A Foreign Country Indeed

I approach my 77^th birthday not in trepidation but with much to ponder.

I am greatly interested in quotes attributed to famous people. I don’t always agree with them, of course. Francois de La Rochefoucauld, whom I studied at school and Cambridge, asserted that we only show kindness to strangers because it makes us feel good. He was a highly intelligent man but I can’t quite go along with that opinion.

I bought a Big Issue outside Waitrose this morning and asked the seller where she came from originally, to which the answer was Rumania. Her English was fair but no more than that and the word caravan featured quite prominently. Whether she came from the community around The Downs in Bristol  –  caravans everywhere, seemingly accepted by the police and council, I don’t know. I just found myself wondering what she did in the evenings, how she filled in the time, how much of the ‘take’ from selling the magazine she was allowed to keep. I always pay £5 rather than £4 and it doesn’t make me feel good, it just means I’ve improved matters by a trifling amount.

I mentioned famous people above. I’m not sure who came out with a real ‘stumer’ along the following lines: ‘Happy people never think about the past, unhappy people think of very little else’. If that were true, Marcel Proust must have been the unhappiest man on earth, having devoted much of his life to In Search of Lost Time. The fact that most things change eventually  –  the ladies taking the air in the Bois de Boulogne of a Sunday morning keeping right up to date with fashion, for example  –  doesn’t mean it made him unhappy.

What IS valid is the opening line of L P Hartley’s celebrated novel The Go-Between: ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ Yes, they certainly do, or did. They went to war without complaint, even if it meant a considerably shorter life. And they had little or no time for regret. Only the most intelligent of them would marvel at a change of attitude and the sudden realisation that, to quote an expression that has stood the test of time, ‘the game might be up.’

Thus Siegfried Sassoon, briefly rehabilitated at Netley and Craiglockhart, wondered why he’d been so enthusiastic about joining the WW1 fighting force in the first place. He voiced these thoughts as the ship taking him back to the Somme left the Isle of Wight behind. The war left its mark on him, for sure, though in later years he fielded at mid-off (or thereabouts) at Heytesbury, his occasional errors all taken in good part by his team-mates as he pondered the past and lived in his own quiet world.

‘Regret for the past is but a waste of human spirit’ has always stayed with me. Andy Sipowicz, ‘an edgy mixture of grit and sensitivity’ according to one critic of the American police series NYPD Blue, played an officer battling alcoholism and espoused many heartfelt convictions. His advice was often brief and to the point. I rather liked him.

He’d have had no truck with conversations starting: ‘If I had my time again….’ but he’d probably have met us half-way and allowed a little tinkering. For instance, I think at Cambridge I should have risen early, studied form for an hour or two (sometimes less) and then dedicated the rest of the day to the reason I was there  –  French, Spanish and South American Studies. I didn’t need to be ‘cosy’ in college, I’d have been happier reading Proust in a rented room with a gas fire and the fading winter light, something I came close to touching on in a recent Weekend Card piece about freezing autumn meetings at Newmarket, Guy Fawkes and Cherry Hinton girls.

The days in the wine trade were enjoyable  –  five of us still get together every few months  –  and I deserved a chance at BBC Radio Sport, though I soon discovered how routine it could be. Later on I needed the job at SIS and I think they got a pretty decent presenter but broadcasting purely to betting shops, where the patrons are mostly facing the other way and couldn’t care less whether you’re Ian Carnaby, Desmond Lynam or Robert De Niro, was soul-destroying after reporting from Highbury or Stamford Bridge. After four years I’d had enough. I’ve freelanced ever since  –  30 years of it, mostly concerning racing and the sport has been very good to me, which is partly why I sponsor a race at Brighton and never miss a Goodwood meeting.

I’ve never quite understood how people stand something similar for so long. A silly point, really, because if you’re earning in a studio or at the racetrack you’ve probably accepted that you’re in it for life. I turned on the television the other day and it was Newbury, Doncaster and the first Cheltenham meeting. I suppose I’m amazed that all these people presenting and offering opinions must have been waiting in the wings when they’d have given anything to be part of it all. But it’s SO repetitive, isn’t it? And then there’s still the American coverage to follow. As regards viewers, who has the time for it all? Just how often can you watch horses running round in a circle, knowing that there’s a similar dose again tomorrow and every day of the week? No other sport, not even football, is quite like this.

If I go to football now, I enjoy the family chat with my daughter followed by lunch. (I ALWAYS enjoy lunch as much as, or more than, the event which follows.) When I write I try, in the best BBC tradition, to inform and entertain. I’ve lived hard and worked through the night with a glass by my side, although those days are long gone. Early bed and Radio 3, Brahms for preference, suits me just fine. Years ago I had to ring the changes and that’s why there have been so many jobs. I’ve met a lot of interesting people, some of them in the dead of night, and I’ve managed the mortgage payments so the house is ours. So are all the books but we needn’t go there.

I’ve got all I need now. Writing for Marten suits me down to the ground and there’s even time for reading. Unfortunately, I’ve been told that dropping from 21 units a week of alcohol to 14 is not enough and drink must become a non-runner. I simply can’t imagine that, any more than I can imagine publicans in Hounslow and Twickenham and Isleworth when I was selling all those years ago missing their ‘snifter’ at 11am or failing to order straight away so that we could talk about racing and Queens Park Rangers.

No regrets here, mate. Just the feeling I ought to have sorted out a slightly better timetable. Just a bit of tinkering would have done the trick. I think.

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