The Chap Issue 101

AUTUMN 2019 ISSUE 101

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

Helen McCrory “In season 5 of Peaky Blinders, we wanted that feeling of Polly still smelling of Gitanes, but now it’s Gitanes with a splash of eau de cologne”

THE FLÂNEUR A celebration of the joys of walking without purpose

DOWNTON ABBEY

Meet the lady who designed the costumes for the big screen version

MAUREEN O’HARA

One of the last interviews with the Hollywood legend

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ISSUE 101

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Art Director: Rachel Barker

Picture Editor: Theo Salter Circulation Manager: Susan Brennan

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Editor: Gustav Temple

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Designer: Carina Dicks

Sub-Editor: Romilly Clark Subscriptions Manager: Natalie Smith

Contributing Editors: Chris Sullivan, Liam Jefferies, Alexander Larman

CONTRIBUTORS

OLLY SMITH

LIAM JEFFERIES

CHRIS SULLIVAN

GOSBEE & MINNS

ALEXANDER LARMAN

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

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

Olly hosts his own drinks podcast www.aglasswith.com

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

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

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

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

Alexander Larman is The Chap’s Literary Editor.

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

DAVID EVANS

SOPHIA CONNINGSBY

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

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

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

Sophia (pronounced to rhyme with ‘a fire’) is a writer and cigar expert from Devon who likes shooting guns, smoking cigars and nature. Sophia spends her autumns and winters hunting with a sparrow hawk and her springs and summers fly fishing on the Devon rivers.

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

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

Subscriptions 01778 392022 thechap@warnersgroup.co.uk

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

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

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

ANDYISM 20 YEARS OF ANARCHO-D

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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CONTENTS 8 AM I CHAP?

Readers send us their photographs for an uncompromising sartorial assessment

10 T HE GRAND FLÂNEUR WALK

The story of a hundred people who went for a walk in London, Düsseldorf and Los Angeles at the same time

16 SUIS-JE FLÂNEUR?

Readers’ photographs showing their varying degrees of success in pursuit of flânerie

18 GROOMING

We road test some new unguents from Urban Jack

FEATURES 22 TRAVEL: JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA

Gustav Temple goes on a mission to find an old friend in Andalucía

28 T HE FLÂNEUR

How this obscure Parisian wanderer made his imprint on modern society

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

32 I NTERVIEW: HELEN McCRORY

The actress who plays Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders on how involved she got with the character

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AUTUMN 2019

32 SARTORIAL FEATURES 44 FASHION PHOTO SHOOT

Well-dressed Chaps and Chapettes at this year’s Chap 20th Anniversary Party

58 I NTERVIEW: ALISON McCOSH

An encounter with the costume designer on Peaky Blinders

64 U P THE YARCO!

Liam Jefferies on the resurrection of Yarmouth Oilskins

66 W ORKWEAR JACKETS

The Chap’s top five iterations of this now ubiquitous item of men’s apparel

72 T HE BRITISH SHOE COMPANY

We meet the man behind this city cobbler moving into the business of shoe manufacture

76 W ALKING CANES

The history and practical usage of that most gentlemanly of accessories

82 F RAHM OF MIND

A new menswear brand that combines sharp tailoring with encouraging good mental health

86 G REY FOX COLUMN

David Evans samples some gentlemanly scents, before firing up his Land Rover and heading to Scotland

90 CALL OF CTHULHU

Holly Rose Swinyard delves into the dark mind of H.P. Lovecraft via two video games based on his work

LONGER FEATURES 96 MAUREEN O’HARA

Noel Shine’s unusual friendship with the Hollywood star that started in a Dublin bookshop

104 B IRDING

Nick Ostler’s field guide to Autumn migrants in Britain

106 T RAVEL: TEXAS

Sophia Conningsby trades her wellies for a pair of cowboy boots

112 DRINK

Olly Smith decides what to drink at the finishing line while powering an Aston Martin in the Le Mans 24 Heures

116 TRAVEL: RIGA

Chris Sullivan samples the gastronomic, architectural and liquid pleasures of the Latvian capital

REVIEWS 128 A UTHOR INTERVIEW

Alexander Larman meets leather-jacketed historian Dan Jones

132 BOOK REVIEWS

Books about ancient Rome and a new novel by Nicola Rayner

134 AGAINST NATURE

Alexander Larman on JK Huysmans’ 1884 bible of dandyism, decadence and debauchery

140 FILM REVIEW

The 70th anniversary re-issue of Kind Hearts and Coronets

142 DOWNTON ABBEY

Darcy Sullivan meets the costume designer for the new cinema version of the TV series

146 ORSON WELLES

Chris Sullivan explores the life and work of the great director

154 RESTAURANT REVIEW Head of the River, Oxford

158 MINNS & GOSBEE

Titanic teddy bears and Tsarist dolls at Brighton Toy and Model Museum

160 CROSSWORD

Cover photo: Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

ISSUE 101

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

“This is my young cousin, James,” writes Richard Burdett, “who is about to depart to a school dance. I think he exhibits a natural, classic style, but being family I'm biased.

PS Can you edit out the washing?

His mother will have my guts for garters if published.”

“As a new reader of The Chap,” writes Jonathan Ross, “I am not entirely sure of the form, but I gather you like readers to send you photographs of themselves suitably attired.”

Mr. Ross, the form is that you send us a photo and then we mercilessly mock practically every item of your apparel, in order to help you.

In your case we can see you don’t need any help at all and can only offer our congratulations.

Are you sure he’s not off to an audition for an extra in Mad Men, or an interview at an upmarket estate agency?

PS Including the pile of laundry is the only hope we have of picturing some decent clothing.

James Rana seems to be taking afternoon tea in a cupboard.

He should have joined John Mackenzie (below)and they could have fought over the waitresses.

“A recent jaunt to a lovely Tea Room in New Brighton,” writes John M Mackenzie, “following a charity re-enactment event at the Church of St Peter, Paul and Philomena.”

Some mothers certainly do ‘ave em, don’t they?

“Please find attached a picture of myself in the grounds of Holland Park,” writes Alexander Burgess, “waiting to watch my friend perform in the dress rehearsal of Opera Holland Park’s Manon Lescaut

by Puccini. Please forgive my overall scruffiness but, much like an overused pencil, it is hard to look sharp after a hard weeks work.”

Thank you Mr. Burgess, but please leave the sartorial metaphors to us. Your pencil needs a shave, but otherwise (apart from the lack of pocket pencil-sharpener) it’s in rather good shape.

Erwin J.O. Kompanje is wearing a bespoke 1956 Austin Reed suit and a Burberry vintage tie. He has been named the 'best dressed doctor' in the hospital in Rotterdam where he works.

If this is how doctors dress in Holland, why on earth are we living anywhere else?

“Please find enclosed a picture of a man,” writes Lynne. “A true gentleman. But my ex. Would you kindly post it with something nice written.

When we first split I hated him but deep down and months later I don't hate him. I love and miss him. His name is Ashley William Young.”

Well, madam. This is the first time we’ve been asked for relationship counselling. Get over him and move on. You don’t love him; your misplaced love is simply in waiting for the right chap.

Besides, only a bounder would wear a black bowler hat in the country.

Similarly, if all cyclists dressed like Michael Perrins, it would be far more acceptable to dodge out of their way when we accidentally wander into cycle lanes. Generally, it’s hardly worth the effort.

Events

After much adjusting of dress, the first tentative steps were taken by the London flâneurs along Jermyn Street

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n Sunday 14th July 2019, history .was made when some people went for a walk. So where is the ‘history being made’ part? you may ask. The flâneur (see page 28 for an actual history) is traditionally a solitary creature, but on that watershed day, an attempt was made to unite all the flâneurs under one canopy.

So at midday, some 40 or 50 flâneurs set off from the statue of Beau Brummell on Jermyn Street, London, while simultaneously another group departed from the statue of The Daughters of the Rhine in Dusseldorf.

Eight hours later, a third group of flâneurs set

forth in Los Angeles at their own crazy version of our midday.

The results of the experiment were that flânerie is possible for the multitude, but only if they are exceptionally well dressed and if at least 30 per cent of them are carrying canes.

These three multi-hatted Hydras in disparate parts of the globe all failed to arrive at their destination, precisely because they didn’t have one. They succeeded, however, in proving that Man may still perambulate in this world, aimlessly and pleasurably, with the unintended effect of bringing traffic, both human and vehicular, to a standstill. n

Photograph: Soulstealer Photography

GRAND FLÂNEUR Walk

Photograph: Soulstealer Photography Champagne Charlie (left), Gary Gronnestad (middle) and Stephen Myhill of the London chapter of flâneurs

The Düsseldorf flâneurs encounter the inevitable multi-flâneur problem – consensus on the route

The Los Angeles flâneurs encounter the inevitable American multi-flâneur problem – California Highway Patrol

Photograph: Soulstealer Photography

Events

The London flâneurs assemble on Jermyn Street to ensure that the correct quantity of spats is present

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Suis -Je OUI

Jack Enyart

“How to ‘flan’ here in La La Land?” writes Jack Enyart.

“Here’s how I, Jack Enyart, cartoonist/writer/portraitist/ voice artist/raconteur, go about it.”

Mr. Enyart has perfectly captured the spirit of the flâneur, and in the decidedly anti-flâneur city of Los Angeles.

He also boasts five jobs that barely class as actual work.

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Though Terry Garratt (72) technically broke the rules of flanning by having a destination, when that destination is the statue of Baudelaire in the Luxemborg Gardens, Paris, the rules can be relaxed. Besides, he may have stumbled upon the statue by chance.

Frank Annable is walking, apparently nowhere. He is eschewing the obvious attraction behind him. He is also very welldressed. He is, naturelement, a flâneur.

Flâneur?

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In preparation for our Grand Flâneur Walk, we asked readers to send us photographs of themselves practicing the art of the flâneur.

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Ben Wilkes sent us a photo (taken by Session Days Photography) of his Great Uncle Basil. Everyone should have a Great Uncle Basil, and all Great Uncle Basils should be flâneurs like this Great Uncle Basil.

Top hole, Great Uncle Basil!

Mark Lacey Whereas anyone who has an uncle who looks like this should seek assistance from the nearest police constable. Especially if he’s wearing a tea towel tied around his calf, which is code for ‘Dangerous Uncle’.

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NON Lance McCormack is also presumably with an uncle, great or otherwise.

In response to a request for images of flâneurs, Lance’s photo was taken on an underground train. Flâneurs are lazy, it’s true – but the business of a flâneur cannot be carried out on public transport.

On behalf of the differently saned, Michael Knight sent us a total of 23 photographs in response to Suis-Je Flâneur. They all captured the sorts of images you see during a nightmare after eating far too much Gruyere cheese. This one, however, captured the surrealist spirit of the flâneur, if not the sartorial expectations.

Grooming

Urban Jack Gustav Temple and Paul Lawford road test a range of gentlemen’s grooming unguents that are creating a revolution in the bathroom

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aunched just over a year ago, men’s grooming brand Urban Jack declares itself to be on a mission to improve men’s skincare. “Every .day,” they tell us, “mens’ skin goes into battle with environmental factors, from exhaust fumes to the unpredictable British weather. Throw in a gym session, a park run and one too many late nights, and it’s little wonder about the state men’s skin is in.”

There’s nothing Chaps can do about environmental factors and the British weather, and too many late nights are always worth paying any price for, though naturally we can give gymnasia and park runs a wide berth. And then there is the overriding principle that one’s personal grooming rituals must be approached with as much care and attention as one’s daily wardrobe selection.

With all this in mind, I devoted a week or two to only using Urban Jack grooming products, to see how I fared in this mythical battle with these

“I am like Jacob in the Book of Genesis, who said to his mother Rebekah, ‘Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.’ I do have a comradein-charms, however, who is indeed a hairy man, and that hairy man kindly agreed to try out Urban Jack’s Beard Oil” supposed attacks on the state of my fizzog. The products I sampled were Shower Oil, Face Wash, Shave Serum and Moisturiser. The Beard Oil had no place in my bathroom cabinet, for as readers may

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have noticed, I am like Jacob in the Book of Genesis, who said to his mother Rebekah, ‘Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man and I am a smooth man.’ I do have a comrade-in-charms, however, who is indeed a hairy man, and that hairy man kindly agreed to try out Urban Jack’s Beard Oil (see overleaf).

Shower Oil & Face Wash So let’s commence with the Shower Oil, unless you wish first to shave, then shower.

It is not for me to prescribe the correct order of service when it comes to grooming.

Some men like to get all hot and steamy in the shower and then shave, for the skin is fully prepared. Others prefer to wallow in the bath for half an hour and then shave right there, while others aver that this is slightly disgusting, for one is then washing in a bathful of shaved bristles. A bath, then a shave, then a shower, perhaps? This at least has the benefit of keeping one away from the day’s less pleasant tasks for at least an hour, but seems a tad fussy to me.

For a man who usually grabs the least offensively packaged shower gel from the shelf, Urban Jack’s Shower Oil did pack rather a zing and the fragrance was reassuringly masculine. The Face Wash, too, seemed very concentrated and required only a tiny squirt to work up a decent lather, so represents good value for money as well as a very pleasant visage-sluice.

Every Urban Jack product, we are informed, contains at least 85% natural content, with no synthetic fragrances, parabens or soaps. Not only that, but every process of manufacture is conducted in dear old Blighty.

Shave Serum And so to the shave. All the bathing, showering and face splashing are of course merely preparation; the hors d’oeuvres of one’s grooming ritual. The sink becomes the altar upon which we lay out the sacramentalia of the task in hand, and everyone has their preferred order of service, usually based on half-baked notions to do with the scientific properties of water temperature/steam/moisture etc. Although I once read somewhere that none of it makes any difference and one could just as easily shave in a cold river with a bar of soap. I think we all agree, however, that we are not savages, and that one’s personal ritual in itself gives meaning to a task that would otherwise be rather unexciting.

I have always preferred the wooden bowl/ hard shaving soap arrangement to the soft shaving cream, which doesn’t come in such attractive bowls that can be refilled with new soaps. We shall not even speak of the stuff that froths out of metal canisters (see ‘savages’, above). Urban Jack’s Revolution Shave Serum promises a much quicker, easier, less messy approach to any of the above.

I must say, the notion of conducting a revolution in the bathroom seemed a tad unnecessary, and I hadn’t heard the word ‘serum’ since reading bizarre plots in Tintin books involving mummy curses that required an antidote.

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Photo: Matteo Delred

But sometimes ignoring one’s prejudices and simply getting on with the job in hand can produce surprising results, and that is exactly what happened.

Instead of fiddling about with badgerbrush and making a mess in the sink, then smearing the face in a Santa beard of froth, the Shave Serum is simply squirted into the palm of the hand then smeared over the chin, previously moistened with a splash of warm water.

The Shave Serum is a thick, clear unguent, requiring only two squirts, so the shave itself is incredibly easy, because you can see exactly what you’re doing. The blade, in my case a traditional safety razor, slid across the usual nooks and crevices with remarkable ease and required debristling much less often than when shaving with lather. In fact the bristles seemed miraculously to disappear once removed, and the edge of the sink did not gather a small, messy pile of wet iron filings that would need attending to afterwards.

This was indeed a revolution in the bathroom!

JACK AND THE BEARD-STALK What is it with Jacks and Beards?

Lumberjacks often have beards, don’t they?

So, there’s Jack Black, Every Man Jack, and Urban Jack all now producing facial hair products. However, the former two Jacks are American, and I am not in America.

Urban Jack is a small UK company manufacturing their facial hair products there. So what is this thing called beard oil, you ask? What’s the big fuss; surely the butter off of one’s morning toast is enough?

Billy Childish eats his toast butter-side down, in order not to get the stuff on his extravagant tache. The problem with butter and other foodstuffs is their tendency to turn rancid, and a rancid beard is never welcomed. So what is a man to do? Beard Oil, you cry! This 100% natural product comes in a minimalist black and white glass bottle with a pipette, which is a joy to squeeze. I haven’t used one of these since squirting iodine everywhere at school. How to use? Apply a few drops to your palms, or preferably someone else’s, and rub it into your beard. That’s it; no need for a manual.

Personally, I prefer to put a few drops on a fine-toothed comb to apply it, thus avoiding oil on my hands that might lead to the dropping of my breakfast Martini. n

“I hadn’t heard the word ‘serum’ since reading bizarre plots in Tintin books involving mummy curses that required an antidote” On my next journey abroad, which happened to be to Jerez, where my ‘hairy brother’ resides, I took the risk of packing only the Shave Serum instead of the usual shaving bowl and brush.

Not only did it make the luggage slightly lighter, but also it made shaving in hotter climes slightly easier, the added visibility making for less daunting shaves when in the throes of a sherry hangover (see Travel: Jerez de la Frontera).

I shall now hand you over to Paul Lawford, the aforementioned Esau, who will explain the whys and wherefores of Urban Jack’s Beard Oil.

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Photo: Ben Blackall / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Features Jerez De La Frontera (p22) •

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The Flâneur (p28)

Interview with Helen McCrory (p32) 21

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Travel

APOCALYPSO AHORA Gustav Temple travels to Jerez De La Frontera in search of an old friend

Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one.

Brought it up to me like room service.

Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now

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y mission was not to find a colonel in the Vietnamese jungle who had gone mad .and to kill him, but to catch up with an old friend who had not been seen in Soho since the death of our own Colonel Kurtz, Sebastian Horsley. Shortly after the great dandy’s funeral in June 2010, Paul Lawford disappeared from Soho in a wisp of cigar smoke. His flat on Meard Street had been directly above the house of sin that was the Horsley residence. Rumours circulated the French House of exile to Andalucía in Spain, but they had the air of bar-room tittle-tattle. Social media, for once, was silent on the matter.

Nine years later, I am boarding a plane at Gatwick Airport bound for Jerez de la Frontera, a small

town near Cadíz that gave its name to sherry. Like Oporto in Portugal, the connection with England is via the gallons of the local produce consumed by Britons since the 18th century. But, as I discovered even before the taxi deposited me in the ancient town centre, the connection works both ways.

Jerez is not a popular Spanish destination like its neighbours Seville and Cadíz. Most of my fellow passengers were Spanish and they were here during the only week when the airport is busy: La Feria de Caballos. The whole town shuts down and effectively rebuilds itself in a huge park on the outskirts, for a week of dancing flamenco, drinking fino and watching horses. The taxi rank, where I imagined I’d stand out in my crisp linen suit and straw panama,

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was full of slick Madrileños in blue blazers, cream chinos and expensive sunglasses. They looked like they were roughing it even by the act of standing in a queue. As the taxi neared the town centre, groups of women, walking in the opposite direction, wore polka-dotted flamenco dresses, mantillas and flowers in their hair. It was 2pm and the early summer heat made the dust sparkle.

The address I’d been given by my hosts was bang in the centre of town. I expected a fairly decent-sized establishment, assuming they had sold up in Soho nine years ago and benefited from the vast difference between local property prices and a two-bedroom flat in Soho. I did not expect a palacio.

The huge, ancient door was opened by Catherine, the lady of the house. Echoing around the vast central atrium came a voice emanating from a figure on a tatty sofa: “Mr. Temple, I’ve been expecting you.”

Paul was, naturally, stroking a cat. He was also dressed as if just back from the Colony Room. The glass of something or other on the table was, I was to learn during the next three days, never to be empty.

Rooms, endless rooms, gave off the atrium, as well as stairs, courtyards, corridors. There was even a well in the centre. But the drumkit in the corner distracted from the architecture, as did the pair of decommissioned Kalashnikovs and the enormous boar’s head with a string of pearls. This was no ordinary palacio. I was immediately taken to one of the kitchens – the ‘wet’ one, where no food was stored or served (that prosaic business took place in another kitchen). Various fridges were opened in

search of whatever I wanted – fino, of course – and plans were hatched for my stay.

One’s plans during this week in May have to revolve around the Feria. Principally because it’s where the action is, but also because the town centre is in limbo – most of the bars and restaurants erect a caseta, an ersatz version in the park where the Feria is held, and so their main building is closed.

Consequently the town was deserted, with the advantage that a table was easy to secure in the places that could afford to keep two establishments going.

The result is the freedom to stroll about the town as if every day is a sleepy Sunday, and also the chance to take part in the mayhem that is Feria when the need arises. Everywhere is anticipation, preparation, exodus: groups of señoritos, the local chaps, all identically dressed in chinos, blazers and ties, many with a detail peculiar to this area: a shirt collar so cutaway that the tips are horizontal, the huge gap filled with a fat Windsor knot. I had not expected to be sartorially impressed by the Andalucian equivalent of the crowds at Henley Regatta. The women mostly wore trajes de gitana – gipsy dresses, bedecked with shawls, flowers and flamenco shoes that make a racket on the dancefloor. We were to follow them to their mecca at dusk, after a splendid lunch (mostly meat; I think there was a vegetable in there somewhere) and a siesta.

I was awoken in my downstairs room by someone playing the drums to Rosemary Clooney’s Sway. It was dark and I’d forgotten which corridor to take to the atrium. The slashing of cymbals guided

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me to the sight of Paul, wearing a three-piece suit, Homburg and punk T-shirt, doing a paradiddle in the dark. It was time to go to the Feria.

The entrance to the Feria park is a cross between Rotten Row in 1890 and Disneyland. A vast stone portico sweeps into an avenue lined with bars and restaurants, illuminated by vast strings of lights that put Regent Street at Christmas in the shade. The ground is covered in a bright yellow sand that must have been dyed a special Feria colour.

From each caseta emanates music that lurches from Sevillanas, a version of flamenco, to pounding modern dance music. Some of the casetas are the size of nightclubs and others as small as a tiny backstreet bar. All are packed with people of all ages, guzzling fino, devouring tapas and dancing.

We stayed until 2am, but the younger folk would be there until dawn, I was told. When they need reviving, they run around on the traditional fairground rides stationed on the edge of the park, and load up on hot chocolate and churros before heading home. The next day’s hangovers would be dealt with by a return to the Feria.

Paul and Catherine’s approach took place in the wet kitchen. Around 10am the next morning, I headed for the kitchen where something was happening, assuming some form of breakfast would take place. It was: Paul was propped at the cocktail bar in the other kitchen, sipping a small glass of some aniseed liqueur, wearing a djellabah. The inevitable conversation about Sebastian Horsley ensued, something we had avoided until then. Hangovers

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always make one think of Sebastian, whose life was one long hangover. I was shown various artefacts and memento mori: clothing items; a copy of Tintin in the Congo scrawled with the dandy’s ramblings and doodles; a framed poster that kept falling off the wall. Sebastian lurked about this palacio like some well-dressed phantom and I recalled the lines from T-Rex that had been played at his funeral: Distraction he wanted/To destruction he fell/Now he forever stalks the ancient mansions of hell.

The entertainment lined up for Day Two included a bullfight. As well as dancing and parading horses, another element of the Feria is three days of corridas. Jerez’s Plaza de Toros is only a Category 3, but during Feria there was a cartel that boasted El Fandi, Manzanares and Roca Rey, three of Spain’s top matadors. Bullfighting is not for everyone and even those who support it have to wrestle with the ethics. But once you’re installed in your seat and the trumpets are blaring, and three men dressed in suits of lights march into the sun bearing swords and red capes, you may as well be in ancient Rome.

We saw everything that day that one can see at a bullfight: a bull being spared by the crowd all waving white handkerchiefs; a spectacular turn on the arena by El Fandi and plenty of horns ripping holes in the suits of lights. The only thing missing was a goring, but these boys were at the top of their game and made a virtue of taking huge risks without injury.

We’d only had a couple of beers during the corrida, and there was only one place our thirst

could be quenched: an illuminated park full of hundreds of bars, so we headed back to the Feria.

Of all the towns and cities I’ve visited in Spain, Jerez de la Frontera (I wish I lived in a place with ‘of the frontier’ suffixed to the name of a drink, eg ‘Whisky of the Frontier’) is the most Anglophile.

The citizens dress impeccably with the occasional flourish of dandyism; menswear emporia full of ties, hats and tweed jackets abound; there is an affinity absent in the rest of the country for both dogs and cats, as pets rather than as scavenging feral creatures; equestrianism is everywhere; the town echoes with the clip-clop of horses driven by men in sombreros, reminding me of the local Harveys Ale being delivered where I live by bowler-hatted men on carriages pulled by Shire horses. Unlike other parts of Europe, a man in a linen suit and Panama hat is not regarded with curiosity or asked if he is an actor.

It’s also incredibly cheap in Jerez, even compared to the larger cities in Spain and especially to the Balearics. I questioned every bar and restaurant bill as if they’d forgotten to add half our order.

Flights, with Easyjet, are cheap too, as most tourists to Andalucía head to Seville or Cadíz.

Both those cities are an hour away by train, through the parched, brown fields of the province. I fully intend to revisit when there isn’t a Feria, and see all those casetas returned to their original locations in the town centre.

On my last day we discovered that some bars are so popular that they keep the main one open as well as their caseta. The Peña El Pasaje is a ‘tradi-

tional’ (though everything in Jerez is traditional) flamenco joint with about four small tables, which were all fully booked. While Paul and I sipped rebojitos (a quaffable mixture of fino and lemonade) in another bar, Catherine disappeared for a few minutes, returning with the news that she had secured a table for us. It seems the Lawfords have been in Jerez long enough for a table of tourists to be kicked out in their favour. Everywhere we went, they were greeted with open arms and cries of “Caramba!” Another testament to Jerez’s love of all things British, particularly its high-living, eccentric émigrés.

Many Spaniards have told me, not only in Jerez but in Seville too, that the best flamenco is to be found in Jerez. You might imagine a show to have the status of ballroom dancing or folk dancing, i.e. full of old people, but the opposite was true. Our guitarist and singer were both men in their early twenties, and our dancer still had braces on her teeth.

Once they got going, the quiet little bar suddenly came alive with stamping feet, strummed guitars and the wailing, seemingly improvised lyrics of flamenco.

My Spanish is just about good enough to pick out the words, which were along the lines of “I woke up this morning and everything was pretty awful…”

One more spin around the Feria and suddenly it was 3am and time for carriages to be called.

During the return flight I left the yellow dust on my shoes to keep the memories alive. The three-part hangover helped that too, which I dealt with by raising a glass on the plane to Sebastian, without whom none of this would have happened. n

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Travel

The crowd is his domain, as the air is that of the bird or the sea of the fish. His passion and his creed is to wed the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate observer, it’s an immense pleasure to take up residence in multiplicity, in whatever is seething, moving, evanescent and infinite.

Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life

Dandyism

THE FLÂNEUR Gustav Temple on the flâneur’s leisurely entry into society and why we should make sure he sticks around

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“The great reminiscences, the historical frissons are all so much junk to the flâneur, who is happy to leave them to the tourist; he would be happy to trade all his knowledge of artists’ quarters, birthplaces, and princely palaces for the scent of a single weathered tile”

harles Baudelaire may not have been the first man or woman to wander the streets of his city with no particular destination, and no purpose other than to absorb his surroundings, muse on whatever took his fancy and end up somewhere interesting, but he was the first to give it a name: the flâneur.

The word comes from the 17th century term flânerie – to stroll or idle without purpose.

Baudelaire was not alone in his flânerie. Many of his 19th century literary peers celebrated the art of flânerie, including Balzac, Anaïs Bazin (who declared that “the true sovereign of Paris is the flâneur”) and Louis Aragon. All agreed that there was more to being a flâneur than simply wandering the streets. By deliberately avoiding the end point of a destination, the flâneur throws himself open to whatever he or she might encounter.

This was further expanded by André Breton, who in his 1928 novel Nadja advised the reader always to be in a state of disponibilité – “the availability, the waiting, the opening to the unpredictable which breaks the frozen crust of

existence, and finally the change.” So the flâneur is actually in search of something while he wanders, yet he doesn’t know what it is until he finds it. This is not unlike when one is on holiday and goes out in search of a bureau de change and ends up buying an expensive embroidered rug.

Sainte-Beuve wrote that to flâne is the very opposite of doing nothing. Just as an idler attaches

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notifications that so-and-so has responded to our friend request. The genuine flâneur does not request friendship; he is perfectly content to strike up passing acquaintances with people he will never meet again.

Some ardent flâneurs have argued that only certain cities provide the true flânerie experience, most of them putting Paris at the top of the list. Rome is often rejected as being too full of distractions, London as too big – though Iain Sinclair managed it, turning his flânerie in the capital into a thing he called psychogeography.

We’ll stick with ‘flâneur’, thank you very much.

The Baudelaire version of the flâneur was always male, principally because solitary 19th century women wandering around the city probably wouldn’t be left alone long enough to enter a reflective state of mind. But more recently the ‘flaneuse’ has been celebrated, by writers like Lauren Elkin in Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London. In Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City, the writer spends a long time walking about the streets of New York to get over a break-up. She starts off quoting Baudelaire and his flâneur, but ends up writing about how virtual modes of communication have replaced more traditional forms of exploration and community. She finds reconnecting with the physical body of the flâneur (all that walking can be quite exhausting) more helpful to ease her heartbroken mind.

a philosophical meaning to the art of loafing about, so a flâneur creates an air of mystery and intrigue during a leisurely stroll. This is obviously much easier to do in a city such as Paris or Marrakech than Milton Keynes, though the true flâneur would argue that one can flâne anywhere.

Walter Benjamin (above) wrote an enormous, unfinished work from 1927-1940 called The Arcades Project, in which he studied the flâneur via the poems of Baudelaire, coming to the conclusion that “The flâneur was a figure of the modern artist-poet, a figure keenly aware of the bustle of modern life, an amateur detective and investigator of the city, but also a sign of the alienation of the city and of capitalism.” After writing his book for 33 years, Benjamin eventually summed up the nub of the flâneur: “The great reminiscences, the historical frissons – these are all so much junk to the flâneur, who is happy to leave them to the tourist. And he would be happy to trade all his knowledge of artists’ quarters, birthplaces, and princely palaces for the scent of a single weathered tile – that which any old dog carries away.”

So the flâneur bypasses all tourist sights and monuments, seeking his own particular set of archaeological points of interest, to which he may, or may not, return to one day. The flâneur’s map, if he ever carried one, would be marked with symbols showing, for example, ‘nice quiet café’, ‘pretty lady reading book in park’, ‘tramp who looks exactly like Daniel Craig’. Most of us manage to enter the realm of the flâneur when on holiday, while in daily life it is more difficult to nurture the air of the artist-poet while dodging around all the chuggers, muggers and beggars, with one’s field telephone beeping constant

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Dandyism

There is, too, a relatively new phenomenon known as the cyberflâneur, or at least there was in the 1990s during the internet’s early days. As Conor McGarrigle puts it, “With no Google or Facebook to organize the internet’s information, surfing the web was an art, successfully practiced by the cyberflâneur, the web connoisseur […] One presumes that, as the flâneur resisted the temptations of consumerism, so the cyberflâneur eschewed the commercialization of the web.” He concludes that the cyberflâneur has been made redundant:

“For platforms such as Facebook, any possibility for flânerie has been successfully engineered out.”

The demise of the Baudelairean flâneur was blamed on the modernisation of the streets of Paris by Baron Haussmann, the Mark Zuckerberg of 19th century town planning. Haussmann replaced many of the nooks, crannies and arcades beloved by wandering poets with wide boulevards where flâneurs felt too exposed to the crowds.

Flâneurs seek shadows, passages, dead ends and blind alleys. Louis Aragon devoted an entire book – 1926’s Paris Peasant – to exploring three arcades in Paris, immersing himself in the curiosity that they aroused in him.

Luckily, those who tidy up the Internet for us cannot do the same as Haussmann to the streets of our cities. The possibility of flânerie will never disappear, for those who seek the simple pleasure of wandering with no destination, sure in the knowledge that they won’t end up on Amazon or a porn site after a few wrong turnings. So if you live in a city and you fancy a leisurely stroll but have no idea where you want to end up, you are already half way to being a flâneur. n

“The flâneur bypasses all tourist sights and monuments, seeking his own particular set of archaeological points of interest, to which he may or may not return to one day. The flâneur’s map, if he ever carried one, would be marked with symbols showing ‘nice quiet cafe’, ‘pretty lady reading book’, ‘tramp who looks exactly like Daniel Craig’”

FURTHER READING Charles Baudelaire – The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays Louis Aragon – Paris Peasant Andre Breton – Nadja

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Interview

HE LE N M c C R O R Y Gustav Temple meets the actress who has played Polly Gray in five seasons of Peaky Blinders, to find out how deeply she has become connected to the character

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For the last few years we’ve worked with Alison McCosh, who sources costumes from museums, costume houses, places people don’t usually use.

She’ll go as far as Washington, Barcelona or Rome to find the right piece; she’s as obsessive as I am. So before we even start filming, we’ll have entire outfits, complete with shoes, gloves, earrings, hats, for the entire season. Polly definitely wears her clothes as armour and is comfortable in her own skin.

’ve talked to your co-star Paul Anderson and creator Steven Knight about the men’s styling of Peaky Blinders. What was your experience in the costume department? Did you have any say in what you wear as Aunt Polly?

I’m a real pain in the neck when it comes to costume, because it’s really important to me. I’ve always really designed what I’ve been wearing alongside the designer, because it makes an enormous difference to how you move, how you’re perceived and how you feel. So right from the beginning when we started Peaky, I wanted Polly to have a very tight silhouette, so they were saying, ‘This is the period, it’s drop-waist…’ and I said, yeah, I’m not wearing that. We need a corset and a hobble skirt and boots up to the thigh, and everything a size too small, tailored within an inch of its life. We need massive hair, with pins I’m going to stab people with, things I can whip out of fur; I need a gun on the inside thigh in a garter. It should all make me feel a certain way.

“We need a corset and a hobble skirt and boots up to the thigh, and everything a size too small, tailored within an inch of its life.”

What can we expect sartorially in season 5?

I saw some stills and you looked a bit more masculine than usual, in a sexy Marlene Dietrich sort of way.

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Photo: Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Photo: Ben Blackall / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

I really like the masculinity that Polly has. We couldn’t do the hobble skirt again, because a woman wears what she’s comfortable in and then you’ve got to move it on. Those were exactly the references we were looking at, Marlene Dietrich, even Katherine Hepburn, which is slightly later, but pulling that feeling of Polly still smelling of Gitanes, but now it’s Gitanes with a splash of eau de cologne.

Your first acting credit, at least that I could find, was as ‘second whore’ in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. You then went on to play, among others, The Countess of Castlemaine, Victoria Frankenstein, Evelyn Poole, Medea and Polly Gray. Would you admit there’s a bit of a theme there?

When I first left drama school I only wanted to do theatre, I wasn’t interested in doing screen work whatsoever. It took a long time for my agent to persuade me. As well as the ones you mention, I’ve done my prudes, my purists, my lawyers, the shy giggling one with glasses in Lucky Jim. I’ve always been interested in transforming. I think there are two types of actors: the ones who play themselves, like Clint Eastwood, and the ones who transform into someone else. I’m definitely in the latter category.

“We need massive hair, with pins I’m going to stab people with, things I can whip out of fur, I need a gun on the inside thigh in a garter. It should all make me feel a certain way” Are you particularly drawn to those roles that express a darker side of human nature?

I don’t think I’ve ever been interested in any play about the happy, successful, lighter moments of life. I think that’s a very modern, pervasive idea in our entertainment, whether it’s on Instagram or in fiction, to show only the good and the perfect side of yourself. It’s just a lie and it’s very dull,

and it’s nothing that anyone should even strive for.

Obviously when you’re younger, all the dark side of life holds a lot of interest. Every teenager listens to the Doors and reads Sartre.

You’ve played Polly Gray for six years now.

Have you formed a deeper bond with her than with roles you’ve only played in one film? Do you ever think about her between seasons of Peaky Blinders?

Yes, you definitely start having a relationship. The writer’s given you all that space and time to build all the facts of those characters. With each new season, no-one’s more excited to learn what’s going to happen than we are. In the last season there were a few scenes where I talked about my lost daughter.

I was going around bric-a-brac shops and I found a tiny little engraved doll, circa 1890s. So I kept her in my purse for the next season, even though the audience never saw her. I’ll pick up hatpins, and then ask to have them put in parts of my costume.

Is it harder for a woman to make such roles as likeable as their male counterparts?

Everyone loves a rake like Lord Byron or Casanova, but are audiences less comfortable with female characters who occupy the darker end of the moral compass?

It’s never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be likeable. I grew up in a house and a world where it was never explained to me that things were off-limits because I was a woman. When I read my feminist literature like Germaine Greer or The Golden Notebook, they were fascinating, but as alien to me as reading Terese Raquin or The Idiot.

It was all fiction to me. Polly is very in touch with her instincts and spirituality. I never really feel it’s my job to worry about how the character might be perceived. My job is to be an advocate for the character. How it’s received is your business.

“In Season Five we’re going to see the rise of fascism and the fall of the stock market, that thundercloud that comes over Europe that we are so aware of today. But in Peaky Blinders, nobody is lying on their back and saying ‘Poor me’”

How much backstory for the character were you given at the start of Peaky Blinders?

When I first talked to Steve [Knight, series writer and creator] I said ‘Aunt Polly? Where’s the aunt?’

And he said, you know those women who were just around and they were your ‘aunt’ or your ‘uncle, but they weren’t really your aunt or your uncle. What they were was someone who your parents were saying, this person is special. ‘Get your feet off the table and sit up, because Aunt Polly’s coming over̕.

So when you pick these things up in antique shops, you’re actually buying them as Polly?

Anything that can help your imagination or add layers helps develop the character. I’m aware that a lot of the things that I talk about as Polly, I haven’t experienced. I haven’t had to give up my children for adoption; I haven’t lost a daughter. But I can’t tell you how often I’ve received letters, or people come up to me in the street, and women tell me these extraordinary stories, and what they felt when they saw Polly talk about it. I’ve even had young girls come up to me and talk about terrible rape stories… one girl came up to me and said that when she saw that episode, it was the first time that she then talked to her husband about it. That’s a huge response, because viewers have watched these

Unless I’ve missed an episode, it’s never explained what happened to the Shelby’s mother.

It’s never been explained. We haven’t really talked about the father of Polly’s children.

What’s confusing for me as an actor is that sometimes I have talked about something from the past, but it’s been cut from the final series.

So I’ve got it as a memory and I’m not even sure which facts have been broadcast. After five years it all gets a bit blurred.

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Photo: Robert Viglasky / Š Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Polly definitely wears her clothes as armour and is comfortable in her own skin.

The appeal of Polly is that she’s so rounded and complex, like when we see her taking opium and nearly falling apart, but then she keeps all the books in order for the whole Shelby business empire. That’s quite an unusual combination, isn’t it?

It is for television, but it isn’t an unusual combination for life. Most people are just struggling and trying to keep it together. What I love about Polly is that she just keeps going, which is what a lot of women do, putting everybody first and themselves second. Polly does it again and again and again, and copes with it by taking drugs or drinking, seeing someone on the street corner who tells her where her daughter is, then finding out it’s a lie, and the hurt of that. That struggle of life and just keeping everything going is a very British outlook. There are a lot of Pollys out there.

“What I love about Polly is that she just keeps going, which is what a lot of women do. That struggle of life and just keeping everything going is very British. There are a lot of Pollys out there” Do you think she would really have existed in that period, as you’ve portrayed her, or are some of her characteristics more true of women today?

My grandma’s father was killed in the war. She was brought up by a cleaning lady who cleaned pubs in Glasgow, and those women did everything the men were supposed to do, because there were no men there. Entire generations of families who lost

Photo: Ben Blackall / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

characters for a long time, so I’m very aware of that responsibility. And I’m so aware that when you play these parts and play those moments, there is a triangle of ghosts behind you, of people that have never told their stories. When you speak to them, you have to immerse yourself into it as much as possible, because you’ve got to get it right.

the men in the first and second world wars. Those women like Polly absolutely existed. So there’s nothing modern about women holding it together, and striding down the street. We know that the police were called to Small Heath more often for fights between women than between men.

If your washing on a Friday wasn’t done, or if you weren’t one of the women who were up in the morning to get the clean water and put the family’s clothes on the mangle, it would reflect on your family. Women just worked so hard, and they had balls. There was a tiny minority, from the ruling classes, that were feminine in a way that maybe doesn’t exist any more. But as far as being a streetwise alleycat and being tough and facing it, I see those girls all the time; every time I get on a tube at 2am I think, there’s another little Polly sitting over there.

his father was a steel worker. My mum’s dad was a boxer who came from a mining family… in other words, like most of the country. Whenever you saw them, in films like Kes, it was looking at our wounds, and licking them. What’s wonderful about Steve is that he’s reclaimed them and made people proud about their history, as well as looking at the darker elements. In Season Five we’re going to see the rise of fascism, and the fall of the stock market, that thundercloud that comes over Europe that we are so aware of today. But in Peaky Blinders, nobody is lying on their back and saying ‘Poor me’.

So Aunt Polly is a really good example to set people, in an age when everybody loves to play the victim?

Yeah. You might not feel that way, but just stride down the street, because you know what, it’ll make your day better, if nothing else, just for the badness and the fun of it. People say about Peaky Blinders that it’s very violent and very gory, and I say, well that is what violence is, you should want to look away. It’s disgusting. It’s what happens when people think they’ve run out of any other option. It’s actually the women around the violent men who are strong.

“As far as being a streetwise alleycat and being tough and facing it, I see those girls all the time; every time I get on a tube at 2am I think, there’s another little Polly sitting over there”

Peaky Blinders seems to be a more realistic updating of the 1970s gangster movie portrayal of women either as prostitutes or downtrodden wives.

Yes, with Polly, Steve has given the responsibility of the family to Polly and Tommy; he hasn’t given it to Tommy and Mrs Tommy. It’s not even a sexual relationship; they’re just the two people who run the gang. He’s the paternal and she’s the maternal, as archetypes.

What is it about the writing of Peaky Blinders that makes it so original?

What I like about Stephen’s writing is that Polly doesn’t ever see herself as a victim, even when the most appalling things have happened to her, and that is a state of mind which is inspirational.

No-one can be in control of what happens around them in their life; the only thing you can control is how you see it. Nothing is good nor bad but thinking makes it so, as Shakespeare said. What Polly decides is that it’s Polly’s world.

Steve doesn’t write in the usual way about working class life, which is the background I came from. My father worked on the Glasgow docks,

And there are parallels between them, in the way they both seek solace in opium when they go off the rails. It isn’t a typical fictional relationship.

Yes, you usually have the male character in a turmoil of sexual angst and drugs, and the woman at home saying, I hope he’ll be alright. Rather than her doing exactly the same, and also struggling. n

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41 Photo: Ben Blackall / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

SARTORIAL •

Chap 20th Anniversary Party (p44) • Alison McCosh (p58) • Yarmouth Oilskins (p64) Workwear Jackets (p66) • British Shoe Company (p72) • Walking Canes (p76) • Frahm Clothing (p82) • Grey Fox Column (p86) • Call of Cthulhu (p90)

CHAP 20TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY On 8th June, The Chap Celebrated its 20th anniversary with a splendid soiree in the Vaults, London. Soulstealer Photography was there to capture the best-dressed Chaps and Chapettes as they arrived

PHOTOGRAPHY: SOULSTEALER PHOTOGRAPHY

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LLA BROWNE (RIGHT) BETHAN KORAUSCH (LEFT), HAYLEY STE

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HAYLEY STELLA BROWNE (LEFT), BRAND

I FRENCHFRY (CENTRE)

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SADIE DOHERTY

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BUNNY

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AMANDA SCRIVENER

JORDI EL GRECO

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IGHT ZOE ROYAL (LEFT), SARA SEWANDSEW (R

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HELEN GARVEY

AND DICKIE VAUGHAN

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NDORA HARRISON ANDY AND PA

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ANDREW FISH

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D TOM WARD AN

HELEN CHAPMAN

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Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Sartorial

ALISON MCCOSH The Chap spoke to Alison McCosh about designing the costumes for the male and female cast members on seasons 4 and 5 of Peaky Blinders

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elen McCrory described herself as ‘a pain in the neck’ when it comes to costume, meaning she gets very involved with the costume department. Would you agree with that?

Helen is very much about her character, and when you’re developing a character as strong as Polly Gray, then you need the involvement of the actor.

You need to understand how they feel emotionally and if the costumes are fitting for the character.

She’s on board with that and it’s a good thing.

“Ada Thorne is a small-town girl who’s gone to America and done quite well. The clothing is a representation of who she now is. She collects art, she’s in a better social circle. So the choices in clothes make her feel like she belongs”

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Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Matt Squire / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

It’s important to tell the story via the costumes, so there are a lot of conversations back and forth with each actor. Getting the emotions correct and whether they can move correctly in each costume.

So Ada Thorne is a small-town girl who’s gone to America and done quite well. The clothing is a representation of who she now is. She collects art; she’s in a better social circle. So the choices in clothes make her feel like she belongs and she’s valuable and she’s worth it. It’s also reflected in her home styling.

She also said she often finds antique accessories for Polly and adds them to the outfits. Is that unusual, for an actor to bring their own props?

If an actor’s on their journey with the character, it’s sometimes important for them to find something they connect with. So I think it’s quite valuable actually; I’m not opposed to that. If there’s a piece that helps them connect with the character, then that’s fantastic.

She said you always used authentic vintage outfits. How does this compare to having costumes made from scratch?

When you’re doing a period show, it’s important to capture as much period authenticity as possible.

I find that today’s fabrics don’t tell the true story.

So I find auction houses selling vintage clothes and fabrics, and then I’ll adapt from that. It ends up being a balance between vintage pieces and items made from vintage fabric. Sometimes we’ll have to re-weave a piece back together, but what you get is the right colour. What I’ve found is that when an actor walks into an authentic piece they really feel like they’re becoming the character, and that really helps them transition.

And she wears lots of fur?

Yes! Obviously it isn’t PC nowadays, so all the fur is vintage pieces. We were ambivalent at first but decided that fur was correct for the period.

For the male actors, how did you tackle taking over from the previous costume designer, with such an established, iconic look?

The script really informed me where it should go.

Because of Cillian’s character stepping up into the world and having more money, the clothes had to reflect that. So the script really lent itself to allowing me to move the costumes forward and make changes.

Is the men’s costume all tailored?

Yes, all the male lead’s costumes are tailored, the shirts, suits, hats, ties, everything. At the end of

Do you try to make each female character stand out, with her own look?

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Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

Robert Viglasky / © Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd. 2019

season 4 you see Tommy going into politics, which I thought needed a sharper, pinstriped, more formal look, but still holding his own. I can’t give much away, but there’s a part of Tommy that we never really let go of.

The hob-nailed boots have disappeared too.

What kind of shoes did you put the male cast in for season 5?

The shoes are often where we start, as they anchor the actor. We started with a classic lace-up boot, which the actors all feel comfortable in. So we kept them in boots. In season 5 there’s a slight change but I can’t tell you more than that.

I saw a publicity still where it looks as if Tommy is wearing spats?

They’re actually a two-tone boot made of suede and leather.

Sam Claflin plays Oswald Moseley – was it more difficult styling a real person from history rather than a fictional character?

I spoke to Sam about it and he wanted to have an injection of his own. It’s a classic look, again, but we had to make it accurate.

You must have noticed the amount of men now dressing in Peaky Blinders style?

Yes, I think it’s great, if that style works for you and you’re enjoying it. But the cut is really important; it has to work for you. It’s all about the fit, and whether you own it and believe in it.

You’ve worked on the X-Men films. How does working on Peaky Blinders compare to that?

I love my work and I treat every script differently.

It’s about telling the story and making sure that the actor feels the character. If the costume has helped that, then it’s a job well done. When you do a period piece like Peaky, you have a certain responsibility to the historical period. I spend a lot of the prep time visiting auction houses all over the world to find vintage pieces. I get a lot of good pieces from America and all over Europe.

I hope it isn’t like the EBay experience, where you wait three weeks for the item and then it’s the wrong size?

Hopefully not! There can be a lot of recutting and reshaping to make the outfits fit the actor. n

Peaky Blinders Season Five is coming soon to BBC One

Sartorial

UP THE YARCO! Liam Jefferies on the re-birth of a UK manufacturing brand located on the quayside of Great Yarmouth

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ne need only perform a small meander down the trendy side of any town, to see that workwear-influenced clothing has seen somewhat of a boom in recent years. Erstwhile winklepickered and heavily coiffured fops now trounce the cobbles looking as though they just stepped off a steamer, finished a shift down the pit or shucked their four-hundredth oyster for the day.

There can be no doubt that in the world of menswear, function is paramount. Many staple items of clothing find their origins in utilitarian features once deemed a necessity and now more of a talking point (see epaulets, surgeon-cuffs, gamepockets etc). However, one brand in particular is paying homage to its own practical roots, while retaining the credence of over a century of heritage.

“We’re interested in building products that will last a lifetime and grow with you as they age. If you buy a piece from our collection, you’re buying something that should be part of your wardrobe for life, not just the short term”

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Yarmouth Oilskins is a company that has been synonymous with workwear since 1898. Chiefly supplying the fishing industry with oilskins and knitwear, in its heyday the company boasted 1200 employees. Though with the rise of outsourcing and the dreaded ‘fast-fashion’, the company now has a family of just 20 people manufacturing in the proper, slow way in their factory in Great Yarmouth.

Johnson & Sons, as it was known then, became a limited company in February 1898, soon to join forces with other local businessmen to form Yarmouth Stores Ltd. with the mission statement “To carry on business as retail outfitters, clothiers, hosiers, shoes, oils, waterproof clothing of every description, drapery, knitwear, goods of all kinds.”

The company went on to export their products throughout the world, opening shops in the port towns of Britain and, come the Second World War, producing overalls, uniforms and other garments for the war effort.

The seventh-generation family-owned business is situated smack bang on the quayside of Great Yarmouth and operated by a local workforce; the factory boasts such historical characteristics as an old rope-makers’ loft and chandlery, a clue to the brand’s legacy. The driving-force behind the brand are Sophie Miller and Jackie McKellar, who both have ample experience in the textile industry and a strong desire to revive UK-based manufacturing.

Seeing a growing appetite for artisanal clothing with provenance, with a particular popularity in Japan, alongside such esteemed company as Barbour and Grenfell, the worldwide penchant for workwear has seen this British

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heritage brand saved from obscurity. As managing director Jackie McKellar says, “Part of what we have done is review the heritage and the history of the family and the company. We uncovered the Yarmouth Oilskins logo, and we’ve tried to revitalise that, rebranding it for the 21st Century as part of a workwear, fashion-orientated collection of clothing. In terms of the brand that we’ve put together, we went through the archive and picked out about eight pieces, and those are the products that we’ve taken to market.

“I think there has been a resurgence in workwear in terms of fashion, but we’re not fashion per se; what we’re interested in is building products that will last a lifetime and will grow with you as they age. If you buy a piece from our collection, you’re buying piece of clothing that should be part of your wardrobe for life, not just the short term.”

If one’s idea of labour involves occasionally pruning the hydrangeas or hauling a crate of imported beer up a flight of stairs, fear not, as it wasn’t just the blue-collar staff who knew the value of a properly constructed garment; notable workwear fans have included artists such as Pablo Picasso, Alfred Wallis and Barbara Hepworth.

So take heed of this Great British brand and bag yourself a piece of history, and once you own it, wear it, and wear it to death; if you can outlive it, that is. n See page 69 for our review of the Yarmouth Oilskins Engineer Jacket www.yarmouthoilskins.com @SartorialChap

WORKWEAR JACKETS PHOTOGRAPHY: OLIVIA BULLOCK

The Fashionable:

The Practical:

A UNIVERSAL WORKS LONDON JACKET (OLIVE TWILL) Universal Works have cornered the market in workwear adapted for the urban milieu. This is the most structured of the four featured here, with a slanted breast pocket for the allimportant pocket square, two patch pockets and an inside pocket large enough for several packets of Woodbines.

The London Jacket comes in many colours, all of them suggesting urban leisure rather than hard labour, but we are certainly not here to lay the floorboards. You can get the London Jacket in black and even blue pinstripe, but it works better in a colour that gives a nod to its origins.

B PETER CHRISTIAN ‘THE SHACKET’ (NAVY) (OVERLEAF) Before you run screaming from the quaint attempt to marry the words ‘shirt’ and ‘jacket’, give pause for this, the most unstructured of the four jackets featured. Ultra lightweight and without any form of lining, the Shacket presents a solution to that age-old Chappist conundrum – how to remain elegant in the searing heat of tropical climes. It is so light that it could be screwed up and shoved in a valise, leaving plenty of room for all the cigars/rum/contraband netsukes one plans to return with. Once sprung back into life, it will ensure you cut the mustard when promenading along the boardwalk or visiting the opium den.

Also pictured overleaf is Peter Christian’s homage to the Tyrolean waistcoat, made not in the usual hairy tweed but in a lightweight cotton. Normally one wouldn’t wear a waistcoat at all with workwear, but this Bavarian oddity will make you stand out from the crowd, and provides plenty of pockets for peculiar foreign currency.

Clothing

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The Authentic: C YARMOUTH OILSKINS DRILL JACKET (SULPHUR NAVY) The original model drill jacket was only available in white, but is now also stocked in a classic sulphur-navy (which would give the French a run for their money), khaki tan, a ticking stripe, and that most original of workwear materials whose name we cannot publish in this magazine.

Three external patch-pockets are faced with heavy duty herringbone tape, ensuring durability, while the internal pocket is profile stitched on the unstructured inner, lined with French seams and garnet laundered for a soft feel and guaranteed patina. The Corozo fish-eye buttons are not only a nautical nod to the company’s pedigree, but are developed with Courtney & Co. England’s last remaining button factory.

Single-breasted with a relaxed fit, the jacket has an unstructured shoulder, and wider-cut sleeves taken from the original archive patterns.

Constructed from fabrics sourced in Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire, once home to Britain’s booming textile trade, the 100% cotton twill will age beautifully, and gives the opportunity to mature with the wearer, as these garments are built to stand the test of time.

www.yarmouthoilskins.com

The Contemporary: D PEREGRINE ORGANIC BEE BLAZER (SLATE) Crafted from 100% waterproof lightweight Organic Beeswax cotton and made in England, the Bee Blazer is actually a workwear jacket with an added ingredient. The fabric is treated to be water resistant, giving it a crisp lightness that makes it highly suitable for summer wear in Britain, when unexpected showers can threaten to destroy a carefully chosen outfit.

The slate-grey colour recoups the garment’s workwear credentials from its title as a ‘blazer’ – one wouldn’t be allowed into Henley Regatta in this, thank goodness. In fact, one has to be careful to pair it with the right trousers, hat and tie to avoid looking like someone who has stepped straight off a forklift truck. However, the white rope detailing on the lapel gives the jacket a nautical nuance, lifting it away from the factory floor. Pockets are patch on the outside (though the lack of breast pocket is a disappointment), while inside is a decently sized pocket for one’s hip flask, packet of snout or clocking-in card.

SPOKE HEROES (OLIVE GREEN) Buying a new pair of chinos for the summer is both the most boring yet crucial purchase one can make, when the weather forces us to mothball our beloved tweeds, baratheas and cavalry twills for the season. The chino is an absurdly simple garment, yet one that so many manufacturers get wrong, either by making them too clever by half, too skinny around the ankles or too Alan Partridge around the pleats.

Spoke is a relatively new company that specialises in chinos, without distracting themselves with too many other products (they make shorts too, but we don’t need to speak of those). Their ‘Hero’ range is the most classic, a well-constructed, elegant trouser with no contemporary ‘twists’ whatsoever, made from a soft, decent quality cotton that comes in a large range of colours, including the ever dependable khaki and a rather fetching olive green.

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Footwear

THE BRITISH SHOE COMPANY If you live in Salisbury, you are probably already a regular customer of the British Shoe Company; if not, britishshoecompany.co.uk is a fount of footwear selections, mostly from Northampton

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he British Shoe Company is a familyrun business with over 100 years of combined knowledge and experience in English shoe making and repairing.

They manufacture and supply their own top quality shoes made in England, alongside carefully selected international brands, most of which will already be familiar to readers of this publication: Barker, Trickers, Josef Cheaney, Sanders & Sanders, Carlos Santos, Chatham Marine and N.P.S Shoes.

Alongside their website, they also have a retail store in Salisbury. All too aware of the pitfalls of purchasing footwear online, the British Shoe Company has eased some of the anxiety from this risky process by offering free delivery and free returns to their UK online customers. The Chap put some pertinent footwear questions to John Carney, MD of the British Shoe Company.

Tell us about your brand in a nutshell.

Our heritage is the trade of traditional cobblers; however, a number of years ago made the step to enter the retail arena, with that understanding and knowledge that repairing has given us. This allows us a truly unique position, from which we can guide customers so that they understand the construction and quality of the shoes they are buying alongside what they see.

Most of your selections come from all the top Northampton shoemakers. How do you go about choosing what to sell from such a vast range?

We have tried to bring about a single website that allows people to have the convenience of comparing and matching a wide selection of different brands under one roof. One area that

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we really enjoy is bringing MTOs (Material Take Off – a breakdown of all the materials used in construction) to our customers, the best example being Trickers, focusing on our Kudu leather boots, which have been received really well.

well-known as the likes of Cheaney and Crockett & Jones, but they are easily in the same bracket, being extremely popular among the British army.

How far off the traditional scale are you prepared to go? Are the multicoloured Barker Valiants as far?

The multicoloured Barker Valiants (above left) are part of a hand painted collection with a number of colour variants. The multicoloured version was never intended for production but rather as a show piece to give customers an idea of the colours available. Once it was put on display, the general public loved it and so it was put into production.

Unfortunately, because of the man hours put into them, there is an 8-12 week wait for them.

I see a lot of Barker, Trickers and Sanders on your site – why these particular brands and not Cheaney, Church’s, Crockett & Jones etc?

By focusing on a few selected brands we are able to offer a lot more depth in style, which you don’t see elsewhere. We chose Barker because they are one of the biggest British footwear brands who have been making classic town and country styles, such as the Arnold and Grassington, since 1880, but are not afraid to mix things up. In recent years they have been known to be more creative with their designs and styles, not shying away from putting a quirky take on traditional classics. Their hand painted collection with styles like Valiant, and their Creative collection such as the McLean best showcase this.

Trickers, the oldest English shoemaker (1829), for me make the ultimate country shoe, Bourton and boot Stow. They have a very iconic look, with storm welted double soles and the highest quality of leather with craftsmanship hard to match.

The Bourton in particular recently had its 80th anniversary, testament to it design and quality. In recent years, Tricker’s have been taking inspiration from high fashion and the catwalks, resulting in them becoming one of the most desired shoe brands in Japan and Korea.

Lastly Sanders, who are one of the few remaining family-run shoemakers still around, and whom I consider one of the best examples of highend traditional English shoes. They may not be as

You sell a few ‘hi-tops’ – are these aimed at the Chap-hop community, such as Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer?

The Hi-tops from sanders have been very popular for us. Hi-tops were originally made famous by Steve McQueen in the 60s and 70s, and most recently made an appearance on screen again on Bond’s feet in Spectre. It’s a very unique take on the chukka boot, with the full crepe trim; Sanders, to my knowledge, have the only functioning machine in Europe that allows them to connect the crepe edging in that specific way. They are certainly a timeless classic that I would see fitting into the Chap-hop community with ease!

You devote a high priority to shoe care – quite right too! What would you say are the most important shoe-care techniques?

Having personally owned and worn some of my shoes for well over 20 years, I’ve certainly found that high quality shoes, if regularly maintained,

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www.herring.co.uk

can last for years. There are many different ways to clean your shoes, but after years of cleaning my own and customer’s shoes, this is the method I find works best:

Your shoe repair service seems pretty comprehensive. What do you offer that a high-street repair centre wouldn’t?

We specialise in leather work, an area in which we try to separate ourselves from our competition on the high street. A combination of factors come together to deliver our service, starting with the machinery we use, strictly the English-made power units combined with original Goodyear stitchers – some of which are 50/60 years old and still the very best. We have a comprehensive in-house apprenticeship programme; our cobblers are only given their own workshop after at least five years (as opposed to 6 months in high street cobblers). Lastly, the quality of leathers and rubber we use are the very best available, with either JR leather soles or original Dainite soles replacing what is already on the shoe or boot being repaired.

Rotate your shoes. Leather shoes often take a full day to dry out fully, whether from rain or natural perspiration (250,000 sweat glands in your feet can excrete up to half a pint of moisture a day), so where possible leave a full day between wears.

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Use shoe trees. Put wooden shoe trees in your shoes as soon as you take them off. The trees are most effective while the leather is warm. The trees will absorb moisture, help to iron out creases and maintain the shape of the shoes.

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Brush down and bag up. Gently brush the shoes with a soft horsehair bush to remove any dirt or dust from the day’s wear, and put them in their shoe bags. This is not essential, but worth doing if you want to prolong the shine or aren’t going to wear the shoes for a day or two.

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You sell a small selection of your own brand of footwear. Are there any plans to increase the range?

We currently offer a small selection covering the basic styles of country brogue, Chelsea boot, black Oxford toe cap, chukka boot, brogued boot and a penny loafer. We wanted to start small and make sure we were delivering a product range we were proud to put our name to, before expanding the range further, which we certainly will do in the near future. n

Polish your shoes. There are many ways to polish your shoes, but the most important thing is to use the right polish. You can’t go wrong with Saphir Medaille D’or, Pate De Luxe (which contains 9 different waxes and is available in 12 different colours).

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Accessories

THE GENTLEMAN’S CANE Edward Furnace on the fluctuating fashions of the cane and why no gentleman should set foot outside his home without one

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walking stick and a cane are two very different things. The former will aid your perambulation if you are not quite fleet of foot, while the latter is simply there for decoration. When Tutankhamun’s tomb was excavated, 132 sticks were found, their function deduced to have been a combination of perambulatory and ceremonial. The rather sickly boy King was the issue of an incestuous coupling, resulting in a club foot and various other maladies. He used a stick to walk and also for his ceremonial duties.

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“There is no gentleman’s outfit that does not benefit from the added accessory of a cane. It is the sartorial element that separates the dandy from the merely welldressed man”

Some 3,000 years later, men were still oscillating between ceremonial canes and practical sticks.

The cane was the height of fashion between about 1690 and 1940, with its most flamboyant heyday being the Regency era. The Incroyables (see Chap 99) devised the most impractical canes possible from gnarled branches with thorns sticking out of them, to match their rebelliously tailored, outlandish outfits. Beau Brummell put a stop to all that and brought the more elegant cane into fashion. Slender pieces of Malacca would be adorned with jewel-encrusted gold and silver ferrules and handles.

Men and women had day canes and evening canes, their use governed by strict etiquette: canes were not to be used on Sundays, and never to be leaned on or carried under the arm.

They could not be carried when meeting a member of the royal family, a combination of protocol and practicality – a cane might conceal a deadly weapon. During the Victorian era, canes were developed to protect gentlemen from footpads, from the magnificent sword cane (illegal to carry about today, unfortunately), whose handle pulled out a sword hidden inside the shaft, to the stiletto cane, or prostitute’s cane, which issued a 5-inch blade when the handle was flicked. There was even a gun cane, with a trigger and set of cartridges hidden in the shaft.

For the gentleman less concerned with physical assault, a series of novel dual function canes were developed, notably the tippling cane, with a long glass vial hidden inside, large enough to contain a morning’s worth of cognac or whisky.

Some canes had snuffboxes on their heads and you could even acquire a cane in the 19th century with a full set of picnic cutlery concealed in the head.

Unfortunately, the fashion for such specific gadget canes led to their mass manufacture, destroying the trade of the artisans who had carved them by hand until then. Canes became less flamboyant and by the early 20th century, the crook-handled cane immortalised by Charlie Chaplin became de rigeur, with no snuffboxes of swords concealed within. George Thornberry lamented in 1875 that the modern cane carrier ‟needs not a help – he has no-one to hit, and there is no one who will hit him; he needs not a support, for if he is fatigued, is there not the ponderous bus, the dashing Hansom, or the stealthy subterranean?”

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“Canes were not to be used on Sundays, and never to be leaned on or carried under the arm. They could not be carried when meeting a member of the royal family, a combination of protocol and practicality – a cane might conceal a deadly weapon”

Today there are even more reasons not to carry a cane, and this is why every chap should have at least one, if not several. A brown one for the country, a black one for town and a fancy one for evening wear should compose the very minimum of one’s collection. Antique canes can be expensive if the head is made of gold or silver, but they can be picked up at antique fairs for bargain prices, their appeal being much narrower than that of other decorative antiques.

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An alternative for the impecunious gentleman is a company called Classic Canes. This family business has been run since 1982 and offers a huge selection of over 700 models, from orthopaedic walking sticks to ‘collectors canes’, modelled on the fashionable canes of the Victorian era. Some of the handles are made from silver, using the traditional motifs of animal heads, skulls and historical characters, while other designs use chrome to create a perfectly affordable substitute.

There is no gentleman’s outfit that does not benefit from the added accessory of a cane. It is the sartorial element that separates the dandy from the merely well-dressed man. You are urged to build up a decent collection that will serve every occasion, whether it be a simple crook cane for a

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country ramble, a more formal silver-topped cane for attending Grand Flâneur Walks in various cities around the world, or a tippling stick for occasions when a hostelry may not be as close as required.

Or even when one is, but the queue at the bar is taking slightly too long. n

Stockists:

www.classiccanes.co.uk www.antiquecanes.co.uk www.james-smith.co.uk www.artwalkingsticks.com

whatkatiediduk

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whatkatiedid.com

London & Los Angeles

We don’t see any men’s brands that reflect our values.

It’s all too perfect and chisel-chinned.

We’ve tried to create a menswear brand that’s a bit more thoughtful and kind, without being wet or overlyserious or hectoring

Sartorial

FRAHM JACKET Liam Jefferies on a new menswear brand balancing technicality with aesthetics in aid of a worthy cause

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RAHM (pronounced to rhyme with palm) is the brainchild of Jason Tripp & Nick Hussey, two friends who grew up together in a gypsum mining village in Nottinghamshire. Before setting up the company in Somerset, their work had been exhibited in London’s Design Museum and the V&A, alongside international acclaim and against notable competitors in their field.

Having founded Vulpine a few years ago, Nick is no stranger to technical wear. The pair felt that jackets from the major brands don’t do what they are supposed to: “If they’re technical, they look awful; but if they’re stylish they don’t work properly or last long enough. There is little innovation and not enough value”. It wasn’t only this that set Tripp and Hussey on their way to creating the brand. A sense of disillusion with the current fashion scene presented an opportunity to the pair: “We also don’t see men’s brands that reflect our values. It’s all too perfect and chisel-chinned. We’ve tried to create a men’s brand that's a bit more thoughtful and kind, without being wet or overly-serious or hectoring.”

With mental health at the forefront of the nation’s concerns, FRAHM is a company that is pulling its weight within the industry: “Like all of us, we’ve experienced some truly awful moments in our lives and we think marketing can make life look too perfect, when it can’t be. FRAHM isn’t afraid to say that sometimes life is a bit shit, and we need help. Real life is what counts, not some false, oppressive construct of happiness.”

With this ethos at the centre of all they do, FRAHM donate £10 from every jacket sold to mental health charity Mind, whom they also work with to produce a kinder, less unreachable form of marketing for the garments.

The heart and soul may be present, but it is not this alone that sets FRAHM apart from their counterparts; a cornucopia of design inspiration and technical engineering goes into each FRAHM jacket, rendering the results quite possibly the most utilitarian pieces of clothing on the market today. Multi-purpose, designed to work in both rural and urban environments, the jackets are also constructed from materials stronger than a fifth of top shelf whisky.

The designs perfectly cross the space between the style-over-substance of the fashion houses, and practical but godawful technical clobber. Staple designs of classic menswear are reworked, such as the bomber jacket, chorecoat, field jacket and raincoat, with cutting-edge performance fabrics and the highest quality trims, including odour-resistant linings and machine washable waxed fabric from the world renowned British Millerain Company of Lancashire, who have been making innovative textiles in the UK since 1880. The pieces are truly one of a kind. Made in small batches, one design at a time, FRAHM offer pre-orders, to prevent disappointment “or a potentially frustrating launch-day bunfight”.

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UTILITY FIELD JACKET An innovative take on the waxed field jacket, this model has been subtly modernised for comfort and movement. Washable, odourless, breathable and with more storage than a Maersk container ship, the detailing is understated but carefully thought-out – reinforced bellows pockets, slanted sleeves and an ultrafine Italian fleece tricot lining, so soft you’ll want to order underpants in it.

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B CITY COAT Equally at home in the country as the city, this slicker is an elegant and versatile garment that combines waterproofing with longevity and a damn-near unwrinkleable material, without the plastic feel. Throw it on over a suit or pair with a causal getup, and it’ll keep you as cool as Paul Newman eating sorbet in a chest freezer.

www.frahmjacket.com @SartorialChap n

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Mature Style

THE GREY FOX COLUMN David Evans of greyfoxblog.com delves into gentlemanly scents before firing up his Land Rover in Scotland

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“The best way to test a cologne is to spray a small amount on your wrist and leave it for a few minutes.

The floral notes tend to fade slightly, leaving something more light and citrus yet earthy - I haven’t a clue how to describe it more accurately”

here’s nothing like a bit of pampering, is there? Men tend not to go in for a good pamper in the way that the women do. My wife and daughter often disappear for a few hours to be pampered in some establishment that massages, plucks and soothes away their cares, spots, hairs and no doubt many other undesirables, for prices that would maintain many a small state for a week, at least. Nails, hair, skin and indeed the stomach (for these trips always seem to include a slap-up lunch) are catered to by white-coated acolytes and, when my wife and daughter return home, it is usually in a relaxed glow of health and exotic fragrances.

I suspect that many of these establishments will accept male clients as well, but for the ultimate men’s grooming experience there’s nothing quite like a good hot towel shave and head massage. I recently went to the venerable Geo. F. Trumper, which has establishments in Curzon Street and just off Jermyn Street in London, to experience these

soothing processes. At Trumpers they know what male pampering is all about, as do most barber’s shops of any vintage. Cut-throat razors, delicious colognes, glass cases full of shaving brushes and traditional razors and good old-fashioned service add up to an experience which I cannot recommend highly enough.

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As I’m sporting a very short 2mm beard (some unkindly call it stubble) I had a trim and head massage. This involved trimming the beard and shaving around it to tidy it all up. Of course hot towels were needed to soften the hairs, along with fragrant creams and oils which prepared my skin for the razor. Afterwards, cold towels closed the pores and further unguents and colognes finished off the shave. But that wasn’t all, for a head massage then soothed away any remaining stresses and strains, leaving me truly pampered, sweet smelling and thoroughly spoiled. It was a very pleasant experience, I can assure you.

Talking of men and fragrances, the kindly editor of this journal sent me a sample of The Chap’s eau de cologne, Flâneur. I always find it quite impossible to describe smells and maybe (here’s an idea, Editor) the next issue should be scratch-and-sniff, so that readers can get a true impression of the oils and unguents on sale in the grooming section of The Chap Shop. Flâneur claims that on “a masculine base of amber, patchouli, vetiver and vanilla are sprinkled middle notes of violet, iris, geranium and rose, lifting the scent heavenwards to its top notes of bergamot, verbena and pink pepper” Frankly this means abso-

lutely nothing until you’ve removed the top and stuck your nose into the gorgeous scent oozing from the bottle. It’s quite floral at first and, not being a flowery sort of guy, I wasn’t sure about it. But the best way to test a cologne is to spray a small amount on your wrist and leave it for a few minutes. The floral notes tend to fade slightly, leaving something more light and citrus yet earthy – I haven’t a clue how to describe it more accurately, but Flâneur is a gorgeous fragrance which is quite unlike many in the herd, and I suggest you try it.

I’ve only recently begun to experiment with men’s grooming products and have built up a small collection. Men’s scents are very personal. When you’ve exhausted The Chap grooming range, you may want to look further afield. Some prefer spicy, some floral, some citrus smells. You’ll generally find something you like from Aqua di Parma, Murdock or Jo Malone. I also like to explore those making their products in the UK: e.g. Floris, Gruhme, Shay & Blue and D.R. Harris. D.R. Harris have some wonderful traditional products that remind me of my grandfather’s bathroom after he’d finished his morning ablutions; soapy, manly, clean and softly masculine.

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

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

sounds like somewhere in Game of Thrones). Here is the famous Applecross Inn, which must be one of the remotest and yet best pubs in the UK, with glorious views across to Skye and Raasay. It’s a challenging drive, but put it on your bucket list; I promise you won’t be disappointed.

In my last column I was promoting the analogue simplicity of early motorcars like my 1967 Land Rover series 2a. The Discovery we drove for our adventure was as far from analogue as it’s possible to get without piloting a space ship. Being a man, I didn’t look at any instruction manuals etc, but just jumped in and drove off. On the motorway I pressed a button for something that looked like cruise control, to find that I’d stepped into the next generation of driving technology that would have left the Land Rover engineers of the sixties open-mouthed. I found that the car was keeping station with other cars in the same lane, braking and speeding up as needed to keep a safe distance.

Sadly I couldn’t put my feet up on the dash and have a snooze as it needed steering; but that was all it needed, for the car was effectively otherwise driving itself. Maybe analogue isn’t everything I was cracking it up to be in the last issue. n

Having mentioned Geo. F. Trumper above, I can’t leave the subject without mentioning that they too have several ranges of products, from the powerful Eucris eau de parfum (much stronger than eau de cologne) to the gorgeous Paisley, a good one to start with, as it combines citrus and floral notes very well.

Let’s move on from scents to Scotland. Since the last issue of this column I’ve been on a 2,500 motoring adventure from London, via the Lake District and up and around the northernmost tip of the Scottish mainland on the North Coast 500.

Dreamed up a few years ago by The Scottish Tourist Board to attract visitors to the remotest parts of the UK, the NC500 starts from Inverness and goes round the coast on a 500 mile circular route along some of the narrowest roads and through some of the most spectacular scenery. So popular has the route become in a few years that it’s best avoided in the height of the summer, as it gets very crowded and the roads can become congested (and the midges can be a nuisance too). We went in April/May and were blessed with glorious weather and empty roads. The western coast is the most spectacular, with steep mountains, miles of emptiness and glorious coastlines. Deer and eagles were a daily sight and some excellent hotels and B&Bs mean that decent food (and even, on occasion, coffee) were never too far away.

We were driving a new Land Rover Discovery which, in the style of a thirties luxury touring car, was perfect for both the long motorway drives to reach Scotland and also for the rougher steeper sections where the roads were more like tracks. If you love driving, you’ll enjoy the notorious Bealach na Bà, a long and steep climb and descent over to glorious Applecross in Wester Ross (which I know

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Gaming

CALL OF CTHULHU Holly Rose Swinyard explores the dark world of H.P. Lovecraft via several video games based on the Eternal Dark One’s Call of Cthulhu

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...umans have a strange fascination with being afraid. It makes the heart pound, adrenalin course through you; it’s exciting. So it’s perhaps no surprise that the horror genre has seeped its way into every storytelling medium we have. Watching the Universal Monster flicks – or the gore fests of more recent cinema, reading a short ghost story or Stephen King novels, exploring the terrifying worlds of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror – all of this is commonplace culture to us. We love it. But there is one medium that has excelled at bringing horror to a new level of artistry and originality: video games.

Yes, with video games there are preprogrammed story beats and a set objective, but ultimately you control the story. The experience is different from a book or film because you physically have to move the little cluster of pixels that represents you into or out of danger. With choice and moral decisions being a major mechanism in

gaming today, actions affecting the character and the story mean it is possible to play the same game as your pals, but get a completely different ending to them. This is something used to great advantage in many horror games – which brings us to, of all people, H.P. Lovecraft.

One of the first games successfully to use this sort of action and consequence mechanism was a game released on the Nintendo Game Cube called Eternal Darkness. The game was based on the dark mythology of H.P. Lovecraft, and featured a ‘sanity meter’ for your character. The more you advanced the game, the more you pushed to see ‘beyond the veil’, as it were, and the more likely you were to go insane. Now, I’m not going to claim this one game is the reason choice and mortality mechanics have become so popular, but it was one of the first and it worked. And while we haven’t seen Lovecraftian games in the mainstream for a while, the gaming successors to Eternal Darkness are finally beginning to break through.

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On October 30th, 2018, Cyanide Studios released Call of Cthulhu, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous work. The story revolves, as all good stories do, around a washed-up PI looking for a missing girl. It just so happens that this girl is painting images of the chaotic horrors from the Lovecraftian End of Days.

Before we go any further into the game, I realise that not everyone is familiar with Lovecraft, so here’s a quick account of one of the most influential horror writers of the modern era:

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (above right) was an American writer of horror and weird fiction in the 1920s. He spent most of his life in Providence, Rhode Island, which is reflected in his works, many being set against the backdrop of New England.

Lovecraft was unable to support himself from his meagre earnings as an author and fell into poverty, dying of cancer aged 46. Though practically unknown during his lifetime and published only in pulp magazines before he died, today Lovecraft is hailed as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of weird and horror fiction.

His most well-known creation is the Cthulhu Mythos: a pantheon of ‘Great Old Ones’, or elder gods, living beyond our universe in a chaotic, uncaring dimension. There they wait for the rise of Cthulhu from the deep oceans on Earth to destroy the world and bring chaos. If a human stumbles upon any part of the ‘truth’ of this, they will be driven insane. A common thread of the mythos is dreaming and dream states, as the dimension of the elder gods seeps into the dreams and visions of humans during the End Times. This is particularly relevant to Cthulhu, as he ‘lies dead but dreaming’ waiting for his time to come.

The shadow of Lovecraft is a problematic one. His views and commentary expressed in his

works are overtly racist, yet this has not stopped people taking the basis of the mythology he created and adding their own stories to it, as well as being inspired to create their own works, and thus attempt to make it less problematic.

“The sanity of, or lack thereof, the characters in Lovecraft’s works is integral to the story. No sane person could possibly believe or understand the truth of this universe, and so the more down the rabbit hole you go, the more you must relinquish your grasp on reality”

And thus we come full circle to Call of Cthulhu, the video game. The game, as with Lovecraft’s stories, is set in a fictional town in New England – in this case an island called Darkwater. The player character, Edward Pierce – voiced by Anthony Howell, who many will remember from Foyle’s War – is charged to uncover the truth behind the death of the Hawkins family, who died in a mysterious fire.

The only clue to the fates of the family is a series of increasingly macabre paintings by the supposedly insane mother Sarah, whom he must find. The story twists and turns, with allies becoming enemies, enemies becoming allies, cultists – another big part of any Lovecraftian tale – chasing Pierce down, mental asylums, depraved scientific experiments and, of course, the Terror from Beyond.

Despite knowing that this story is not going to end well – Lovecraft stories never do – the game is a huge amount of fun. The slow pacing at the start is

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Gaming

very well managed; in fact, it is gripping. You really have to think hard, make the best choices you can to progress the story and earn the trust of the fearful and closed off townsfolk so that you might discover the truth, all the while with the ever-constant threat of something unknown just over your shoulder. The slow build, the reveals, the gathering of pace as you reach the climax – you almost don’t have time to think about whether you are making good decisions before they must be made.

The gradual introduction of the creatures, the gods and their followers, is disturbing in the utmost. Finally realising what you have walked into, and that you will not walk out, is electrifying as much as horrifying. It portrays the power that the Lovecraftian mythos has; you are suddenly in on the secret, but that knowledge will take everything from you. The game uses the choice/moral decision-making mechanism I described before, but it also reintroduces the sanity meter of Eternal Darkness. This is what really makes the game stand out as a Lovecraftian game, as opposed to simply an ‘inspired by’.

The sanity of, or lack thereof, the characters in Lovecraft’s works is integral to the story. No sane person could possibly believe or understand the truth of this universe, and so the more down the rabbit hole you go, the more you must relinquish your grasp on reality. The game plays on this perfectly, with certain elements affecting you, whether you like it or not, but with others being your choice. You can decide if the path of knowledge is what you want.

Depending on your actions, and how you choose to keep or lose your sanity, the game has different endings, though none of them are happy. The only way for Pierce, or any of the characters, to be happy is to remain oblivious to

the truth, but can any of us really resist it? Aren’t we curious by nature? Don’t we have to know?

This is why gaming as a whole is the perfect medium for horror, particularly Lovecraftian adaptations. Being active in the story means that you fall into the traps, make stupid mistakes, and the pull of overriding curiosity is the same as that of the characters in the stories. You can’t judge their actions or intellectualise them, because you are them. Sure, you can choose to play a certain way, but you’re never going to be 100% perfect at getting it ‘right’ – and even if you do, you can’t fight the inevitable. That is the point of the game, and of the whole lexicon of Lovecraft.

The game does actually give you a way to ‘win’, but it’s a seriously hollow victory as a player, since the characters you will inevitably come to love will suffer because of it. But it wouldn’t be Lovecraft if they didn’t. I would also recommend The Sinking City, which is a more open world game that brings in elements of all of the Lovecraftian lexicon.

If you would like to read any of Lovecraft’s stories, The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time are possibly his most accessible works – especially to those who may not have a deep interest in horror fiction. The BBC have done some great radio adaptations of them.

Call of Cthulhu is one of a number of games that, for me, prove that gaming is an art form and the perfect medium for the exploration of horror – particularly psychological horror. Look at Evil Within or Silent Hill; absolute classic horror works, and both made into video games. And we all know how I feel about Bioshock (see The Chap issue 99). Games can be clever, they can be tricky, they can challenge the very concept of storytelling; all elements that mean they perfectly mesh with the genre of horror. n

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SK SKIIMSAFE MSAFE

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Government Figures show that online card fraud almost doubled last year

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igures released this year, show fraudulent card transactions were up 47% and nearly 1 in 20 people were victims of bank and credit card fraud in the UK. In total, a staggering £671.4m was stolen from 4.7m Brits.*

Criminals can then hop onto a website and make much larger purchases online. They have all the personal and banking details they need! The digital equivalent of being pickpocketed and then thoroughly taken advantage of, as bad as a Dickensian act of pickpocketing skulduggery. It’s almost impossible to believe if it wasn’t true.

Oh my Gosh…

Contactless bank cards are not secure!

Contactless cards are now the norm, most of us gents have one and it’s a convenient way to pay, you just nonchalantly tap and go. But what we don’t know, is that they are not secure and it’s becoming one of the easiest ways criminals get your bank details.

Emptying your bank account and leaving you looking incredibly embarrassed when out trying to impress clients, family or the lady in your life, when your card no longer works or you are now overdrawn. Imagine that... not a situation the modern gentlemen would like to endure.

Gentlemen - What is Skimming?

Did you know that shameless thieves can wirelessly take your bank and personal details from your contactless card? This can be done from a distance of up to 1m away, when you’re on the way to work or making your way to a suave night out. A very accessible crime, that leaves you susceptible in any public environment. Whether your card is smartly tucked away in a gentlemanly wallet, brief-case, man bag or other piece of fashionable accessory attire.

It makes no difference, that data is literally sucked out of card and across the airways into the thief ’s device.

Protect Yourself Whilst Still Looking Dapper But don’t worry because you can protect your-self from this new threat, using Skimsafe’s® smart security card. All you have to do is place our card (as thin as your bank card) in your suitably fashionable wallet and you are protected.

All they need is a reader they can buy online or an app they can download to their phone.

As sold in John Lewis and featured in The Metro, The Mirror, The Express and The Sun. n

Using the latest RFID tech, the card activates when someone is stealing your details and produces a protective field projecting up to 5cm on each side of the card. This SkimPower® latent technology protects up to 8 cards, in a wallet, man bag or briefcase, jamming the signal and keeping your details secure.

Blocks incoming signals from criminals

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Protects your wallet/man bag and up to 8 cards

Order the SkimSafe card today with FREE shipping at skimsafe.co.uk or johnlewis.com ONS data April 2019 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice

*

LONGER FEATURES Maureen O’Hara (p96) • Birding (p104) • Travel: Texas (p106) • Olly Smith (p112) • Travel: Riga (p116)

Biography

MAUREEN O’HARA Noel Shine recalls afriendship with Hollywood legend Maureen O’Hara that began at a book signing in Dublin

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“She spoke of her success not with the bravura of a returned ‘Yank’ made vulgar by exposure to the mighty dollar, highrise skylines, shortened hemlines and tail-finned automobiles, but as one who had emerged from the arena, bloodied but unbowed”

he final chapter in the life of Maureen O’Hara had yet to be written when I first encountered her in September 2004. The occasion was a book-signing event at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin, to mark the publication of her memoir, ‘Tis Herself.

Scores of cinema buffs lined up around the block, in anticipation of meeting one of the last great stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Best known for her role as Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man (1952), O’Hara’s fame has long since transcended that of mere celebrity to become something of a cultural icon in Ireland.

Consequently, her appearance that day found

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normally reserved folk jostling for position, to touch the hem of her bespoke garment. Security proved so lax that I felt compelled to break from among the ranks of press corps to protect the famous octogenarian from her more ardent admirers. In so doing, I established a rapport with Maureen that afternoon which continued, however intermittently, over the course of the next decade.

Born Maureen FitzSimons in 1920, she grew up in Dublin, before finding fame at Elstree Studios. Her breakthrough role was an early Hitchcock production Jamaica Inn (1939) opposite Charles Laughton. Laughton brought his ingenue to Hollywood to star opposite him as Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). She received critical acclaim for subsequent roles in How Green Was My Valley (1941) and then opposite Natalie Wood in Miracle On 34th Street (1947). However, the majority of her movies would prove to be highly entertaining, if forgettable hokum. Invariably she was cast as the foil to some of Hollywood’s best-known leading men, including Tyrone Power, Anthony Quinn, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. and Errol

Flynn. John Ford revived her career when he cast her opposite John Wayne, in both Rio Grande (1950) and The Quiet Man (1952). The latter was shot on location in Ireland, its stereotypical Irishness played for laughs, without ever straying into the fetid waters of condescension. The Quiet Man saw John Wayne affect a timeless look, in a blend of traditional Irish tweed with classic Ivy League style. The role marked a departure for Wayne, allowing him to run a gamut of emotions from joy to despair. O’Hara similarly was a revelation, complementing Wayne’s machismo.

That afternoon at the Irish Film Institute, I discussed The Quiet Man with Maureen. She and her brother, Charlie FitzSimons, had composed their own lyrics to the air of The Isle of Innisfree, in the mistaken belief that it was an old Irish melody. Maureen sang it in The Quiet Man and a lush string version features prominently throughout the movie. When I suggested that The Isle of Innisfree was actually a contemporary ballad composed by Richard Farrelly in 1950, for which he received no screen credits, she was decidedly

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nonplussed. I added that Farrelly and her own father were natives of Kells, County Meath, before mooting the possibility that she might visit the town (also my hometown) in an official capacity.

She respectfully demurred.

Suitably chastened, I escorted her to an adjoining room, where she regaled Irish film students and industry bigwigs with her tales of derring-do on the backlots of Hollywood.

Many listened impassively, regarding her as an anachronism. However, none were immune to her charisma or the sincerity with which she conveyed her homespun philosophies. She spoke of her success, not with the bravura of a returned ‘Yank’ made vulgar by exposure to the mighty dollar, high-rise skylines, shortened hemlines and tail-finned automobiles, but rather as one who had emerged from the arena, bloodied but unbowed. Long before Harvey Weinstein and the #metoo era, O’Hara had called out the licentious behaviour of co-stars when it merited it. She took pride in having never succumbed to the sordid allure of the casting couch, adding that this

seeming prudishness resulted in her being labelled as ‘difficult’ by some movie moguls. Ultimately, she retained a sense of herself as “a working actress, with a modicum of talent, who was fortunate enough to have been raised by a decent family, in the best little country on God’s green earth”. By now, even seasoned hacks were welling up with patriotic fervour. “The past is a foreign country”, she added, before challenging the young students there to emulate her success.

She concluded sotto voce, in urging them, “to leave your mark on the world, on your children and all the people you leave behind, so that they will be brave and leave… brave memories”. To a standing ovation, she took her bows, exited stage left, and was gone.

Tellingly, Maureen never referenced her convoluted love life. Her first marriage was to George H. Brown, an English film producer, whom she met on the set of Jamaica Inn (1939).

No sooner had the ink dried on their annulment parchment than she wed Will Price, a dialogue coach she had met on the set of The Hunchback of

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Notre Dame (1939). O’Hara variously described Price as a parvenu and a spendthrift. He spent her earnings on chauffeur-driven cars and a lavish home, keeping a retinue of domestic staff, before drinking himself into oblivion. Added to which there was a hint of lavender about the cad. He surreptitiously joined the US Marine Corps early in their marriage. The marine corps then enjoyed a reputation as a bastion of all sorts of amphibious activity, not limited to military manoeuvres. Suffice to say, theirs was not a happy union, her only consolation being the birth of a daughter, Bronwyn. After ten years, their marriage ended in divorce and acrimony.

full name as, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara Lynch by way of explanation.

O’Hara starred opposite Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap (1961) and yet more middle-of-the-road fare with Henry Fonda and James Stewart. By then her star was on the wane, as was her doomed romance with her Mexican paramour. In 1968, she married Charles F. Blair Jnr, a retired US Air Force Brigadier General. They settled in the Virgin Islands (US), where she helped him run a commercial airline servicing the Caribbean.

Their marital bliss was cut short when Blair died tragically in a plane crash in 1978. She came out of retirement to star in Only The Lonely (1991), a romantic comedy with John Candy and old flame Anthony Quinn. In his autobiography, Quinn intimated that he had an affair with O’Hara while they were working together on Sinbad the Sailor (1947), but it ended when she “tired of the deceit”.

Quinn featured in five of O’Hara’s films, as did the purely platonic John Wayne. She completed three more movies during the 1990s before retiring to her home in Glengarriff, County, Cork.

In 2011, I met Maureen in Glengarriff at the showing of John Ford: Dreaming The Quiet Man, a documentary about the movie, featuring tributes from, among others, Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich. Though Maureen was now confined to a wheelchair, it did little to diminish her stature in the eyes of those gathered there. She reminisced about John Ford, her favourite director, who “could be a manipulative old bastard to both ‘Duke’ Wayne and myself. Some directors rile you to elicit a response on screen, but with ‘Pappy’ (Ford) there was a conflict which caused him pain and turmoil. I knew about it and he knew that. So he lashed out at me”. In her autobiography, ‘Tis Herself, she revealed Ford’s “turmoil” as his latent homosexuality, which, she suggests, he suppressed because “he was too immersed in the teachings of Catholicism”. I tried to cajole her into revealing the bawdy remark she uttered to John Wayne, at Ford’s suggestion, in The Quiet Man. She was having none of it: “Duke used to say that I was the ‘best guy’ he ever knew!” she said, adding that they “were never lovers. He recognised in me a kindred spirit. Our families were very close, still are!” I reiterated my invitation to visit Kells and she duly obliged in May 2012.

Over the course of that weekend, she unveiled a bronze bust in her own likeness and attended a gala ball, at which she accompanied a

“Long before #metoo, O’Hara called out the licentious behaviour of co-stars when it merited it. She took pride in never having succumbed to the sordid allure of the casting couch”

O’Hara found love again in Enrique Parra, a Mexican banker, whose marital previous echoed her own. She added some chappish fare to her burgeoning canon of work, including, Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955) with Clint Eastwood and Lisbon (1956), a crime noir starring Ray Milland. In 1957 she was libelled by Confidential magazine, which suggested that she was seen in the amorous clutches of a Latin lover at Hollywood’s famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater. In the deeply conservative America of the 1950s, dating a married man, much less one of ‘ethnic’ origin, was grist to the mill for scandal sheets. She sued the publisher in a sensational trial, but the jury failed to reach a verdict, resulting in a mistrial. She reached an outof-court settlement with the publisher, before flying out to Cuba to shoot a Carol Reed production, Our Man In Havana (1959). Based the novel by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed, it featured a stellar cast including Alec Guinness, Noel Coward, Ralph Richardson, Burl Ives and an uncredited John Le Mesurier. She was visited on set by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the latter only too keen to impress upon her his Irish heritage, revealing his

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local tenor in singing Danny Boy. It would be her last public engagement before leaving Ireland to take up residence with her grandson Conor in Boise, Idaho. She had acquired a new wheelchair with its brand emblazoned across the back. It simply said – Enigma – it couldn’t have been more apt. In a quieter moment, I enquired as to which of her lesser known movies she held in high regard. She cited Sentimental Journey (1946) for special attention, “because I die in it and it was all very sad, the music, everything about it was filled with great pathos, it would bring a tear to a stone!”

When news of Maureen’s death drifted across the airwaves on October 24th, 2015, I thought of that last exchange and many other “brave memories”.

At 95, she had had a good innings. A year prior to her death, she received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, in the presence of Stephen Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Liam Neeson. In death there came one final flourish

worthy of a Hollywood doyenne, that of being laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in close proximity to President John F. Kennedy, himself, an Irish American icon and a symbol of the mythical age of Camelot. That night in Glengarriff, at the screening of Dreaming The Quiet Man, Maureen had recalled that Arthurian legend in paraphrasing Tennyson’s Morte D’Arthur, reciting: P ray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of.

For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. It is as fitting a eulogy as any with which to remember her by. There will never be another like the winsome girl from Dublin town. n

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Photograph: Cath Benson

Birding

Birding Nick Ostler’s handy field guide to Autumn migrants in the United Kingdom

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’m moving house this autumn and I’m not the only one. Millions of birds are on the move too – upland species relocating to more hospitable lowland areas, winter migrants sweeping into the UK from Scandinavia, ‘passage migrant’ waders moving south-west using us as a stopover en route to Africa, and even tiny Siberian or American passerines who aren’t supposed to be here at all.

Aside from a few late stragglers, our own spring migrants have long since departed for warmer shores (rather than spending the winter at the bottom of ponds, as medieval ornithologists surmised).

The autumn migration, free from the urgency of finding a mate and raising young, is a less frantic affair, but no less spectacular if you know what to look out for.

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many as seven hundred thousand overwintering in the UK. Last June I enjoyed watching them hop around Stockholm parks like tame Blackbirds feeding their young.

But in the winter you’re more likely to find them flocking in open countryside or gorging on rotting apples. Its slate-grey head, white underwing and harsh ‘chak-chak’ call with help you nail an ID.

An attractive Scandinavian thrush, Redwings can be seen in large numbers anywhere in the UK by October, and will be here until the spring.

Check any bushes holding red berries and focus on the bold, pale eyebrow and, yes, red underwing. Stand outside on a quiet night and you might hear their soft ‘tseep-tseep’ call as they fly unseen overhead – they are nocturnal migrants. I always seem to see them while negotiating roundabouts (me, not the Redwings).

FIELDFARE The ‘other’ Scandinavian thrush, the Fieldfare is the slightly beefier, brasher cousin of the Redwing. They tend to arrive a little later, with as

BRAMBLING As with many visitors to the UK at this time of year, their numbers can vary greatly depending on the harshness of the Scandinavian winter. In a ‘good’ year, you should have a decent chance of seeing this ground-feeding finch in farmland or even your garden, but the main challenge is to know how to separate them from our much commoner, resident Chaffinch. Think ‘orange’ rather than ‘pink’ when it comes to plumage and look out for the white rump in flight.

BEWICK’S SWAN ‘Flight of the Swans’ is a terrific documentary that charts the perilous migration of this sadly declining species from the Russian tundra to the UK each autumn. Understanding the immense feat that our smallest swan undertakes to reach our shores has made me more determined than ever to track them down this autumn. Impossible to confuse with our resident Mute Swan, the Bewick’s bill is yellow and black rather than orange and black. The Whooper Swan does also have a yellow and black bill, but is a much larger bird. Set your satnav for the brilliant Wildfowl and Wetland Trust reserves at either Slimbridge in Gloucestershire or Welney in Norfolk.

SHORT-EARED OWL A graceful upland breeder than starts moving south in September, with even more birds joining our British residents each year from Scandinavia. Now’s the time to seek out these magical aerobatic owls, as they hunt for voles in marshland and fields. The pale, mottled plumage and striking yellow eyes will avoid any potential confusion with Tawny or Long-eared Owls. Like the much smaller Little Owl, they are diurnal, which makes them easy to spot – and I have seen them very active even in the middle of the day.

KNOT A single chubby, pale grey winterplumaged Knot might not be enough to get the pulse racing. But the spectacle of 75,000 of these waders flying together at high tide in Snettisham on the North Norfolk coast in mid-October is one of the UK’s most phenomenal birding experiences. The Knot only uses our estuaries as a service station en route to its South African wintering grounds, but we’re lucky to have them here, if only for a little while. For guaranteed success, consider a guided trip, e.g. with norfolkbirding.com

GREEN SANDPIPER Another wader that largely passes through the UK on its way south, but in much smaller numbers than the Knot. You’re most likely to find a single Green Sandpiper nervously bobbing up and down on the edge of a river or gravel pit.

Clean, white underparts and rump contrast with a deep green back. An unassuming wader that gets more beautiful the longer you look at it.

LESSER REDPOLL October is the best time to see these small, pretty finches as they disperse from their breeding grounds to feed on birch seeds, or even garden feeders. The pinky-red splash on the forehead (and throat and breast on the male, along with a small black bib) is their stand out feature. Vocal in flight – ‘dyek, dyek, dyek’.

YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER In autumn, this smart little green warbler migrates from its Siberian breeding grounds through China into South-East Asia. But every year a few hundred individuals take a wrong turn and, after a rather extraordinary detour, find themselves in the woodlands of Britain’s east and south coast.

Mid-October is prime time for spotting these restless little vagrants, as they flit through the canopy, often with tit flocks. The long, yellow supercillium and double wing bars are its standout features.

RED-EYED VIREO While we’re talking unlikely detours, no birding autumn would be complete without the dream of a mega rarity from across the Atlantic. News of low pressure systems following US storms set the heart of every UK twitcher a-flutter as they wait for American migrants to be deposited – no doubt rather tired and confused – most likely in the Scilly Isles or Cornwall. Sporting exotic names, such as Scarlet Tanager, Northern Parula and Indigo Bunting, they regularly lend a sprinkling of stardust to the shortening British days.

The subtly shaded, warblerlike Red-Eyed Vireo is one of the more frequent to occur, with one or two turning up most years.

Travel

TEXAS RANGER Sophia Conningsby takes her fishing rod to Texas and swaps it for submachine guns, rattlesnakes and flick knives

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’ve always wanted to go to Texas,” I said to my friend Comic.

“Why?” “To see cowboys riding down dirt streets,” I said and he sniggered, looked embarrassed for me and said, “They don’t have cowboys anymore.”

I’m from rural Devon and I’ve always been a country woman (except when I was a country child) and, given the choice, will avoid towns and cities. I spend my springs and summers fly-fishing the rivers of Devon. My autumns and winters I hunt with my sparrowhawk. Any time of year will

see me stalking with a gun. I knew that Texas was the state of ‘guns, God and country’ and I wanted to experience their guns and country. God could be experienced by someone else. I took a Vision 9' fly rod with me, a reel and floating line. For some insane reason I forgot to take tippet line, flies, pliers, priest…. I had no intention of hunting in Texas (unless it was offered to me) but I did want to shoot and investigate their countryside.

My chap Andy and I flew to Austin, picked up a 4x4 and drove out to a ranch in Christoval, which is nearish to San Angelo (where I saw my first

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cowboy herding cattle). I certainly wasn’t expecting lush green pasture and wild flowers in abundance.

I wasn’t expecting to see a porcupine crossing the track just ahead of us either, or the Coopers hawk, white tailed deer, the myriad of fly catchers, hares, hogs and wild turkeys, but we saw all of this before we got to our front door.

I certainly didn’t think properly about the heat or my choice of clothing. I took jeans with me because of rattlesnakes. I absolutely detest jeans and I didn’t even take nice ones, so every time I had to put them on I hated it. Also, instead of taking one pair of walking boots, one pair of disgusting trainer things, one pair of sandals and four pairs of high heels, I should have left the disgusting trainer things and three pairs of heels at home. But having too much is better than having too little, I suppose.

Here in Devon, any bird that flutters across my path or sings within ear range, I know what it is. In Texas I had no idea at all. I was so surprised that their birds are so incredibly different to ours

(eg the scissor-tailed fly catcher). The extravagant and exuberant colouration and formation of the birds in Texas is a technicolour fantasy. Texas is a huge state, almost three times the size of Great Britain, but so much easier to travel through. Roads in Texas are easier and more direct than ours and, in rural parts, incredibly empty. The landscape changes by the hour quite dramatically.

I should like to take a rifle to the Christoval region. Their hunting season is short, but there’s a lot to eat there, with meaty barbecue places everywhere, but it was the doughnuts that really took me.

I’m not a huge fan in England, but they’re glorious over there; I quite lost my heart to a red velvet doughnut. And, of course, being cigar smokers, we had to test as many ‘New World’ cigars as we could, so always popped into cigar lounges if we were near.

We saw a bobcat in Christoval too, which was incredibly exciting. The owners of the ranch hadn’t seen one for years, but we saw it two days running and it was a glorious sight. It leapt out from behind

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boulders just 20 feet ahead of us and disappeared into long grass. We also experienced a Texan hailstorm, completely out of the blue, with gigantic hailstones that dented the car as if someone had taken a hammer to it.

From Christoval we went to the desert, to Brewster County, near Terlingua, a mightily unforgiving landscape (but I saw my second cowboy leading a horse into the desert). It would be a good place to go if you wanted to die; you’d just go for a walk without a compass and you’d soon be killed by the heat, rattlesnakes or scorpions. Our local shop was about three miles away, Little Burro Stores, which sold tinned and frozen foods but nothing you could really base a meal around. It was run by a dear dungaree’d lady who told me I looked ‘mighty fine’ when I walked into the shop. The locals gather on the chairs of the veranda and sit and smoke and chat away as if they had nothing else to do. One dear old chap (dungarees again) liked his fishing and fished with an old bamboo rod. I showed him my Vision rod and he stood on the car park, flicking away with it in amazement.

wear on a daily basis as self-defence, the weapon you take out to hunt and the more elaborate and exciting article you choose for target practice. At Ally Outdoors we shot with a Sig P230 9mm pistol, a FNX 45 pistol with silencer, an absolutely deafening Smith and Wesson 357 Magnum revolver and a Noveske rifle works AR15 semi automatic rifle.

They were selling a Browning M1919 for $4500. Anyone can legally carry or possess any of these firearms. “You can take this automatic rifle out there with you now, without a case,” said Josh of Outdoor Man Gun Shop, “but people would think it’s weird and someone would ask you what you were up to.” There is most definitely gun decorum in Texas; “Just to let you know Ma’am, I’m armed” was a phrase we often heard.

“That’s jolly exciting!” I’d answer back.

Maybe it was the wearing of flat caps or just our accents, but everyone seemed to know we were English. We’d go into a barbecue place and ask for sausages and they’d say ‘bangers’ with a wink.

The dress code in rural Texas is decidedly practical and befitting of the lifestyle: cowboy boots, tough trousers and shirts (for everyone).

From the desert we headed straight north to Levelland near Lubbock. We stayed in a cabin there hosted by Carson (big cowboy hat) and Kathy, who were out shooting at targets with their neighbour Gary. “I always carry a pistol on me,” said Gary “loaded and cocked ready. I’ve had to pull it on people before.” A few days before, in the Outdoors Man gun shop, they all showed us that they were armed too. “What if I started a fight?” I said for fun, while getting over excited looking at some flick knives, and they all looked rather alarmed.

The following day we headed for the Wichita mountains in Oklahoma (I couldn’t get that song out of my head; you know the one I mean). We instantly stumbled across a rather friendly wideeyed snake in our garden, a roadrunner, a rabbit and a scorpion. The amount of wild flowers in Texas and Oklahoma is quite stunning; they are everywhere, pink, white, red and blue and the bees that frequent them are about four times the size of ours. Hawks everywhere in the mountains too and enormous spiders and lizards.

We took my fishing rod to one lake, passing a rattlesnake basking on a rock; another hidden one rattled at us as we walked past. The fishing in Texas and Oklahoma is not for trout, but the occasional fisherman we saw had a sea rod and long worms and was fishing for bass. I didn’t have much hope fishing

“There is most definitely gun decorum in Texas; “Just to let you know Ma’am, I’m armed” was a phrase we often heard.

“That’s jolly exciting!”

I’d answer back”

The Big Bend National Park has been hugely commercialised (with a $30 entrance fee). The wild death trap it once was has been turned into plodding tarmac paths for the overweight and not so nifty. The most exciting thing here was the Rio Grande, forming a border between Texas and Mexico. It was shallow enough to walk across, but having bare legs and sandals and not knowing what sort of flesh eating creatures might be lurking in there, I didn’t attempt the crossing. But it was exciting enough to stand in Texas and see Mexico just a matter of 20 feet or so away from us.

Our next stop was Levelland, near Lubbock, but on the way we stopped at Midland for our first shooting experience at Ally Outdoors. Guns are everywhere in Texas. Pistols tucked into waistbands and rifles thrown on truck passenger seats. There is a strong distinction between the firearms you

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with a dry English fly on a trout rod and indeed, I didn’t catch anything, but it was still good fun.

Our rural holiday came to an end when we left the Wichita Mountains and set off for Dallas.

It should have been quite sad really, but we knew that we were going to shoot in Dallas too. We found DFW gun range very easily and everyone in there was helpful and courteous. Troy showed us the ropes and the rifles. I enjoyed DFW more than Ally Outdoors as it was less formal and corporate.

It was also cheaper and they had machine guns to play with. We shot an Uzi sub-machine gun, a Sig P229 9mm pistol and a Troy industries AR15 5.56mm semi-automatic rifle. It is a totally different ball game to go from a Holland and Holland rifle in Devon to an Uzi machine gun in Texas.

Someone has to put a hand on your shoulder (so you don’t shoot into the ceiling by accident), which is a shame.

“Maybe it was the wearing of flat caps or just our accents, but everyone seemed to know we were English. We’d go into a barbecue place and ask for sausages and they’d say ‘bangers’ with a wink.

The dress code in rural Texas is decidedly practical and befitting of the lifestyle: cowboy boots, tough trousers and shirts (for everyone)”

Our holiday was drawing to an end. We stayed at a rather grand old b&b in Dallas, The Corinthian. We found a superb cigar shop/lounge called Cigar Warehouse and bought far too many cigars.

The next morning we drove to Austin, dropped the 4x4 hire car off and got our flight back home.

So many people were quite snooty about my wanting to go to Texas, but I loved absolutely every moment of it and I can highly recommend a trip there. If you like cities, then I’m sure the cities are fine too, but for me it’s the countryside and the creatures and beasts that appeal. Highlights of the Texas experience were most definitely the bobcat, the guns and that grand Texan welcome. And the flick knives too, of course. Oh, and I forgot to tell Comic that cowboys do still exist. n

Travel

Drink

Driven To Drink: Le Mans 24 Heures With Aston Martin Olly Smith takes an Aston Martin DB7 GTA on the Le Mans 24 Heures, in search of the perfect tipple with which to celebrate. Photos by Max Earey

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ome of the greatest drives of my life have resulted in memorable sundowners surrounded by spectacular settings. I’m speaking mainly of course of flagging down the nearest taxi cab to take me in search of pints in numerous British country pubs – the Jolly Sportsman in the Sussex village of East Chiltington topping my current bill. But driving to Le Mans for the 24 Hour race with Aston Martin a few weeks ago was the

drive of my life. More epic than the time I spontaneously drove from Glasgow to Céligny in a Mini to pay my respects at Richard Burton’s grave. Just as exhilarating as being driven up the CarFest track in the Vulcan (imagine a rocket being fired under your thighs) and just as classy as my final lunch with Roger Moore in Monaco, when I quit the scene in a chopper feeling like the luckiest imposter this side of Mister Ripley.

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The thing is, no-one does lifestyle better than Aston Martin. The cars in the heritage line-up on our way to Le Mans ranged from my own DB7 GTA, one of only 112 ever built and just 60 released to the UK market, to some truly epic icons – the vehicular equivalent to the gods of Olympus. A 1970 DB6 MKII Volante, which has all the open-top breezy elegance of Audrey Hepburn skydiving, the 1979 V8 Vantage, with its beguiling ability to cruise more gracefully and powerfully than an eagle on a volcanic thermal, and the 1995 V550 V8 Vantage, with more road presence than The Hulk on a jet-propelled scooter. As we glided in convoy across beautifully engineered bridges, wended and threaded through the leafy sleepy Route du Cidre, I couldn’t help but reflect on what might be the perfect drink to sip on arrival at Le Mans for the big race. Nectar?

Classic afternoon tea? A cool beer perhaps?

Joining us on our cruise to the Aston Martin Glamping experience was the current Vantage, DB11 Volante and DBS Coupe. If these look like the names of droids from Star Wars to you, then rest assured they are even more entertaining and legend-

“As we glided in convoy across beautifully engineered bridges and threaded through the Route du Cidre, I couldn’t help but reflect on what might be the perfect drink to sip on arrival at Le Mans for the big race. Nectar?” ary. The DBS in particular is an astronomically entertaining experience, the feeling of driving it is the closest I have ever come to rollerskating across the stage during a live performance of Hells Bells by AC/DC in the arms of the goddess Venus. And hold on a second, there’s the glampsite coming up: if you imagine Narnia’s Cair Paravel designed exclusively for grown-ups then you’re some way close to the

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level of glory that Aston Martin managed to achieve with canvas, creativity and a knack for making a moment feel like a lifetime of lifestyle. Eager to stay up for the whole race, I paused. What drink would quench and power for the exhilaration of an entire 24-hour race?

I could wax lyrical about the visit to the pit-lane, when I was told to expect to see nothing and witnessed instead five successive changes. Imagine meditation, flushed repeatedly with flashing visions of profound change and that’s pretty much the atmospheric shift during a pit change. It’s so quick that you almost need to check your mental Rolodex for the address of the memory. Yes, the roar of the beasts eating up the track was more symphonic and sonorous than Hercules sticking it to the Nemean Lion. And absolutely, as day turned to night, it did remind me exactly of hurtling from the peak of gleaming frosts to the sultry depths of the ocean’s glimmering trenches. As the battle raged, so did my thirst, until it dawned on me as the race folded into daylight, that for one 24 Hour Race you really only need one drink. I drew near to my choice as I reflected on the one drink that more master distillers than I can count have told me (off the record) is their tipple of choice and the whisky you can see everywhere but all too rarely order. n

JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK LABEL The balance of smoke and sweetness, the power, the spice the mellow ease of the whole damn drink delivered all the octane I needed to get me over the line. One race, one drink, plenty more to come. And to re-enact it for similar kicks at home? Simple: get in a bath so hot it makes your toes sizzle. Imagine you are being chased in circles by bees.

And drink one whisky until the bath goes cold.

Entertainment isn’t a race. Entertainment is always.

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Travel

RIGA The Chap’s galloping gourmand Chris Sullivan samples the heady delights of this Baltic city while taking in its fledgling Classical Music Festival

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ravelling in the luxurious confines of Air Baltic’s Business Class to Riga and sipping a rather lovely glass of Heidsieck Monopole Brut, I will admit to feeling rather like James Bond circa 1966 on a covert mission behind the Iron curtain. Thankfully said metal drape, having been torn down and ritually burnt, is now wide open and allows the West to wallow in the beauty of Baltic’s hidden gems.

Of course in Bond’s day I don’t think Baltic Air Business class would have been quite so luxurious, as restrictions then were legion. I, being more accustomed to suffering the vagaries of Ryanair, took full advantage of the airline’s rather fine performance and, as it was 7am, enjoyed the breakfast of kings in the business lounge – eggs Benedict with avocado delicately massaged by a brace of martinis, followed by a large Macchiato and a double brandy. Subsequently, I was the first to board the plane, first to tuck into a bottle of red, first to eat their lovely scram, first to sleep and first off at the other end.

What wasn’t quite so marvellous was that my hotel had promised me a driver on arrival with my

name on a card. I waited for 20 minutes and called the organizer in London. ‘He’s there,’ she said. I looked again until another 20 minutes had passed.

By now tumbleweed was blowing through the arrival lounge, as I sat there like Johnny-no-mates trying to look busy. I called again and received the same reply. After an hour I’d had just about enough so I got a taxi. I was called en route and told that someone else had taken my car by saying he was me! Not only that, but he had the car take him on a tour of Riga and drop him off at a location nowhere near my hotel. I was peeved, but will admit that I admired his pluck and ingenuity. What a wizard wheeze! Next time I arrive at a foreign destination, I will I follow suit and, if needs be, adopt whatever accent that the sign proclaiming the passenger’s name suggests. More Derek Trotter than James Bond.

Eventually, I got to the Hotel and it was worth the delay. The uncompromisingly 5 star Bergs Hotel in Riga is as fine a hotel as I’ve ever stayed in (and with this job I have stayed in hundreds); their rooms spacious and luxurious and staff uncommonly (and genuinely) courteous and charming. The hotel sits on the edge of the

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Veramanas Dars Park, walking distance from everywhere and a 10-minute amble from the magnificent Central Market. Housed in a former a docking station for the Zeppelin, that gloriously ridiculous airship, the market gives one every indication of the city itself. After perusing the fine collection of African art that adorned the walls of my hotel I hit the market, for there is no better way to get the feel of a city than to watch the locals shopping.

It’s a proper city market full of traders selling all sorts but mainly lots and lots of grub, mainly local produce and exactly what we in the UK lack – stalls that sell only sausages owned by the man who makes them, butchers purveying every piece of an animal from top to tail, more fish than I’ve ever seen, mushroom pickers proffering exotic fungi picked that morning and oodles of seasonal fruit and veg. It was like all of London’s finest farmer’s markets thrown into one – minus the pretention and bullshit – with bustling grannies and groove meisters jostling for top sausage. Last, but certainly not least, there was a bar that provided me with a cracking few jars of strong local ale.

I don’t think Bond would have hustled for sausage in Riga, but the one thing I had in common with 007 was that I was on a mission, albeit hardly covert. I was in Riga to meet the folk behind their brand spanking new Riga Jurmala classical music festival, which began on 19th July and runs till 1st September. “Every child in Latvia gets a firm musical education, along with art,” Zane Culkstena, the Festival’s director, told me.

“And all are well versed in the classics, so this festival is for everyone. Tickets start at 5 euros, so no-one is excluded.”

“I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been to the opera,” says Kaspars Zālītis, Public Diplomacy and Events Co-ordinator for the festival. “And if someone says they haven’t, we’d think they just came out of the woods like some barbarian.” This was, if you’ll excuse the pun, music to my ears, as in the UK both opera and classical music seem to sit in this gilded cage to which only the privileged have the key. I have in the past been described as ‘weird’ for attending the opera in London.

Undeniably, it’s a mighty line-up. Among many others, one might catch the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra/ Gianandrea Noseda, while soloists include tenor Joseph Calleja and baritone Benjamin Appl, and pianists Murray Perahia, Yuja Wang, Rudolf

Buchbinde and Seong-Jin Cho. But it’s not just the well known, as they’ve made room for young talent from all over the world, including pianist Lukas Geniušas, violinist Alexandra Conunova, cellist Edgar Moreau and soprano Ying Fang. If that’s not impressive enough, the venues are immense.

Some take place in the in the Latvian National Opera, a golden auditorium dating from 1860 and subsequently in Jurmala, Latvia’s a marvellous seaside resort half an hour from Riga.

After my rendezvous with Zane and Kaspars, I moseyed up to the heavily recommended eatery Café Osiris to sample their Dorada (sea bream) fillet with honey and hemp seed glazed vegetables with white wine and green tea sauce (15 euros) and a couple of pints of the Latvian Bauskas Gaišais (Premium Lager). A no-nonsense café with exceptional yet reasonably priced tucker, I was impressed.

“Travelling in the luxurious confines of Air Baltic’s Business Class to Riga and sipping a rather lovely glass of Heidsieck Monopole Brut, I will admit to feeling rather like James Bond circa 1966”

Even though it’s only 20 years old, Osiris is seen as a legendary Riga restaurant. The Soviets closed or demolished most of the restaurants and bars that predated their occupation. Having made themselves at home in Latvia in 1940, they annexed the country to the USSR in 1944 – an act seen by the European Court of Human Rights, the US and the European Union as illegal. Subsequently, murder and mass deportations of Latvians to Siberian gulags were rather commonplace (those who didn’t have their passports stamped for voting Latvia into the USSR could legally be shot in the head by Soviet NKVD), while only Sovietsupported candidates were permitted to run in elections. The Soviets left in 1991 but many still remember the debacle. “Ordinary people were not allowed to eat in restaurants,” explained 40-something Kaspars Zālītis. “I remember my mother queuing for three hours for a sausage and me two hours for an ice cream.”

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No wonder than that the Freedom Monument (pictured on previous page) is held in such high regard by Latvians. A stunning art deco construction created by sculptor Kārlis Zāle, it is 138 feet high with Liberty at its top, and at its base the motto ‘For Fatherland and Freedom’. This rubbed the Russians up entirely the wrong way and was scheduled for demolition twice – once after the occupation and again in 1963 – but was seen as such a symbol of national independence that its destruction would have sparked insurrection. On June 14, 1987, about 5,000 people gathered and laid flowers at the monument to commemorate the estimated quarter of a million Latvians murdered or expelled to their deaths in Siberia by the Soviet regime.

“I don’t think Bond would have hustled for sausage in Riga, but the one thing I had in common with 007 was that I was on a mission, albeit hardly covert. I was in Riga to meet the folk behind their brand spanking new Riga Jurmala classical music festival”

Like a Guardian Angel, Liberty, arms outstretched, looks over my next port of call: the old town of Riga. On the way, I made a detour and walked through the Art Nouveau district (known as Elizabetes), one of the world’s biggest nests of Art Nouveau, comprising some 800 buildings made between 1899 and 1925 by the likes of Mikhail Eisenstein (father of director Sergei Eisenstein, who was born in Latvia) and a treat by anyone’s measure, the buildings’ flowing lines and geometrical motifs a joy to behold.

Moving through the lovely Esplanade Park (passing the unfortunate but ultimately famous statue of Latvian writer Sudrabu Edzus, which from the back looks like a circumcised erect penis) and into the Old Town, which looks like a toy town with its houses and stores rather gaily painted in pastels.

I was rather taken by the House of The Blackheads, built in 1377, the meeting place for the Blackheads, who supplied protection for the city’s merchants against robbers and pirates when they travelled overseas. The Blackheads chose St. Maurice as their patron saint, who traditionally was depicted as a black soldier in knight’s armour. By now it was

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later in the aft, so I took myself to a Cuban bar with great mojitos at two for the price of one but, instead of the salsa I expected, the DJ played some electro rubbish and so I was out of there rather sharpish after four of those marvellous Mojitos.

Now done for, I availed myself of a massage at my hotel, enjoyed a cracking meal at their restaurant Trends, which included an amazing Latvian soup comprised of three local fish, black pepper and vodka, herring, trout and scallop ceviche; a Latvian Zard fillet cooked in a pistachio crust with smoked potato mash and asparagus. I helped it down with a bottle of Crozes Hermitage, Vidal-Fleury 2015 and a bottle of sparkling San Pellegrino 2019, and ended with a splash of the rather splendid Rigan Black Balsam liqueur, whose ingredients include honey, caramel, common roots and herbs such as Valerian, Wormwood, Black Pepper and Ginger, and the rarer Gentian, Linden flower and Peruvian Balsamic Oil.

The first bar I visited was conveniently nestled behind my hotel. Chomsky is named after my favourite man of reason Naom Chomsky –“the father of modern linguistics” – libertarian socialist and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. And a nice little bar it is too, with a nonconformist clientele but, again, the techno soundtrack was a train wreck so, after the obligatory large vodka (Smirnoff is made in Riga) and tonic or two, I was off to the Skyline Bar that sits on top of

the Radisson Blue Hotel. A great view unobstructed from horizon to horizon, exotic cocktails at €9-€11, Asian Tapas for about €10 (but the portions are tiny) though I’d like to have stepped out on to a terrace, as looking from behind glass isn’t my cup of cha. Still, the two Mai Tais I demolished added a certain spring to my step and off I went in search of a bar called Leningrad (above), whose decor is a recreation of a common or garden civilian pad during the Soviet occupation. Not many customers were in but all looked most Bohemian, the peroxide blonde barmaid serving two chaps in vintage horn-rimmed spectacles in polo necks rubbing their goatees over a chess board, while the bar itself was replete with seventies and eighties TVs, radiograms, record players, sideboards full of kitsch teas sets and granny gear. One almost expected Alec Guinness to stand up and say, “Hello, my name is Smiley.”

I’d always thought he might have been a Port and Lemon man, so I settled for a few 10-year-old Naval Tawny Ports with a splash.

As we left the city on the way to Jurmala the next morning, our lovely guide Aleksandra pointed out that many of the houses on the outskirts of town were made from wood. In years gone by, when Riga was besieged (as it has been many times by Swedes, Germans, Poles and especially Russians) they would simply burn all the houses on the outskirts and retreat to the stone buildings. Seems rather harsh but maybe better than having a bunch of Borises

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battering down your back garden gate. We reached Jurmala in the rain so went for a drink and lunch at the Baltic Beach Hotel, after which we checked out the rather marvellous auditoriums where one might catch the classical music festival, including the superb Dzintari Concert Hall, with a cosy wooden concert hall dating from 1936 that holds 500 people, and a 2,000-seater venue from the Soviet early 1960s that looks over the sea. I cannot imagine a better place to catch such a concert.

By mid afternoon the rain was biblical, so we nipped into the Hotel Jurmala Spa, which proffers all manner of massages and treatments, and has a variety of steam rooms and saunas at different temperatures as well as a big pool which, fed with mineral spring water full of nutrients, features an abundance of very powerful water fountains and underwater jets that massaged my head and back Jacuzzi style, till my legs almost gave way. There is also a fully stocked bar in the middle of the pool, Hotel Tropicana style! I thought it rude not to try it all.

That night the we had a treat lined up, in the form of a nine-course degustation dinner at perhaps Riga’s finest restaurant, Barents, which opened in June this year and is the brainchild of Aigars Zelmenis and Edgars Zaduško, the managers of the KRASSKY group of companies in Latvia, Russia and the UK.

I certainly didn’t expect such a world-class feast. We started with a Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla N° 82 ‘Florpower MMXV’ and then each astounding course came with a different and quite incredible glass of wine, chosen by Latvian champion sommelier Kaspars Reitups. Much of the food I’d never imagined possible: Japanese Sea Scallop Ceviche with Yoghurt, Cucumber and Gooseberries; Miyazaki Wagyu Tartare with Fresh Icelandic Wasabi and Arctic Cod with Caramelized Chicory, Fennel Beurre Blanc, for example. It was worth the trip to Riga just to go to this one restaurant. “Harsh northern nature and clean cold waters yield the finest seafood,” states head chef Ivans Smigarevs. “Pure flavours, seasonal products and true celebration of life. This is what describes Barents’s menu.”

The meal lasted four hours and afterwards I went to bed. As I lay there I thumbed through a guidebook and found that, among other things, there is a shooting range in Riga, where one might fire an AK47, Dragunov, Glock or Magnum; there is an Elvis Rockabilly Bar in the Old Town and a champagne festival in March. I awoke early next morning to get my plane and, while returning to the airport, this time in my own taxi, I came to the conclusion that Riga has it all, and a little bit extra. n Chris flew on Air Baltic - www.airbaltic.com He stayed at the Hotel Bergs- www.hotelbergs.lv Riga Classical Music Festival - riga-jurmala.com

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REVIEWS •

Author interview: Dan Jones (p128) • Book Reviews (p132) • Against Nature: J.K. Huysmans (p134) Film: Kind Hearts and Coronets (p140) • Dressing Downton Abbey (p142) • Orson Welles (p146) • Restaurant: Head of the River (p154) • Peacocks & Magpies: Antiques (p158)

Author Interview

DAN JONES Alexander Larman meets the tattooed historian who inspects ancient archaeological sites in a leather jacket, to discuss his latest mammoth oeuvre, Crusaders

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“I can remember a time about ten years ago where I had 300 quid in the bank, nothing more coming in, a sixmonth old baby and a fetid flat in Battersea with rats in the walls. I thought I was going to have to do something really drastic like jump off Albert Bridge or go to law school. But I stuck at history and I’m glad I did.

I’d have been a miserable lawyer in every sense”

f you were to meet the man who has been hailed as everything from ‘the most exciting young historian of his generation’ to ‘the castle daddy’, you might have a preconceived set of expectations. You could expect an earnest, bespectacled man, tweed jacketed and with his shoulders covered in the dust of medieval manuscripts, perhaps with a slight stutter. You would probably not expect the tall, tattooed form of Dan Jones, bestselling author and in-demand television star. Since he published his first book, 2009’s Summer of Blood, he has gone on to have conspicuous success with several critically and commercially acclaimed titles, on subjects including the Plantagenets, the Wars of the Roses, the Knights Templars and, now, The Crusades. His latest book, published in September, will be another hit. Telling a centuryspanning story with erudition, verve and wit, this is history for the Game of Thrones generation. The Chap caught up with Jones to discuss success, failure and questionable sartorial choices.

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CHAP: Your new book, Crusaders, explores the history of the Crusades between the late 11th century and the early 14th century. What especially interested you about the period?

JONES: Well, I’m always looking for topics that allow me the scope to write history on my preferred scale – the epic – and which also touch on modern pre-occupations. The crusades seemed to fit both requirements. I have been able to range across four centuries or so of history, telling interconnected stories from all over the world: Britain, France, Italy and Spain... north Africa, Egypt, Syria and the middle east, the Baltic, the Caucuses, Mongolia and even the New World.

And it’s a story that considers relations between Christians, Jews, Sunni and Shia Muslims, and power blocs of the east and west. That’s a lot of material to manage, but that’s the way I like it.

storylines and working out how to make the narrative flow in a way that’s going to help a reader get through 450 pages feeling like they’re having fun, rather than doing something worthy like reading a history book. The source material itself is also challenging in its way, hunting out material originally written in at least eight languages, only half of which I can read adequately on my own.

So there are lots of times when I despair. At those points I usually think of a sign I once saw in the legendary Freddie Roach’s boxing gym in LA. It says: ‘It ain’t easy.’

CHAP: Your previous book, The Templars, also dealt with a similar period. Is a challenge in your writing not to repeat yourself ?

JONES: No, I deliberately conceived these books a pair, a bit like my Plantagenets/Hollow Crown books earlier this decade. The Templars was a first portrait of the world, viewed through a single viewpoint.

This is the landscape view, in which a whole new set of characters get to air their own stories.

CHAP: What were the particular rewards and challenges of your research?

JONES: A book like this is always at root about ‘story architecture̓ – by which I mean carefully considering the best way to sift, select and present a diverse range of source material in a coherent and exciting format. I have a huge, TV writersroom style board in my office, where I spent weeks working on what I call the story-build: breaking

CHAP: You’ve had a great deal of success so far in your career and have been credited with making history, especially medieval history, accessible to a wide and popular audience. Do you believe this is true?

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JONES: How nice of you to say that! Honestly, I don’t think about that sort of thing very much.

We counted up the other day and apparently I’ve now sold more than a million books – so that was a bit of a moment. But it didn’t change anything.

I got straight back to work. If you start spending your time thinking about meta stuff like what a big swinging dick you are, then your work invariably starts to suffer. I’ve observed this in several historical writers recently. Lord preserve me.

JONES: Marina is a genius. I would have worked with her on any topic, any period, any place. But that project, which will I hope continue, is my only currently slated sally out of the medieval world. I know where I belong and there would have to be a very compelling reason for me to start roaming free.

CHAP: You, like many other popular historians, come from a journalistic rather than academic background. What do you think the strengths and weaknesses of this have been for you in your career?

JONES: Well, I think you’re suggesting a slightly false dichotomy there – surely even academic history is just a form of journalism of the past?

Anyway. When I was in my early twenties I really wanted to do at least an MPhil and probably a PhD at Cambridge, and had a place to do so – but not the money to sustain myself. I started writing journalism mainly so I wouldn’t starve. As it turns out I learned a lot from doing so, and the combination of a journalistic approach to story building with a scholarly approach to research has proven to be quite a fruitful combination. I do sometimes regret not having continued my studies as I wanted to, but life’s okay.

CHAP: You’ve done a great deal of TV. Do you think that a historian needs to be ‘public-facing’ in order to attract an audience – and a readership?

JONES: I think TV helps some people remember your name, but it’s absolutely no guarantee of selling books. Vanishingly few people buy every book a writer produces simply because they have seen him or her on telly, or have enjoyed their latest tweet. Publicity is one part of the mix if you’re building an audience or a career, but writers and publishers tend to over-fixate on it, rather than concentrating on other, much more important parts of the business.

CHAP: Your 2018 collaboration with Marina Amaral, The Colour of Time, won a great deal of praise. It also saw you dealing with more contemporary history for the first time in your career. Could you see yourself writing on a non-medieval subject in the future?

CHAP: Who do you think the outstanding historians of today are?

JONES: Crumbs, there are just so many. There is an especially great number of talented women working or coming up at the moment. Off the top

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Author Interview

of my head and with apologies to anyone I miss, I am a huge fan of Helen Castor, Suzie Lipscomb, Sarah Churchwell, Bettany Hughes, Mary Beard, Anne Applebaum, Antonia Fraser, Leanda de Lisle, Sophie Ambler, Daisy Dunn, Mary Wellesley, Fern Riddell, Andrea Wulf, Jessie Childs, Anna Keay.

And I could name another dozen women who will be publishing in the next couple of years too. About bloody time.

law school. But I stuck at history and I’m glad I did.

I’d have been a miserable lawyer in every sense.

CHAP: As this is a Chap interview, it would be remiss not to touch on matters sartorial.

What is your preferred ensemble?

JONES: Oh god, I mean, I usually describe my style as ‘luxury vagrant’. Right now I’m wearing what I wear everywhere, unless the dress code is literally black tie: grey John Elliott sweatpants, a faded black Maison Margiela T-shirt, a pair of black Nike Air Max 97s, and a slightly dodgy Belstaff gilet thing because despite it being June it’s still nippy out. Skull ring from Crazy Pig jewellery in Covent Garden. Beats ear-buds, New Era Yankees hat. Prescription Ray Bans because my laser eye surgery is wearing off. Trainer socks by Primark. Is that Bret Easton Ellis enough for you?

I’m not slick but I’m comfortable.

CHAP: What do you think that the new trends in history are?

JONES: I think Big History is still just about having its moment, thanks to books like Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and Peter Frankopan’s Silk Roads, both which burst the banks of ‘history’ category and spoke to a huge mainstream audience. But I don’t really go in for trend spotting. There’s an enormous public appetite for welltold true stories, which has been around since Homer.

CHAP: What are your plans for future books?

JONES: To keep writing them! I have a couple more coming up, but I don’t want to jinx either of them right now...

CHAP: And have you made any fashion faux pas in the past that you are especially ashamed of ?

JONES: When I was a student in 2001 I went about with my hair shaved to grade 2, home-bleached a sort of pissy blond, Eminem style. I had a pink cashmere Paul Smith sweater which I wore until the moths ate it. Baggy blue skate jeans and a horrid pair of Vans. And an earring. Christ. People actually used to lean out of their car windows and jeer.

CHAP: What, to date, are you proudest of in your career?

JONES: Having one, I suppose. I can remember a time about ten years ago where I had 300 quid in the bank, nothing more coming in, a six-month old baby and a fetid flat in Battersea with rats in the walls. I thought I was going to have to do something really drastic like jump off Albert Bridge or go to

CHAP: How would you like to be remembered?

JONES: ‘Well, I suppose he did his best.’ That’d do.n

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Book Reviews

INFAMY: THE CRIMES OF ANCIENT ROME

He was not alone in this unruly imperial behaviour. Caligula had his sisters immortalised as representatives of Security, Harmony and Good Fortune on a coin, despite persistent rumours that he had enjoyed incestuous relations with all three, and the boy-emperor Elagabal, whose grandmother Julia had ensured his succession, took advantage of his power to engage in the most bacchanalian of behaviour. His antics included giving his male lovers, who included ‘charioteers, actors and gladiators’, high office; the larger their genitalia, the more prominent their appointment would be. His long-suffering grandmother eventually tired of his debauched antics, which included raping a Vestal Virgin, and eventually had him assassinated in AD 222, aged only eighteen.

If one survived the streets and domestic life, then there was further horrendous entertainment to be had at the Coliseum. It was a marketing ploy to advertise that bears would be killed ‘cruelly’, and convicted criminals could expect much the same fate, especially those sentenced to damnatio ad bestias: death by beasts. Onlookers arrived expecting blood. When the Christian martyr Polycarp was to be publicly executed in AD155, the crowd first demanded that the local governor personally set a lion on him, and when it was regretfully announced that this would be illegal, the excited citizens departed in their hundreds to collect wood for a bonfire for the unfortunate Polycarp to be incinerated upon. Even more highbrow pursuits were undercut by violence. One historian noted with relief that, under the emperor Augustus, ‘rioting at the theatre has been suppressed.’

While crime was punished swiftly and brutally when it was detected, the intelligent were often acquitted when they ascribed their actions to temporary demonic possession, as otherwise law-abiding individuals were taken over by evil spirits and compelled to commit criminal acts. To be accused of a crime carried significant social stigma, and many under suspicion killed themselves as a result; a fear spread throughout society that criminality would infect one, like a disease, and the main cause of this was poverty and desperation.

Yet there was little sense of pity or compassion in society; those who were punished, however cruelly, were seen to deserve their fate.

By Jerry Toner (Profile, £16.99) Reviewed by Alexander Larman

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nfamy, infamy… they’ve all got it in for me!’ So shrieked Kenneth Williams as a camp-as-a-castra Caesar in 1964’s Carry On Cleo. Enduring though the joke is, it also reflects the reputation that Rome has acquired over the centuries, as a place that mixed civilisation with licentiousness and cruelty. Jerry Toner’s engaging social history of the city reminds us that the foundation of Rome was said to begin with fratricide, albeit in stories told half a millennium after the crime itself was committed.

Before they fought one another, Romulus and Remus, the putative founders of Rome, were supposedly suckled by a she-wolf. This was all too appropriate, given that the city produced countless sons of bitches.

Toner introduces us to a smorgasbord of brutality and lust. Dividing the story up into various categories (‘The Politics of Terror’, ‘Crimes Against the Gods’ and so on), the book is at its strongest when it is strangest. Nero, arguably the most wicked of all Roman emperors – and there was considerable competition for that title – had a penchant for dressing up as a slave, wandering the streets at night and robbing his subjects and their homes. The odds were stacked in his favour, as he was accompanied by a gang of bodyguards, who would step in if any citizen ever attempted to fight back. On the rare occasion that they did, they could expect a severe punishment. Toner notes that Nero had ‘an almost psychopathic love of violence and a complete disdain for all the normal rules of behaviour’. When he had finished his nocturnal revels, he would head home and enjoy his dinner, with light entertainment being provided by a criminal or slave being sawn in half.

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Rome was doomed, despite its longevity.

As one Caledonian leader put it, ‘they rape the whole world. Abdication, massacre, plunder in the name of ‘law and order.’ They bring devastation but call it peace.’ What elevates Infamy from being merely an entertaining collection of anecdotes is the subtle but persistent reminder that little has changed in the world since its fall. There is little to choose between Kim Jong-Un executing his uncle by anti-aircraft guns and Roman emperors throwing their family to the lions, and the satirists and chroniclers of the day were as expert in perpetuating – and criticising - fake news as any present-day politician. Toner’s book is a timely reminder that infamy, horrendously entertaining though it is, lurks beneath the carapace of every ‘civilised’ society, and we should not be too surprised when it emerges once again.

Her publishers seem keen to market it as a crime thriller, but this is somewhat misleading.

In fact, it’s a beautifully observed and superbly written psychological drama revolving around three major characters. There’s Alice, who is stuck in an unsatisfactory marriage to George, an Old Etonian politician-turned-TV personality, and who starts to suspect that there is something amiss about the disappearance of Ruth, a student who vanished from the university that they were all at; it comes as no coincidence to find that she was romantically involved with George. Then there is Kat, Ruth’s flatmate and friend, who finds herself miserably drawn into a love triangle at university and beyond.

And finally there is Naomi, Ruth’s lesbian sister, whose involvement with an older woman, a teacher at her school, precipitates the central mystery.

To say more would be to spoil many of the elegant twists and turns that Rayner’s novel offers.

Yet its strengths lie far beyond simple titillation.

This is an angry book in many regards; it is angry about the ways in which men, and indeed women, lie, cheat and manipulate others for their own gain, angry about the way in which we are deceived by the ones that we think we love, and angry about the powerlessness that most of us feel in these circumstances. Rayner has an elegant turn of phrase and an impressively allusive reach – this is a fine example of learning worn lightly, and Dorothy Parker fans, in particular, will enjoy many of the references scattered about. Her portrayal of the fictional university of St Anthony’s, which she describes as somewhere between Durham and St Andrew’s both geographically and socially, is a particular highlight as well. An apt comparison is with Elizabeth Day’s much-praised novel The Party, but I thought that this is a better book; the atmosphere of claustrophobic skulduggery set against privilege reminded me of Donna Tartt’s A Secret History, to which this can stand comparison.

Is it flawless? Of course not. A couple of the male characters are two-dimensional, and one antagonist’s richly deserved come-uppance could have done with being dealt with in a more dramatic fashion. And the final revelation is likely to polarise readers, although I found it suitably elegant and satisfying. Yet this is a very promising first book, which, for my money, wipes the floor with The Girl On The Train and its ilk, and marks Rayner out as that rare and wonderful thing – a writer to watch with the greatest of excitement. n

THE GIRL BEFORE YOU

By Nicola Rayner (Avon Books, £7.99) Reviewed by Alexander Larman

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henever a debut writer publishes their first novel, there is always a moment of trepidation. Despite the assurances of publishers, agents and editors, a voice inside the back of one’s head is always saying, like an evil Jiminy Cricket, Imagine if you’re not good enough. Imagine if you’re just embarrassing yourself with this. For many, this voice proves sadly accurate, and they fade away with just the one book to their name, something to tell the children and grandchildren about with just the slightest catch of regret in their tone. For others, however, this proves spectacularly false. In the case of the prodigiously talented Nicola Rayner, her much-praised debut, The Girl Before You, led the Observer to label it ‘The new The Girl On The Train’, with the promise that ‘the ending will leave you gasping’. Sometimes, this level of hype can lead to false expectations, but in Rayner’s case, the hopes are amply fulfilled. This is a truly fine novel for any writer to have produced, debutante or grizzled veteran.

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Literature

AGAINST NATURE:

Dandyism, Decadence and Debauchery Alexander Larman on the enduring relevance of the decadent dandy credo espoused in Joris Karl Huysmans’ 1884 novel Au Rebours

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udged by most standards of polite behaviour, Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes, protagonist of J.K. Huysmans’ 1884 novel A Rebours or Against Nature, falls somewhat short. Huysmans makes the case early on for his anti-hero being one of the less clubbable of men, when des Esseintes is said to ‘realise that the world is made up mostly of fools and scoundrels.’ Although he allows himself the odd moment of fun – ‘unnatural love affairs and perverse pleasures’ – it is not long until he hides himself away in a lavishly decorated villa on the outskirts of Paris, making sure that he was ‘guarding against hankering for human society, any nostalgic regrets.’ And that, which concludes the novel’s prologue, is more or less it for plot. If you’re looking for incident, stick with War and Peace.

From a literary perspective, Huysmans’ novel is simultaneously beguiling and hugely frustrating.

Beguiling, because in its otherworldly marriage of naturalistic description and surreal incident, it summons up a world quite different to virtually any that had been seen in literature before. And hugely frustrating, because it tantalises the reader with the thought that, had the likes of Joyce and Eliot been born 20 years earlier, they would have read Huysmans and taken the whole concept of modernism in an entirely different direction. Eliot’s Prufrock might seek to assert ‘his necktie rich and modest with a simple pin’, but des Esseintes beats him to it by wearing ‘suits of white velvet with goldlaced waistcoats’ and ‘by sticking a bunch of Parma violets in his shirt-front in lieu of a cravat’. Yet, like

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Prufrock, he is unimpressive of appearance; he is ‘anaemic and highly strung’, with ‘hollow cheeks’ and the lingering remnants of childhood illness.

From such unprepossessing beginnings comes one of the greatest examples of the literary decadent and dandy. The great dandy should feature some, and preferably all, of the following examples of unusual behaviour: 1) Unusual, flamboyant and eccentric dress sense.

2) A healthy contempt for the universe, whether religion or his fellow man.

3) A n exceptional intelligence, often not academic but made up of a fierce desire to question society’s norms and values and hold in contempt what others hold sacred.

4) An affinity for the perverse in all its forms.

5) A self-destructive side that will ensure a youthful death.

6) A fierce loyalty to a few people and ideas, ranging from the trivial to the profound.

all and sundry who would listen that it was a work of timeless genius. One of those who didn’t tell him to go and copulate with goats was Wilde, for whom Against Nature was a key text. He announced that ‘the heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain’, and makes veiled but extensive reference to it in The Portrait Of Dorian Gray, referring to it as ‘the strangest book that he had ever read’, going on to comment that ‘it seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him.’ It would have been clear to any of Wilde’s circle which novel he was referring to, something that he discussed avidly with correspondents and, more reluctantly, at his trial. Yet there is a crucial exchange between Dorian and his Wildean mentor Lord Henry Wotton, which sums up the book’s extraordinarily complex appeal: ‘I am so sorry, Harry,’ Dorian cried, ‘but really it is entirely your fault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time was going.’

‘Yes: I thought you would like it,’ replied his host, rising from his chair.

‘I didn’t say I liked it Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.’

‘Ah, you have discovered that?’ murmured Lord Henry.

Des Esseintes doesn’t score as high as, for example, Lord Rochester, for whom all the above apply, but it’s hard not to see Huysmans looking at such noted French decadents as Edmond de Goncourt (who had, one imagines in the voice of Withnail and I’s Uncle Monty, instructed Huysmans only to be interested in ‘cultured beings and exquisite things’), and Baudelaire, from whose work the title and central philosophical conceits of the novel are taken. Like Les Fleurs du Mal, Against Nature is essentially a sensual book where impression and surface are all, where the gaudy pleasures of rich and almost cloying language wash over the reader, for whom resistance against the sybaritic excess can only be futile.

Des Esseintes proudly describes himself as a pessimist, not in the sense of a miserable bugger but in something closer to Schopenhauer, with the clear-sighted vision that you can only be saved from utter disillusionment with the world if you never expect anything from it in the first place. Perhaps, tellingly, the significant literary developments in 1884 – Tolstoy’s publication of The Death Of Ivan Ilyich, the first staging of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck and Engels’ The Origin Of The Family, Private Property and the State, as well as the publication of Against Nature – were all taking place outside the English language.

Which is not to say that the literate Englishspeaking audience weren’t taking note of this extraordinary book. Whistler went out and bought several copies on the day it was published, telling

Against Nature is not a likeable or particularly enjoyable book. It has no plot to speak of, no sympathetic characters or even many notable events. What it does do is to exert a weirdly woozy hypnotic fascination, somewhat akin to smoking a huge amount of opium in some lavishly upholstered velvet-draped boudoir, and halflistening to some rambling yet utterly compelling story, told by an adventurer.

The book’s most influential appearance in the 20th century was possibly in Bruce Robinson’s seminal film Withnail and I. While the book itself only appears once (as Marwood prepares to pack and leave behind the decadent life he has been embroiled in), its influence is clear throughout the film. The two protagonists of the film lead a similarly debauched life to Des Esseintes, although their existence is less one of gilded luxury and sumptuous furnishings than of drug-fuelled paranoia and hysterical squalor. Yet there is the same sense of Withnail, in particular, being as much a man out of time and place as Des Esseintes, with his arch, Byronic hero-meetsDickensian grotesque persona reinforcing the sense

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of a misanthrope who simultaneously loathes and is misunderstood by society. And of course, the character of Uncle Monty represents nobody so much as the decadent outcast with charm, money and lechery in equal measure, simultaneously discoursing on the finer points of Baudelaire and attempting to rape Marwood.

At the end of the film, Withnail is left alone, doomed to recite Hamlet’s ‘I have of late, wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth’ soliloquy to a group of uninterested wolves in Regent’s Park. This is the unifying factor between dandies, decadents and debauchees; the certain knowledge that they are doomed, and that, like Eliot’s Gerontion, they will stiffen in a rented room before their time. Whether it is Rochester dying at 33 of his alcoholism, coupled with syphilis and the all-encompassing ‘the pox’, Sebastian Horsley’s heroin overdose or Julian Maclaren-Ross finally succumbing to poverty and despair, it is a sad but essential aspect of the dandy that their life and career should eventually come to a tragic end.

Des Esseintes does not expire at the end of Against Nature. For Huysmans, one feels, this would be too straightforward an ending. Instead, he, like Withnail, is condemned to a fate rather worse than death, as his iconoclastic lifestyle leads to a descent into ill health. At first, he appears to have achieved his crowning achievement by taking no other food or nourishment than a peptone enema three times a day, but the cruel irony is yet to come, when his doctor (‘who was imbued with all the prejudices of a man of the world’) informs him that, in order to recover his strength, he must ‘abandon this solitary existence, to go back to Paris, to lead a normal life again, above all to try and enjoy the same pleasures as other people.’

This strict edict – that the dandy and decadent must come to ignore their own inclinations and tastes in favour of embracing the safe, everyday distractions considered acceptable for the average person – is society taking its revenge, a more refined and long-lasting revenge than simply allowing the dandy to die. Des Esseintes might retort, as any dandy would, ‘But I just don’t enjoy the pleasures other people enjoy’, but it is no good. The book ends with true tragedy, as he realises that ‘like a tide-race, the waves of human mediocrity are rising to the heavens and will engulf this refuge’. The dandy will seek refuge, spiritual and physical, in trying to escape these waves of mediocrity, but a flesh and blood human

JK Huysmans

“TS Eliot’s Prufrock might seek to assert ‘his necktie rich and modest with a simple pin’, but des Esseintes beats him to it by sticking a bunch of Parma violets in his shirtfront in lieu of a cravat” 137

The Comte de Montesquiou, upon whom Des Esseintes was partly based

is no match for the inexorable tide of uncaring, implacable destiny. Yet their words, and lives, serve as an example to the rest of us. Whether it’s Wilde, Rochester, Des Esseintes, Byron or anyone else, their willingness to stand outside society and condemn banality serves as far more inspirational than any prurient account of simple carnal pleasures. For ultimately, dandyism must stem from one man, a man who had the courage to stand up in a rulebound, restrictive and cruel society and, armed with little more than faith and certainty, could declare that he was the way, the truth and the life. Those who follow in the footsteps of such men will never be truly alone. n

“Wilde refers to it in The Portrait Of Dorian Gray as ‘the strangest book that he had ever read… it seemed to him that in exquisite raiment and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him”

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W E I V E R M L I F

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS Blu-ray/DVD 3-disc Collector’s Edition, StudioCanal Reviewed by Francis Appleby

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“

lease note that the language used in Kind Hearts and Coronets reflects historical attitudes which audiences may find offensive. For reasons of historical preservation we have opted to present the film as it was originally screened.”

That is what appears on a black screen before the film itself commences. How brave of StudioCanal to ‘present the film as it was originally screened’. What else could they have done?

Released a version with all the dialogue changed so that audiences didn’t find it offensive? Isn’t that what they used to do in Francoist Spain? Anyone reading this ridiculous opening salvo devotes much of their subsequent viewing experience to trying

to guess which lines are supposedly ‘offensive’ to modern audiences.

Is it when Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) says, “The possible future duke of Chalfont became what was known as a general assistant at the drapery. This humiliation continued for two dispiriting years.” Or is it when Louis sets eyes on Chalfont House for the first time and considers how many members of the family stand between him and the dukedom: “It is so hard to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.”

This is hardly Saw III, is it? The language in Kind Hearts and Coronets is not in the least offensive; it is a witty, sharp and literary script using language

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Film Review

that looks back to the Edwardian era, in a film made in 1949. The script was based on a novel by Roy Horniman published in 1907 called Israel Rank, a satire on anti-Semitism. I’ll wager StudioCanal were relieved that the film adaptation ditched this theme in favour of a satire on the British class system. Otherwise the 70th anniversary DVD would have had to be released with an accompanying blindfold and earplugs, and maybe a bullwhip with which to flog oneself.

This 70th anniversary DVD comes with a booklet and a director’s commentary. The film itself has been lovingly restored to its original glory, frame by painstaking frame. The audio commentary, by critic Peter Bradshaw, director Terence Davies and Alec Guinness’ son Matthew, provides insight into the excellent cinematography and some nuggets of ‘trivia’ – such as that, during the scene where Alec Guinness’ Captain D’Ascoyne drowns with his sinking ship (sunk by the hero, of course), the device used to simulate this went wrong and the actor nearly drowned.

Some viewers have found the hero of Kind Hearts and Coronets difficult to sympathise with. In his ruthless quest to inherit his title, denied him

when his mother married for love rather than money, he sets about murdering every member of the D’Ascoyne family who stands between him and the dukedom. But his motive is not mere snobbery or avarice; he is doing it to honour the memory of his mother, whom the family refuses to busy in the family vault. “Standing by mama’s poor little grave in that hideous suburban cemetery, I made an oath that I would avenge the wrongs that her family had done to her.” How offensive.

There are numerous scenes where Mazzini comes face to face with the worst of droit de seigneur; the first in the draper’s shop, when a customer accuses him of eavesdropping by tapping him in the chest with his cane. In refusing to submit to this humiliation, Mazzini is fired on the spot. The man does happen to be a D’Ascoyne, and Mazzini does end up killing him, but his outrage at being treated as inferior by this pompous tyrant, purely because he’s on the wrong side of the shop counter, is universal. “Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood,” quoth Edith (Valerie Hobson).

‘Historical attitudes which audiences may find offensive’ indeed. n

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DRESSING DOWNTON ABBEY In an exclusive interview for The Chap, costume designer Anna Mary Scott Robbins tells Darcy Sullivan how the looks will change as the beloved show hits movie screens

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Deeper Into The 1920s

hose service bells are about to start tinkling downstairs. Millions of fans around the world are getting ready to visit Downton Abbey again.

And while there’s a cosy familiarity about that, things will be different this time. To start with, you’ll be paying for your seat — Downton Abbey returns next month not in a seventh season but as a feature film.

The storyline will be bigger too. It’s rare for a TV series to transition to a film with its cast intact — The X-Files may be the last live-action example — and it always entails a grander canvas. The costumes will be different too. Since the beginning, Downton Abbey has been class-A costume porn, its glamorous outfits the bedrock of the show’s appeal. Costume designer Anna Mary Scott Robbins told The Chap that, for a feature film, the only way to go was bigger.

“My challenge for the film was to make it feel more cinematic,” says Robbins, who also designed the costumes for the last two series of the programme (2014-2015). “I had to create looks that could stand up on the big screen, so the quality of craftsmanship and original pieces had to be much higher than even on the TV series.”

The film takes place two years after the last series, in 1927. Even the trailer evoked the art deco style of Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby. How will this affect the characters’ looks? “I’m pushing toward a tipping point from the 1920s into the 30s,” Robbins explains.

“There isn’t a clock that strikes midnight and it’s the 1930s; it was a gradual shifting. The younger generation would always embrace cutting-edge fashion more than the older, so you’ll see the transition with Lady Mary and Lady Edith more than others.

Hemlines were at their shortest; it’s finding those little markers that show the dates.

“With the film we had to be quite careful, because we had fewer costumes to tell the story than in the TV series, where we had hundreds of costumes, Here we had to find the signature looks for our favourite characters, but not make them too different. We’re not shifting Lady Mary’s palette, but there were micro trends I wanted to explore – embroidery techniques, frogging, detailing.”

For her inspiration, Robbins looked at fashion plates from the time, and the styles of contemporary

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Film

French designers such as Lanvin, Callot Soeurs and Jean Patou. “Aristocratic English women looked to Paris, and the Crawley family were no different,” Robbins says. “I costumed Cora as a woman who’s style-conscious, very on-trend. Being American, she doesn’t dress younger, but she’s very stylish, more stylish than other women her age because she has a foreign outlook. I gravitate toward Parisian designers of time, who were at the top of field. Vintage pieces from France are often more robust than the silk and beaded dresses from the UK.”

While the styles have changed, Robbins says she was careful to preserve continuity with each character’s past looks. “It’s quite important that it didn’t feel like a completely new world. I wanted some ties to the past, so there are a handful of pieces of upstairs characters that have been seen before. It might be a familiar coat paired with something else.”

Bonneville) and even her downstairs staff. So it’s a surprise to hear that Robbins sees her as one of the jewels in the costuming crown for Downton Abbey.

“I spend a lot of time designing her outfits before I hand them over to the workroom. For the film, a couple of her evening dresses took a long time to realise. I spent more time trying to turn an original piece into something new. For instance, I found a black silk tulle scarf, a length of fabric with exquisite metallic thread embroidery and art deco design, which I turned into a complete outfit for Cora.”

“I costumed Cora as a woman who’s style conscious, very on-trend. Being American, she doesn’t dress younger, but she’s very stylish, more stylish than other women her age because she has a foreign outlook”

Giving Cora Her Due

While Dame Maggie Smith has been the wisecracking heart of the show, Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary its romantic heroine, and Laura Carmichael’s Lady Edith its lovelorn underdog, Cora Crawley – the Countess of Grantham, played by Elizabeth McGovern – has been dealt a poor hand. Criticised by fans as whiny and relegated to the wings of major storylines, she has always been overshadowed by her daughters, her husband (played by Hugh

Vintage Looks

In fact, a lot of the costumes on Downton Abbey are vintage pieces that have been “upcycled” to work on the show, which sometimes involves taking the material from one garment and using it for a completely

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different piece of clothing. “With the evening wear, I’m more likely to find original pieces I can use, but I might find a beaded dress in excellent condition that’s too short for our tall, leggy actresses, so I have to add a slip. There’s probably a 50/50 split between new costumes and vintage costumes, but even with new make, I’ll use something from the 20s: lamé, lace, velvet, a print fabric for daywear. I’m always looking for fabric I can use. Daywear is more from scratch because it hasn’t survived as well. With the gents, all the suiting is new – not only would the men have worn out their clothes, but the gentlemen in the 1920s were smaller and had a different frame.”

Many a Chap reader may have rubbed shoulders with Robbins during her frequent trips to vintage shops and markets in London and Paris, where she buys items of clothing and fabrics. In London, Berwick Street and Joel & Son on Church Street are particular favourites. She sources wool from across the country, noting, “The wools have to have a certain weight to them to emulate 12-oz. wool and the heavy fabrics of the period.”

One addition to her 23-strong team for the film – including assistant designers for women and men, Kathryn Tart and Eloise Park – was Ryan Carney, a dyer, something she didn’t have on the TV series. “I could get a silk with a beautiful damask quality, but want it in a different colour. He would find the Pantone colour and match it perfectly.” That’s especially important for the principal women, Robbins says, who have their own colour palettes. “I always say no colour is off limits with upstairs women, but for blue I’d look for a beautiful navy for Mary, a soft cornflower or powder blue for Cora and a sky blue or turquoise for Edith. That way they complement each other, and their signature colours are still there. On screen it’s very compositional and feels like a painting.”

Matching Their Majesties

The Crawleys and other characters on Downton Abbey are – spoiler alert! – fictional. But in a move to make the story bigger, screenwriter and show creator Julian Fellowes has brought in two real-life characters, King George V and Queen Mary. For Robbins, that meant wedding her creativity to reality, knowing that keeneyed royal watchers and historians would be peering through their pince-nezzes to pick out anachronisms.

“We did a huge amount of research, studying their protocol and etiquette, when they would dress and change,” Robbins says. “I used some of their portraits and photos as a starting point for designs, but we also went to the ends of the earth to recreate a couple of images quite faithfully. There are lovely scenes where you can hold a still from the film and a photo of the queen and they’re really closely matched.

“We worked with Cosprop and [costume designer and collector] John Bright quite closely to costume the queen. John has an archive with some of Queen Mary’s clothing, which we were able to analyse closely. He also had some rolls of fabric that belonged to her – one of them was a silver lamé that made the skirt of the Queen’s evening gown. It matched perfectly a length of silver lace I found for the main body of the dress, and John added a beautiful piece of beaded silver cobweb lace that made up the sleeve.”

Returning to a popular franchise can be tricky.

Avengers: Endgame nailed it, but Game of Thrones’ final season alienated viewers so much they started a petition to reshoot it. The expectations are high for Downton Abbey, one of Britain’s most popular TV programmes of this decade. If the film is a hit, will those bells start ringing again? “I’m not the person to ask – I wouldn’t have a clue,” Robbins says. “This film was just a really lovely way to get back together and finish what we started.”n

Meanwhile, Downstairs…

The well-to-do Crawleys and their friends aren’t the only ones getting new duds for the film. There will also be changes to some of the downstairs characters, who are some of the fan favourites. “We’ve introduced a couple of new uniforms, as the downstairs staff would have new ones every year or so,” Robbins says. “We move it forward a little bit, but much slower. There are little details that represent the characters – something floral and delicate for Anna, some finishing finesse for Baxter, who is a seamstress so she could hand-finish specific details. The lovely thing for me is when we get to see any of the downstairs staff in civilian wear, because we get to think about their background when designing it.”

Downton Abbey opens in UK cinemas on 13/9/19

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Biography

SOME KIND OF A MAN Chris Sullivan on the life of one of cinema’s great mavericks, Orson Welles who, by his own admission, “started at the top and worked my way down”

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“

e was some kind of a man,” says Marlene Dietrich’s character Tanya, in Orson Welles’ magnificent Touch Of Evil. She is referring to the movie’s protagonist, Hank Quinlan, an entirely corrupt cop played by Welles, but she might easily have been talking about the man himself.

Martin Scorsese described Welles as ‘the most influential director ever’ while Welles’ biographer and Vanity Fair writer Barbara Leaming described him as “a titanic figure in twentieth century popular culture… his list of achievements is unmatchable.”

Undoubtedly, Welles, who was born on May 6th 1915, was all of the above and more – a cinematic mastermind who, unable to toe the party line, broke all the rules. “The word genius was whispered in my ear while I was still mewling in my crib,” Welles told Leaming in 1980, “So it never occurred to me that I wasn’t until middle age.”

Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin of Scottish, Irish and German descent. His father Dick, was a womanizing dandified inventor, while his rampantly suffragette mother, Beatrice, was a talented pianist and champion rifle shot who served time for her political views. By his own account, little Orson, by the age of four, could read and play the piano but gave up the latter when his parents split up when he was six. His dad went gallivanting around the globe, and three years later Beatrice died of acute yellow atrophy of the liver, leaving his doctor Maurice Bernstein to look after the rather sickly child. Meanwhile, the child’s precocity boomed.

Welles directed and starred in his school’s production of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and he delivered a school lecture that lambasted his teachers for their ‘lack of creativity,’ all of which prompted The Madison Journal to write about the boy wonder under the headline “Cartoonist, Actor, Poet – and only Ten.”

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an all-black version of Macbeth set in voodoo drenched Haiti, at Harlem’s Lafayette Theater.

Now aged 21 and full of mischief, he brought in a West African dance troupe led by a dwarf and a real life witch doctor, Abdul, to perform the onstage voodoo ceremony. As Welles’ was oft to chuckle, “the 12 live black goats that Abdul demanded then killed and skinned to make his devil drums were purchased at the expense of the federal government. I liked that.”

The production opened on April 14th 1936 and smashed it. Even the critics thought it genius.

“A spectacular theatre experience,” wrote the New York Daily News, “Certainly the most startling of any performance of this gory tragedy that has ever been given on this continent.” Welles’ response was to live it up. “I’d go to Harlem two or three nights a week, where I was The King,” he recalled. “I lived in nightclubs…. I liked screwing the chorus girls… and I liked staying up until five in the morning.”

Consequently, Welles directed a series of government funded plays, signed up to star in the title role of The Shadow, the country’s most popular radio show, formed The Mercury Theater on Air for CBS and moved to a country house on the Hudson. He took a speedboat and a chauffeurdriven Rolls Royce to work, wore only tailored clothes, ate in the best restaurants and, unbeknown

At his tough senior school, The Todd School for Boys, Orson thrived by writing, directing, acting in and painting the scenery for a barrage of school plays, while in the holidays accompanying his now perpetually drunk father to Europe, Japan and China. Then, on December 28th 1930, Dick Welles died of heart and kidney failure caused by alcoholism. “I have always thought I killed him,” reflected Welles, who’d severed ties with is pa aged 15 in an effort to stop him drinking. “I think he deliberately drank himself to death.”

Now officially an orphan, Bernstein became his legal guardian and, after Welles graduated aged 16, he sent him on a sketching tour of Ireland, where he persuaded the Dublin Gate Theatre director, Hilton Edwards, that he was an 18-yearold professional actor from New York, read for a part and was accepted. Consequently, he appeared in some seven major productions and filed a weekly column, ‘Chitchat and Criticism’ in a Dublin tabloid. Back in the US, he hit the boards and notched up some 350 stage performances, publishing a series of textbooks, Everybody’s Shakespeare.

It was now 1934 and, Welles, aged just 19, surprised all by marrying socialite Virginia Nicolson, found himself a radio show and a few years later was asked to direct a play for the government funded Federal Theatre Project. Welles thus staged

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to his wife, dated a string of beautiful ballerinas. He was 23 years of age and about to rock the world.

On October 30th 1938, Welles wrote, produced and voiced a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of The Worlds. The concept was that the listener had tuned into a live dance music show that would be interrupted with live news flashes about Martians invading Earth. The broadcast attracted 9,000,000 listeners and caused 1,750,000 to hastily pack up and leave their homes. Orson was all over the front pages, described as the cruel architect of a vicious hoax. He was now a household name.

He was 23 and had made the most famous radio broadcast ever.

What followed was a financially massive offer from RKO’s new president George J. Schrader to come to Hollywood to write, direct, produce and star in whatever movie he chose. Welles started shooting Citizen Kane in June 1940. Voted the best film ever made on numerous occasions, Citizen Kane, is an outrageously audacious and artistically adventurous picture that tells of the life of ‘fictional’ newspaper multi-millionaire magnate Charles Foster Kane. Obviously based on William Randolph Hearst – the most powerful newspaper mogul in the US – Welles stars as publishing magnate Charles Foster Kane who, poisoned by power, ends up a decrepit old man, while the story revolves

“Martin Scorsese described Welles as ‘the most influential director ever’ while Welles’ biographer and Vanity Fair writer Barbara Leaming, described him as “a titanic figure in twentieth century popular culture… his list of achievements is unmatchable” around journalist’s attempts to discover what Kane’s dying word ‘rosebud,’ actually referred to.

In real life it was Hearst's nickname for his young mistress, showgirl Marion Davies’ vulva.

Hearst thus banned any of his publications from even mentioning Welles’ name or any RKO product, preventing cinemas nationwide from showing this utterly revolutionary movie. And, even though the movie paved the way for all film noir to come, revolutionized cinema and changed the way we looked at movies, it sank like the Titanic.

“I started at the top and worked down,” grinned Welles. “All the good fortune I ever had all happened before I was 25. After that … nothing.”

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Welles had proved that you didn’t need years of training actually to direct a film, but the pressure was on to make a successful one. His next movie The Magnificent Ambersons ended in disaster.

Welles delivered his cut but, before he’d heard the studio’s reactions, left for Rio de Janeiro to film the carnival, so the studio, not pleased with his movie or his absence, edited it down and ruined the film.

The carnival lasted only three days yet Welles was there for months, sampling the charms of Brazilian women. “He had not just one night stands,” recalled actress Shifra Haran, “He had afternoon and after dinner stands. Quickies by the thousand.”

‘The Beauty and The Brain’; he became purely the husband of the world’s most beautiful and glamorous leading lady and saw his Golden Boy crown slip away, only to be replaced with character actor hats. In response he turned to politics, wrote weekly columns for The Free World Magazine, gave lectures on the evils of racism in huge stadiums, championed Afro American causes and spoke out against Republicans. “Welles was one of the great political speakers of his time,” wrote his biographer David Thomson.

But film was still in his blood, so he then helmed and starred in The Stranger, as a Nazi war criminal pursued by detective Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) and created an exquisitely framed slab of film noir. Although the picture came in under budget and made money, it didn’t live up to its expectations. Meanwhile, even though they had a daughter, Rebecca, his marriage crumbled after he’d had affairs with the likes of Judy Garland and Eartha Kitt. Still, he persuaded Harry Cohn – head of Hayworth’s studio Columbia – to cough up the cash to make Lady From Shanghai, starring him and his estranged wife, but all went drastically wrong. Hugely over budget, it was loathed by critics and the public alike and put the kybosh on Welles’

“I started at the top and worked down,” grinned Welles. “All the good fortune I ever had all happened before I was 25.

After that … nothing”

The failure of Ambersons ushered the end of his RKO contract, and on September 7th 1943 he married Rita Hayworth. The press called them

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“I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything,” he once said. “But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money”

career in Hollywood for decades. He then lost his well-paid weekly political column so, in 1949, left for Europe to appear as Harry Lime in director Carol Reed’s majestic The Third Man.

For the next ten years Welles was a wandering star, roaming Europe and attempting to complete this project or that while appearing in the odd (and usually bad) movie. In 1955 he directed and starred in Mr. Arkadin (UK title Confidential Report) which the New York Times described as “the work of a man with an unmistakable genius for the film medium.”

And there is no greater proof of the man’s brilliance than his next film, Touch of Evil, a monumentally menacing magnum opus, that is as effective today as it was on its release in 1958.

Welles was only supposed to play sadistic crooked cop Quinlan, but Charlton Heston, earmarked for the role of good cop Miguel Vargas, suggested Welles direct the film. Welles rewrote the script and brought in Janet Leigh to play Vargas’s wholesome American wife, Marlene Dietrich as a fortune teller and Mercedes McCambridge as a leather-jacketed Sapphic gang leader who, after her cohorts kidnap Leigh, injects her with heroin against her will. But Welles, as the grotesquely fat cop, positively oozes malevolence and steals the picture.

Unfortunately, Welles characteristically surrendered his cut and went immediately to Mexico to shoot Don Quixote, which remains unfinished, leaving the studio to mangle his tour de force. Luckily, before his death, he left instructions on how he wanted Touch of Evil to be edited, and in 1998 a version was made the way he intended, which is simply remarkable. But while the movie bombed in the US on its initial release, it achieved instant cult status in Europe, where the likes of Francois Truffaut praised it to the rafters. Consequently, the film garnered awards left and right and Welles rose to the occasion, declaring that this was the picture that had come out closest to his intentions.

Welles left for Europe again, rarely to return, and busied himself hamming it up in a series of epic stinkers to help fund his black and white masterpiece Chimes at Midnight, based on selections from Shakespeare’s Henry IV and shot in in Spain.

“Spain was the only country in the world that didn’t know black and white wasn’t commercial,” he later chuckled.

As the seventies dawned, Welles was fifty-five and running out of steam. A gun for hire, he’d played Long John Silver, Cardinal Wolsey, Bond baddie Le Chiffre in Casino Royale and Brigadier

General Dreedel in Catch 22 .In 1971 he received an honorary Oscar “for superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures”, but the entirely unimpressed Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston in to pick it up for him.

In 1976 he shot F for Fake, a documentary about fakes and frauds but, to fund his lavish lifestyle, had turned to providing voiceovers for commercials for products such as Carlsberg, Paul Masson, Vivitar Cameras, frozen peas and photocopiers.

“I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything,” he once said. “But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.” Towards the end of his life, the 6' 2" actor weighed in at 165 kilos. “My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four,” he once laughed, “unless there are three other people.” He had diabetes, a serious heart condition, gout and was a heavy drinker addicted to big fat Cuban cigars and amphetamines. On October 10th 1985, his chauffeur found him dead in bed following a heart attack. Across the room sat a typewriter loaded with a blank sheet of paper.

As eminent film critic Roger Ebert said in 1978, “Orson Welles can make better movies than most directors with one hand tied behind his back.

His problem, of course, is that for 35 years the hand has remained tied. His career is a study in lost possibilities.” As for yours truly, I cannot think of a finer dinner guest drawn from history than Mr. Welles. Enough said n This is an edited extract from Chris Sullivan’s book Rebel Rebel – Mavericks who Made Our Modern World.

Orson Welles’ Director’s Cut of Touch of Evil is now available on eurekavideo.co.uk A brand new restored 50th Anniversary Edition of his masterpiece Chimes at Midnight is available on Mr Bongo Films

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Biography

The Chap Dines

HEAD OF THE RIVER Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman sample the gastronomic and billeting delights at Fullers’ Oxford hostelry

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uring research for our continuing series of reviews of establishments where a chap may dine fabulously and in style, we came across an eaterie in Oxford that offered guests the opportunity to sleep after dining, in the very same building in which they had dined. The world was clearly changing at a much faster pace than Larman and I were capable of comprehending, but, as now-seasoned gastronomic adventurers, we agreed to open our minds to this new concept.

Head of the River is a hostelry owned by brewery giant Fullers in the centre of Oxford, with 20 bedrooms and an enormous restaurant with an equally enormous terrace. As the name implies, it is situated on the point where the Thames narrows and enters the centre of the city. The ancient twin-arched bridge provides a convenient portal separating the pub from the rest of Oxford, so one has the impression of being in a much more rural idyll than bang in the middle of the Dreaming Spires. We were fortunate to be dining

in midsummer, when the vast terrace is at its best, overlooking the occasional punt or barge idling along, bearing well-heeled types sipping Pimms from their luxurious vessels.

Naturally, my dining companion and I had no intention of doing anything as unseemly as sharing a room, and since Larman resides in Oxford, there was no need to draw lots to see who bagged the billet. I was given the TS Eliot room, among others that included the TE Lawrence room and the Alan Bennett room; I was relieved to be in a room that suggested more louche possibilities than the latter.

The dĂŠcor was an odd though entirely successful mĂŠlange of original Tudor architecture and subtly contemporary features, with splendid views over the aforementioned river, bridge and cluster of punts.

One immediately felt entirely steeped in the history of Oxford, with the added convenience of an electric espresso-maker.

And so to the dining experience. We had heard good things about head chef Thomas Berry and his brigade, so it was not without anticipation

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“Larman, who had been discoursing with some excitement about TS Eliot’s early poetry, announced to our capable and goodhumoured waiter, when he asked who was having what, that ‘he’s the tart; I’m the mess”

that we sat down at a table overlooking the river.

The wine that we ordered was a Picpoul de Pinet, and opinion differed; Larman pronounced it ‘very drinkable’ but I found it ‘exceedingly drinkable’.

Nonetheless, we got stuck into the shared antipasti board with some delight. There were cured meats, sourdough bread, ‘Mediterranean vegetables’ – a welcome touch of sun-laden exoticism, we decided – and Laverstoke mozzarella and roasted garlic.

Informed that the delicious-sounding half roast chicken with truffle aioli and confit garlic and lemon was off the menu, I hastily searched for a substitute. I was baffled by a chuckle from Larman, as he suggested that I try the shepherd’s pie ‘made from actual shepherds’. He was lying; it instead came with sizeable and delicious chunks of lamb (not minced), topped with potatoes that had been mashed perfectly to form an elegant crust. It was a million miles away from the watery school-dinners mince that we are used to, and the seemingly modest portion was more than enough with such an intensity of flavour. My dining companion,

meanwhile, was excited by the possibility of a dry-aged hanger steak with excellent chips and béarnaise sauce. A couple of glasses of Malbec set off the feast admirably.

We were reaching the limits of our capacity, but it would have been impolite in the extreme not to indulge in the desserts, which consisted of treacle tart and Eton Mess; both were very fine indeed.

This led to a memorable moment when Larman, who had been discoursing with some excitement

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about TS Eliot’s early poetry, announced to our capable and good-humoured waiter, when he asked who was having what, that ‘he’s the tart; I’m the mess.’ Larman’s Eton Mess had been arranged rather tidily, I thought, and we wondered how many of these had been thrown around Oxford eateries in the old days by members of the Bullingdon Club.

The following morning’s breakfast added further delights, both gastronomic and supernatural.

Thanks to Larman’s accelerated drinking pace the previous evening, there was a hangover measuring about thirty on the Richter scale; manageable but a bit atomic around the edges. While sloshing orange juice from an urn, I was aware of a figure hovering at my side, sensing another guest’s impatience for the OJ. Yet, when I turned towards my table, there was nobody there. I was reminded of my Waste Land: ‘I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you, or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’

It was clearly time for some eggs benedict.

We breakfasted on the terrace in the crisp early morning sun, watching the good folk of Oxford and the pigeons beginning to stir. The maître d’ informed us that the intrusive pigeons are dealt with every fortnight by employing the services of a hawk, who is brought in like an avian hitman to scare all the lesser species away, who gradually sneak back after two weeks.

Regrettably it wasn’t hawk day today, as this would have provided excellent entertainment for a mildly hungover breakfast. However,

breakfasting on a particularly fine presentation of eggs Benedict and eggs Oxford (with avocado instead of hock ham) while the first of the day’s barges idled under the bridge, was a sublime way to start any day, and neither hangovers nor pigeons bothered us in the slightest. Head of the river? More like top of the class. n

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Minns and Gosbee find themselves transported to Gulliver's realm by the founder and director of the fabulous Brighton Toy and Model Museum, Mr. C Littledale

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o, Christopher, how did this all begin?

We have to go back about 30 years or so. I had all my life collected old toys, and I had amassed so much that I thought other people should be able to enjoy this magnificent collection.

Gradually I found likeminded people; we set up a committee and became a registered charity. In 1990 we found these premises in the old arches underneath the forecourt of Brighton Railway station.

It was completely run down and there were terrible problems with damp; it was just not fit for purpose. But we persevered and, with help from Network Rail, we managed to pull it all together.

Was there a time or moment when something facilitated or sparked this passion for collecting children’s toys?

I was around six when my uncle (who had just returned from being a prisoner of war in Burma) took me to a miniature railway at Southsea.

The train came up to my waist, but I was able to climb aboard and the train went round on a circuit.

It was a steam train and there was the beautiful smell of coal smoke, and I absolutely fell in love with it instantly. It was like heaven to me, the dream of my future days, and I thought, I must have one!

It was like an inborn passion, a baptism of steam! I fell in love with model trains, particularly the older examples, so I started collecting, mostly going around junk shops; there

THE FLUMMOXER

NOTABLE EXHIBITS Steiff Titanic Bear In 1912, German soft toy manufacturer Steiff produced a black mourning bear to commemorate and pay homage to the sinking of the SS Titanic.

However, they proved to be unpopular, due to the somewhat morbid subject matter and that their dark, red felt-backed eyes (intended to represent tears and sadness) had the reverse effect. Children were sent scurrying from their nurseries into their nannies’ arms, for the Bear’s piercing eyes had the unintentional effect of apparent demonic possession.

Consequently, only 664 of these beasts were made in several size gradations, which has added to their rarity and collectability, along with their association with the night to remember in the Atlantic over a century ago. Should you find one of these bears in pristine condition (a few years ago the largest sized example was found ‘hiding'’ in its original presentation box; it sold for £91,000 to a museum) you would be inundated by private collectors and museums wishing to purchase it and offering up to six-figure sums to persuade you to part company from this most elusive of bears.

Celluloid doll Some while back I was introduced to a dealer and collector of toys. He also had a wonderful private collection. I perused shelf upon shelf of museum-quality objects, including at least a dozen or so bisque (ceramic) headed dolls, one of which had purportedly once belonged to Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Tsarina and Empress of Russia.

I asked him if he had a favourite.

He opened up a drawer and pulled out a small cardboard box, carefully lifting the lid and delicately teasing back some old tissue faded paper. He took out a very small doll and handed it to me. It was made of celluloid (a perishable early plastic) and would have cost a few pennies when produced in the 1920s/30s.

These delicate little dolls are incredibly fragile and easily damaged, and were often given as prizes at fairgrounds and carnivals. What a joy that, while surrounded by countless priceless rarities, this ‘throwaway’ turned out to be, in the eyes of this collector, his most revered prize jewel.

were plenty around in those days. I started to amass a collection and kids at school would say ‘Oh, we found some trains in the attic, are you interested in them?’ Nobody else seemed interested in these obsolete trains and I was paying five shillings for them – that was quite a lot in those days. I even tried to bribe my headmaster to give me a loan for an exotic model I once found!

Of all the exhibits in the museum, do you have a favourite?

Yes, I do. It is a family piece and it was built by my father.

A model of a ship of exceptional quality. This is a scale replica of the ship my father was on during WWII, were he served as the ship’s surgeon. Look at the workmanship involved and the dexterity needed to create something like

In the last issue, we asked readers to identify this curious bronze figure, standing on the counter at C&S Chamberlen, Tobacconist.

Clive Wilson correctly identifed it as counter cigar lighter which, when fitted with a fuel line, would provide a perpetual flame.

Mr. Wilson wins a pair of Fox Cufflinks by Mr. Gosbee.

this, and having the resourcefulness to find the bits to make it while on the open sea! My father lived till he was 96, and when he was 86 he said to me, ‘Christopher, you have created a museum that is fantastic, you can now have my model.’

It was at this point that we adjourned to the local hostelry, where Christopher regaled us with many a wonderful story pertaining to his life as a museum curator. Christopher is not just a collector but also a restorer and model-maker in his own right; his skills are revered throughout the world because of his noted workmanship and attention to detail.

Christopher can often be found in his workshop at the back of the museum during the week at The Brighton Toy and Model Museum.

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ACROSS DOWN Down Across 1. Great woman of independence? (6,2,7) 2. Inclination to read back through some feminist literature (4) 2 Inclination to read back through some 1 Great woman of independence? (6,2,7) 9. Parade around, name-dropping first 3. In a moment, host said, giving large wave (7) literature (4)letters I type. Nice (9) 9woodwind Paradesection around, name-dropping first member (8) 4. Absence feminist of gender distinction in the 10. Chum returns favourite garment’s decorative 5. Outdoor function at capacity sounds disastrous (7) large wave 3 In a moment, host said, giving woodwind section member (8) flap (6) 11. Crack what’s behind male gaze (4) 6. Religion (7) is one’s escape (5) 10 Chum returns favourite garment's decorative 12. See 14 Down 7. Outgoing former writer vacated scene (7) 4 Absence gender distinction the(9)letters flapin(6) 13. Who’s charge of one 101, stuffed liver? (8) 8. Manager of finances of more confident undervariableinrate type.

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Budget While you’ll be looking (at the very least) at £1,000 for a good luxury watch, the most popular watches sit at around the £4,000–£6,000 mark.

Finance By spreading your payments you can have the watch sooner rather than later, and with an interest-free option you won’t pay a penny more than the asking price.

Choosing your style •R ound - No surprise, but most cases fall into the category of round, with a circular chassis holding the dial and movement. This design is the most efficient for analogue dial watches.

•S quare – These are a little trickier to manufacture. Square-cased watches offer a unique, sporty style. A fine example would be the TAG Heuer’s Monaco.

•T onneau - A Tonneau case is an elegant, multiplane design used in dress watches to curve them discreetly to wrist. The complex shape is what makes them exclusive.

Investment First and foremost, you should purchase the watch you want, but why not secure an investment at the same time? One of the great perks of buying pre-owned is to avoid the depreciation of brand-new. Depreciation, does however, slow with time, and can completely reverse and go the other way. It’s not uncommon for a pre-owned Rolex or Patek Philippe to be sold for considerably more than it was bought for.

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Size The size of a watch is given as its diameter across the case (or width and height in the instance of a rectangular watch). 39mm is considered the ideal size for a wristwatch, but watches come in all shapes and sizes from just a few centimetres to well over 60.

The easiest way to find the size for you is to go and try some watches on; or, failing that, cut out a paper template and see how it sits on your wrist.

Complications These are the extra features that offer a slice of watchmaking that’s both functional and technically impressive.

•C hronograph – a timing function that operates independently of the main time display.

•P ower Reserve - A mechanical movement, whether manual or automatic, can only hold so much power in its mainspring. A power reserve indicates how much power it has left.

•M oonphase – Defines the transition of the moon through a 29.5day cycle •D ate - A date display typically revolves through 1–31 without correcting for shorter months.

•P erpetual Calendar keeps track of days, months, years and even leap years. n

Bezel The bezel is the ring that surrounds the top of the watch. There are different types, depending on the functions of the watch: •F ixed - A fixed bezel is usually decorative but can also be functional in the case of a tachymeter.

•U nidirectional - For diving watches, the bezel has a sixty-minute scale on it to time air usage.

•B idirectional - For non-diving watches with an adjustable bezel, bidirectional is favourable. GMT bezels spin both ways to facilitate quick time zone setting.

• I nternal - Some watches use an internal bezel to protect it from damage. These bezels are often set by an external crown, which can often be locked into place.

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