[New] LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER (AKA OOH-ER MISSUS)

By John McGregor

In case you don’t know LCL is back in the ‘hot’ news ??. Netflix are the latest to tap into this D H Lawrence bonkbuster with a very sexy version of country life in the 1920s.

The actual story by one of our great British classic authors has a lot going for it: First World War and its effects, politics, class wars, upstairs/downstairs, love, passion - and a lot more.

The two main actors are young and largely unknown - but they won’t be after this ‘exposure’. For inside, outside, in milady’s chamber read in the gamekeeper’s hut, outside it, running around the fields naked in the rain and everywhere else it seemed. There are some very graphic sex scenes. Question: where do entertaining classics and explicit raunchiness part company? Incidently ‘the end’ in the book and this film strangely differ - should that be allowed? But hey, all in all this is a fascinating story of illicit love, suspense and impending doom. It’s well worth a watch - but Scouts honour - be prepared…

D H Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire, my own home county. My particular story of Lady Chatterly’s Lover concerns the period shortly after the book’s clearance for publication in 1960, following its court case for obscenity. Pan Books had published Lawrence’s last novel in the UK thirty-two years after it was published in Italy where Lawrence was living with his family.

In 1962 aged thirteen I went on a school trip from Nottingham to London for the day. The purpose of the visit was to go to the Science museums and we went on the train and the Underground. From memory we enjoyed the travel and the museums but we found ourselves with some spare time before the return journey.

I should add at this point that although I went to a good grammar school some of my fellow schoolmates had quite surprising ‘talents’. I was no angel but I was out of my depth sometimes.

On this occasion my mate Steven and I found ourselves outside a posh London bookshop. Steve instructed me to engage the man in the shop in literary conversation while he had a look round.

After a few minutes of discussing my favourite author, Richmal Crompton of ´Just William´ fame I noticed Steve going out of the shop. I thanked the helpful assistant and followed my friend down the road.

When we were well out of sight of the shop Steve pulled a brand new copy of Lady Chatterly´s Lover from under his coat. For the rest of the trip until well under way on the return train we pored over the book and digested the naughty bits. My only memory is of Mellors, the gamekeeper explaining the ´f´ word to Lady Chatterly during intercourseboth verbal and sexual.

As we neared our home city Steve nonchalantly went down the corridor train and returned ten minutes later with two pounds. He had sought out some likely looking candidates and it didn’t take him long to sell the book. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Netflix did you say? Well, I´ve started wading through the modern classic called Megan and Harry. As I get older in life the maxim ´There’s two sides to every story´ seems to make more sense. I’m only half-way through the six part saga of our new Kings younger sons meeting and betrothal to a young American actress and all the brouhaha that went with it.

Watch this space… helmet on, and slung my weekend rucksack on my back. The only way out was round the far side of the office building and then to the gate, an area I hadn’t been before. I started up my scooter and drove around to the front.

In the euphoria of my trip I had completely forgotten about Spike - but he hadn’t forgotten me. I suddenly realised I was dangerously near his fortress and tried to take a wide berth from him to aim for the big wide gate. He was having none of that and the Wacky Races took on a new meaning.

As I wildly accelerated I thought I might make it but the big beastly b*****d caught me just before the gate - and sank his teeth into my leg. I swore savagely and kicked him away, and bursting through the gate left Spike behind.

I vaguely heard one of the lads shouting out ´Sorry mate!´ as I juddered off into the night.

Everything was OK when I got home and I recounted the good points of my weekend to my wife. But like most wives Annie has that sixth sense when she’s knows there’s something wrong - and it didn’t take long before I told her what had happened. Predictably she went mad and demanded I go to hospital before gangrene or whatever took over.

In the end we settled for our surgery the next morning which then involved a trip to Guardamar accident centre. Here they discovered from my notes that I had already had jabs the year before to prevent such infections.

They cleaned me up and all was well. You could actually see the big teeth marks where Spike had sank his teeth in, so it wasn’t actually very trivial.

The following week I caught up with my mate who works there and I told him the story, of which he was unaware. All he said was ´Oh that’s nothing, he attacks the postman every week…´