately known as the ‘Jenny’, derived from the JN in its title. The stamp was to promote the first official US airmail service that month. Due to an error, a mismatch occurred showing the biplane flying upside down. Normally these anomalies are detected and the stamps destroyed. On this occasion the defect went unnoticed and 100 (contained on one sheet) were released to the public.

A collector named William Robey managed to purchase the whole original sheet, containing the 100 misprinted stamps, from the local post office in the month they were printed. When he pointed out the flaw to the clerk at the post office, he said he had not noticed the error, as he had never seen an airplane before and didn’t know what they looked like! In 2018 one of these stamps turned up at auction in the US. It sold for $1,593,000.

The Treskilling Yellow In 1855, Sweden produced its first postage stamp in a number of denominations from 3 to 24 skillings, the 3-skilling stamp being printed in blue. However, a human or mechanical error caused the stamp on this occasion to be printed in yellow. The discrepancy went unnoticed at the time. It is not known how many of the 3-skilling stamps were printed, but only one is known to exist. This stamp has been in the hands of a number of collectors and dealers since 1886, when it was first discovered by a young Swedish boy, Georg William Blackman, who found it in the attic of his grandmother, later selling it on for 7 Krona (about £50 in today’s money). Its estimated value today is around £2.5 million.

WHY COLLECT STAMPS? While collecting stamps is not as popular as it once was after it emerged from its heyday in the late Victorian era, there has been a new drive in its popularity in recent times, perhaps by millenials whose pressured lives drive them to seek some peaceful escape from the world of the smartphone and modern technology. The Victorians believed philately to be a panacea to pacify and calm the rambunctious child. Adults alike have adopted it for similar reasons, as an antithesis to their public image and hectic lifestyles, including the likes of George V, John Lennon, Amelia Earhart, Charlie Chaplin, King Faruk of Egypt and Freddie Mercury. Despite the high figures that some of the aforementioned stamps have reached, it can be a very economical hobby, with a starter bag of a hundred or more used, worldwide stamps costing less than a fiver, and there is always the chance to find that extremely rare something. Happy hunting, budding philatelists!

ACQUISITION & COLLECTION Whether you wish to take up stamp collecting as a simple hobby or a serious business investment, it might be worth acquainting yourself with a glossary of philatelic terms – there are over 150 of them, listed on the website of auctioneers Warwick & Warwick: www.warwickandwarwick.com

THE STAMPEX EXHIBITION

is the biggest bi-annual philately exhibition in Europe. www.stampexinternational.co.uk

STANLEY GIBBONS

(‘The home of stamp collecting’ since 1857) is revered throughout the world as an authority on the subject. www.stanleygibbons.com

SOTHEBY'S AUCTIONS London www.sothebys.com

SPINK AUCTIONEERS (since 1666) www.spink.com

GROSVENOR AUCTIONS www.grosvenorauctions.com

THE FLUMMOXER Readers are invited to ponder the purpose of this issue’s antiquity conundrum, and one provider of the correct answer wins a sterling pair of Fox Cufflinks.

Send your answer to chap@thechap.co.uk

Kevin Bown correctly identified last issue’s flummoxer as a goffering iron, AKA an Italian or Tally iron, for ironing one’s collars and cuffs.

THE CHAP CRAVAT Guaranteed to turn every wearer into an absolute bounder, the Chap Cravat is cut from 100% silk and each one is slightly different, meaning that every one purchased is unique to its wearer.

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Martin Freeman

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

“You could say I’m a mod, but with a small ‘m’. I don’t wear a parka, but I do question what I wear and what I listen to, which is what it’s all about”

TOM SIMPSON

The dramatic end on Mont Ventoux to the legendary British cyclist’s career

TIGER BAY BLUES

Chris Sullivan on how Calypso entered Britain via the Cardiff coast

SCOTT SIMPSON

The Talented Mr. Simpson’s collection of Riviera clothing

“I thought I’d have a go at Everest to sort my vertigo out. But then I got a heart attack at 28,500 feet, which is a bad time to have a heart attack”

ASTON MARTIN

James Bond stunt driver Ben Collins on crashing Astons for a living

DIANA RIGG

A tribute to the late lamented Mrs Emma Peel

CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE The fizz-swilling bon vivant on his career in showbusiness

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Josephine Baker

Daniel Day-Lewis

“I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on. A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for”

“I was this wayward guy from South London who didn’t know what to do with his life, then I saw that acting wasn’t only prancing around on stage in tights”

ROARING TWENTIES

OVERLOOK REVISITED

Are we set for another golden age of music, dancing and hedonism?

A trip to St Albans to re-enact scenes from Brideshead Revisited and The Shining

PHARAOHS AND FLAPPERS

STEVE STRANGE

Ancient Egypt’s influence on the fashion and design of the 1920s

THE MARX BROTHERS The winning formula of the zany siblings

Chris Sullivan recalls his crazy days with the doomed dandy in the eighties

HELEN MCCRORY

A tribute to the grand career in film and theatre of the late great star of Peaky Blinders 08>

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BEST OF THE CHAP This weighty, hardback, 300-page tome covers the entire breadth of the last twenty years of anarcho-dandyism, as purveyed within the pages of over 100 editions of The Chap Magazine. Contents include features from the very first edition published in 1999, and gallop through the whole gamut of sartorial, historical, photographical and dandiacal stories published over the last two decades. Available from www.thechap.co.uk

CROSSWORD 1

By Xeno

15 16

18 20

ACROSS Across

Solutions to crossword 109, CHAP Autumn 21 B O A R D I N G H O U S E

C A R N T E O M I N S

P I C H E B E O U A N D I F T A U T R I C D T A M I T O S I M

T A L G A I W R N A N G G O L T O C U S T F I D O U T S U O S T R O U B A T S N C G H T W F T I M I N A L R O P L E M I N

N S H C U I S H M O O M E R E E A R G O G D O U R P A H E E P R H T A T E T R D E D

DOWN 26 Surrenders in grasslands when force leaves for

1. Could be motion sickness from north sea – 2. CaribbeanYugoslavian island’s selection of giant iguanas (7) capital (6) 1 importing Could be motion sickness from north sea gold (6) 3. Novel is a number... and under the sea (9) importing gold (6) 5. Reporting something untrue – got a feeling it’s 4. Leaders of Arctic geological expedition never did Down legally allowedsomething (8) agree the order of business (6) 5 Reporting untrue - got a feeling it's 9. Where youallowed might have 5. How the is managed by Town Council (5,10) 2 pub Caribbean island's selection of giant iguanas (7 legally (8)a mare? (6) 10. Odd couple taking trip abroad could be guilty party (7) 6. State of commotion to follow, could be navy union 3 Novel is a number... and under the sea (9) 9 Where you might have a mare? (6) 11. What's causing the rise in temperature after kissing? (9,5) strike (8) 4 Leaders of Arctic geological expedition never 12. to African country (4) 7. Verne drunk bottle (5) 10 Mail Oddorder couple taking trip abroad could be guilty party 13. Inherited wealth from elderly, doddery Nemo coming to 8. Radical former me (6) (7) agreeTory the leader orderconcerning of business (7) journey’s end (3,5) 14. First place where aviators rest (2,3,4) 5 How the pub is managed by Town Council (5,1 11 What's causing the rise in temperature after kissing? 16. He’d admitted to deciphering clues for book (8) 15. Daily the responsible one (8) (9,5) State commotion to follow, 18. Neighbour to the left is big member of the orchestra (4) 17. Broad 6 smile afterof cuppa reveals irritation (7) could be navy u 21. November (9,5) 19. Fifty-fifty split panel strike (8)offering post (7) 12 5th Mail order revolutionary? to African country (4) 23. Register of lies are unravelling (7) 20. British model branching out (6) drunk bottle (5) 13 Inherited wealth from elderly, doddery Nemo 22. ...Centre7of Verne 24. Around the World... girl about to shoot into the air (6) the Earth detail that’s the most coming to journey's end (3,5) 8 Radical 25. Sixth sense needed in southern court, defending important part (5) former Tory leader concerning me (7) reporter 16 half-Belgian He'd admitted to(8)deciphering clues for book (8)

18 Neighbour to the left is big member of the orchestra 162 (4) 21 5th November revolutionary? (9,5) 23 Register of lies are unravelling (7)

14 First place where aviators rest (2,3,4)

15 Daily the responsible one (8) 17 Broad smile after cuppa reveals irritation (7) 19 Fifty-fifty split panel offering post (7)

The Chap Issue 110

Articles inside

FIFI CHACHNIL

FILM: LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

WILDE WIT

ART

BOOK REVIEWS

ANNE SEBBA

MOTORING

TRAVEL

AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHT COCKTAILS

COOKING FOR CHAPS

JULES VERNE

LINDSAY DUNCAN

GREY FOX COLUMN

ROBINSON’S SHOES

SKI WEAR

AM I CHAP?

JEREMY HACKETT

PIRATES

THE CHAP WATCH

INTERVIEW: JASON WATKINS

GLOBAL EXPLORATION

ASK THE CHAP