Gyles Brandreth’s Diary
Just a minute? I can talk for 12 hours
I gave the world’s longest after-dinner speech with no comfort break Forty years ago this month – absurdly, because it was against the backdrop of the Falklands conflict – I made my way into the Guinness Book of World Records by making the world’s longest-ever after-dinner speech. While our gallant forces were retrieving the Falkland Islands from the invading Argentinians in the South Atlantic, in a west London hotel, at a fundraising dinner sponsored by Cockburn’s Special Reserve Port (‘ideal for everyday drinking’), in aid of the National Playing Fields Association (President: HRH The Duke of Edinburgh), in a white tuxedo (generously provided by Aquascutum), I got to my feet at 9.30pm and talked non-stop – without hesitation or repetition, but with a good deal of deviation – for 12½ hours. The challenge wasn’t the talking, to be honest: it was the fact that the Guinness Book of World Records people said that no comfort breaks would be allowed. Even 40 years ago, I was needing a middle-of-the-night wee. On the advice of my doctor, I visited John Bell & Croyden, medical suppliers of Wigmore Street, and got myself kitted out with a special appliance – a device, I was told, easy to wear and much favoured by elderly generals required to spend long hours taking the salute on cold parade grounds. Unfortunately, at around 3.30 in the morning, when I was not halfway through my marathon but very much ready for a discreet pee (desperate, actually), I glanced down and realised that my special apparatus had slipped its moorings. I watched in horror as a hideous, shrivelled sheath of pink tubing appeared at the bottom of my trouser leg. What did I do? I thought of our real heroes in the South Atlantic and carried on regardless. I overcame the need to pee by sheer willpower. And, intriguingly, when I’d broken the record and achieved my goal, I went to the loo – and found I
Marathon man: Gyles by Antony Williams
couldn’t go. It was 48 hours before I was able to pass water freely again. Another record was broken at the Hyde Park Hotel that night. My friend Andrew Festing, former Green Jacket and son of Field Marshal Sir Frankie Festing, was then the Head of British Pictures at Sotheby’s and thinking of becoming a professional artist. For the fun of it, and to see if he could, he decided to join me at the hotel with his easel and to paint non-stop for 12½ hours while I talked non-stop. There and then, through the night, he created a large composite portrait in oils of me and the diners at the fundraising dinner and, because the Duke of Edinburgh was President of the charity, the painting was unveiled at Buckingham Palace – with Prince Philip declaring that Andrew’s painting was certainly more original and interesting than my speech. Andrew went on to paint more composite pictures – notably of members of both Houses of Parliament and of The Queen at Guildhall when she gave her memorable ‘annus horribilis’ speech – and became a portrait artist much favoured by senior royalty.
Forty years and 750 pictures later, Andrew Festing is 80 now and still going strong. He is a former President of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and I am hoping to catch up with him when I help open their summer show at the Mall Galleries on 4th May. Disappointingly, they don’t want me to speak for 12½ hours. ‘Just a minute will do nicely,’ said their current President, Richard Foster. I think I have been asked because there are two paintings of me in the show, both by the same artist, Antony Williams, who works in egg tempera, and is probably best known for his controversial portrait of the Queen – controversial because he gave her fingers that some said looked like sausages. When you are painting someone, where do you start? I asked him. ‘Usually with a nostril,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter which.’ There is much sadness in the Brandreth household today. We have just heard of the death of a lovely lady called Gloria Thompson. She was 92 and had been bedridden for a while, but remained resolutely cheerful. We met her first about 50 years ago when she came to be our cleaning lady. She soon became our friend and we loved her for her goodness as a person and for her unstoppable positivity. Thinking of her has reminded me of this poem, a new poem, written by another friend, David Walser, ceramicist, painter and poet, in the week his lifelong partner, fellow artist Jan Pieńkowski, died back in February. Flowers come. They bloom and go We loved them and we miss them so The same with friends: they come, they grow And then one day they up and go We loved them and we miss them so Gyles’s childhood memoir, Odd Boy Out, is published by Penguin The Oldie May 2022 9
