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 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

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.

AN 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, CS 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.

Important stories you may have missed

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Football club picks up keys to changing rooms Walden Local

Police in Leicestershire offered gifts including posters of Jamie Vardy and three bags of doughnuts Hinckley Times

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‘Hello, Ms Fergis? I’m afraid I won’t make it into the office today – I’ve just died’

somewhat fluid responsibilities of continuing professional obligations, they can claim to be members of the Bar.

That applies even if – like Uncle Tom, Rumpole’s oldest colleague – you spend your days practising your putting and vainly dreaming of a sympathetic solicitor to summon you once more to arms.

Greg Clark MP brought along a splendid oldie to Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons in March – former Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell DFC, who flew his de Havilland Mosquito in 50 missions over Nazi Germany. Four days before his visit to the Commons, he had celebrated his 101st birthday.

Bell, in the gallery, looked as spry as a man of 80. When Clark mentioned his name and the massed house gave 1956) was a talented striker for Coventry, Nottingham Forest and Scotland.

What a barnet Wallace sported! And what a football strip! As Spurling says of this picture, ‘In a move towards “earth toning”, Wallace poses in Coventry’s now infamous Admiral-designed chocolatebrown away kit.’

Few people could match that level of fashion chutzpah – except for the pop stars pictured in the other new book, Pin-Ups 1972: Third Generation Rock ’n’ Roll, by Peter Stanfield. Pictured is the glorious Marc Bolan (1947-77) on the cover of a 1972 Record Mirror special. They don’t make hair like that any more.

hear-hears of approval, he raised in acknowledgement a single hand, just as he must have done when signalling to ground crew that he was ready to take off in his Mosquito.

The 1970s may have been the decade that fashion forgot.

But, as time passes, the Old Un rather admires the pure, outlandish joy of some of the outfits – and haircuts – on show then.

Two new books celebrate those glory days. In Get It On: How the ’70s Rocked Football, Jon Spurling looks at the horrors of racism and commercialism in the decade’s football. But he also commemorates the sartorial highs – and lows – of 1970s footballers. Take Coventry City’s Ian Wallace (pictured). Wallace (born

Scotland the brave: Ian Wallace in his Coventry strip

Plenty up top: Marc Bolan in 1972

Sir Edward Heath wasn’t to everyone’s taste – he could be a bit of a grump – but there has been something rather decent in the way old friends have defended his name from false rumours started by the sex-crimes fantasist Carl Beech.

Those led to a witch hunt headed by Wiltshire’s ex-Chief Constable Mike Veale. Veale these days is paid £100,000 a year to advise the Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicestershire. Former

Heathites such as Lords (David) Hunt, (Patrick) Cormack and Lexden (Alistair Cooke) defended Ted’s reputation. Oddly, no one asked why a police and crime commissioner needs a £100k-a-year adviser. Is that not arguably just as great a scandal?

This year marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of the cartoonist and illustrator Alfred Leete (1882-1933).

One of his drawings was later turned into the most famous recruiting poster of all time. For Leete was the designer of the celebrated and much-imitated First World War poster ‘Your country needs YOU’, featuring Lord Kitchener and his dramatic pointing finger.

The drawing first appeared (with slightly different wording) on the front cover of London Opinion magazine on 5th September 1914. It was so successful that it inspired Italian, German and Hungarian variants during the war, as well as the 1917 US design by James Montgomery Flagg, with Uncle Sam replacing Kitchener.

Later versions included the children’s-comics character Desperate Dan saying, ‘YOU can help Britain by collecting waste-paper’ (Dandy, 1942) and many satirical antiVietnam War posters.

Lord Kitchener needs you – by Alfred Leete

Pastiches of Leete’s iconic design have been used recently, featuring Boris Johnson and Donald Trump during their election campaigns.

After reading Simon Weston’s moving memories of the Falklands War 40 years ago, Oldiereader Kath Garner, from Tollerton, North Yorkshire, sent in her own.

Aged 17 at the time of the Argentinian invasion in April 1982, Kath kept a diary with details of major battles, locations of ships and lists of names of those killed in action.

When HMS Sheffield was hit, she wrote down the name, rank, home town and age of each man lost – in red ink. Kath says, ‘I don’t know now why I chose to write them in a different colour, but poignantly their names stand out from the pages of scrawled black ink. Some were only a couple of years older than me and my friends.’

She also became pen friends with several servicemen. One of them was aboard the Sir Galahad, the ship hit on 10th June 1982. She says, ‘Each day, I read the newspapers looking for his name [in the list of those injured or killed] and breathed a sigh of relief when another day passed without it appearing.’

Luckily, he had disembarked from the Sir Galahad when it was hit, but his belongings were lost and several of his comrades were injured or killed. He had her last letter in his pocket. So he had Kath’s address and he wrote to her to put her angst-ridden teenage mind at rest.

Nearly 20 years later, Kath went to the Falklands with her husband, serving in the islands’ garrison. She visited those places familiar from her teenage diary: Bluff Cove, Fitzroy, San Carlos, Goose Green, Port Stanley, Darwin and Goose Green. She says, ‘We were surprised to find we could still read large POW letters painted on farm buildings where locals had been rounded up during the Occupation, and when I climbed Mount Tumbledown, I was amazed to see the remains of communication cables still hanging from the rocks and sleeping bags stuffed into crevices, exactly where they had been left nearly 20 years earlier.’

The islands weren’t declared mine-free until November 2020. So Kath had to watch her children on the beaches and to make sure they didn’t pick up anything bright or shiny.

She concludes, ‘Although I was there for only a year, the Falkland Islands has a huge place in my heart. It reminds me of that young teenage girl who spent each evening carefully writing down the day’s events and noting the names of each British casualty. Those men, their families and their ultimate sacrifice will not be forgotten.’

Lord Grimstone, a trade minister, has announced greater cooperation with Greenland. It turns out we do quite a lot of trade with that distant and icy territory. Forty per cent of our cold-water prawns come from Greenland. Whitehall now wants to increase links with Greenlanders on issues including ‘science, research and gender equality’. Unisex igloos?

‘So have you finished Supermansplaining?’