The Old Un’s Notes We can thank Colin Sell, the pianist on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, for revealing the late Barry Cryer’s favourite cartoon (pictured). Sell told the story during Radio 4’s tribute to Cryer after the Clue veteran and great friend of The Oldie died in February. But Sell wrongly attributed the cartoon to James Thurber, when it was actually the work of someone else.
His name was Roger Pettiward. He was born in 1906 into a long line of wealthy London landowners. At Eton, his gift for draughtsmanship won him a succession of prizes. During the 1930s, he contributed cartoons to Punch – work with an often surreal touch, which delighted in puncturing pomposity and satirising the ruling classes, of which Pettiward – pseudonym Paul Crum – was himself a member. Pettiward was 36 when he was killed during the ill-fated Dieppe Raid of August 1942. As the 80th anniversary of his death approaches, we can be sure that Barry Cryer, so expert in comedy history, would want the record put straight.
Are you in search of an appropriate funeral or memorial-service reading? You might find an answer in Peter J Conradi’s new book, On Grief: Voices Through the Ages on How to Manage Death and Loss. There are moving passages by everyone from Joyce Grenfell to John Donne and Nick Cave. And the selections even go back to Virgil, from the first book of the Aeneid: Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangent Tears are shed for things even here and mortal things touch the heart Aeneid 1.462 Seamus Heaney translated
those first three heart-stirring words, ‘Sunt lacrimae rerum’, as ‘There are tears at the heart of things’. So true in these troubled times, particularly when you watch the news from Ukraine. The whole point of vicars, one might think, is to convert souls to Christianity. Or is it? Clerics arriving for the recent Synod at Church House were asked not to discuss religion with staff at Church House in case it ‘caused offence’. In Parliament recently, MPs held a debate entitled ‘Levelling up in the
Among this month’s contributors Madeline Smith (p14) played Miss Caruso, the Bond Girl in Live and Let Die who has her dress unzipped by Roger Moore with a magnetic watch. A Hammerhorror star, she was also in Up Pompeii. Robert Bathurst (p22) was in Cold Feet and Downton Abbey. He played Ed Howzer-Black in Toast of London. A National Hunt devotee, he wrote, directed and starred in The Fall, a film about racing. A N Wilson (p51) is a leading novelist, biographer and historian. His most recent book is The King and the Christmas Tree. He has written biographies of Tolstoy, C S Lewis, Iris Murdoch and Jesus Christ. Nicky Haslam (p51) is a writer and interior designer. He wrote Redeeming Features and Folly de Grandeur: Romance and Revival in an English Country House. He recorded an album, Midnight Matinee.
east of England’. What, the Fens? Were they not flat in the first place? The Donmar Warehouse production of Shakespeare’s Henry V, starring Kit Harington as the king, was quite exciting. But one thing jarred. At a couple of points, Shakespeare uses the word ‘lieutenant’. This was pronounced by the young cast as ‘lootenant’. Sir Sydney Kentridge, defence counsel to Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko, turns 100 in November this year. He stopped practising as a barrister only at the age of 90. Only John Platts-Mills (1906-2001), a Kiwi to Kentridge’s Springbok, was still arguing cases as a nonagenarian. Jeremy Hutchinson (1915-2017), who did reach his century, chose by contrast to quit advocacy when a mere 69 years old. He declined attractive briefs to defend Clive Ponting and the Guildford Four, and went on to exercise his forensic talents in the House of Lords rather than the court room. At 100, he was made Oldie of the Year. English judges have to retire by law. Lord Bridge, then senior law lord, referred to this practice as the ‘statutory presumption of senility’. English barristers, though, can go on working till they drop. As long as they pay the annual levy for their practising certificates and fulfil the The Oldie Spring 2022 5
