Sunderland, circa 1940

The following is a transcription of a tape sent to Alan by Gladys Glascoe (maiden name unknown) in 2005 after coming to Alan's 80th birthday celebrations at The Spaniards.

I hope someone will recognise, and correct, names and places which I transcribed phonetically.* See Comment.



Dear Alan,

I'm afraid it's proving too difficult to pay a visit and arrange a meeting for the time being but Joan [sic] tellls me you're busy writing your memoirs. It occurred to me it might amuse you to hear my recollections from the far past. So here goes.

I was in the winter of 40, back from evacuation, in the lower sixth form, and getting ready for A levels, when my brother, Randal, made a friend Tom McNichol [spelling], whom I quite liked because he had red hair, and his family had a flat that was for the time unoccupied, and unheated I may say, and he and Randal used to go and sit there and talk and have the odd cigarette and Randal persauded me to join them and we used to sit there and talk and I heard Tom mention someone called Adam. And when I said 'who is that?' I didn't get a very clear answer except this was someone who was a person of distinction. One of a kind. But I still wasn't clear in what way.

Now later I met Nancy and Eric Clavering and became involved in the YCO and frequented the old rooms in Coronation street. Do you remember? I don't know if it was there that I met you or at the Claverings, in their ...top floor flat I think it was. I know we had parties there and meetings. Trying to think when I heard of you next. I can't remember when I first met you. I just can't. I remember having the impression, because of course you were two years younger than me, but that didn't seem to weigh in your reputation. My recollections of seeing you, whenever that was, was that you were tall and thin, and shabby, as many of us were in those days.

Now, you were friendly with Lesley Jolly [spelling], of whom I was greatly enamoured for a long time, and I remember Lesley Jolly and you having a conversation about the fact you used to get up early and since you passed the library on your way to school, you would stop in there and read all the newspapers, now this impressed me, I must say, and it obviously impressed Lesley.

A story I have in connection with Lesley Jolly is that he persuaded you to take part in an apprentices' strike in the ship yards. My clearest memory was of you reporting back to Les - he was coaching you, what you have to do and what you have to say - he said now keep your hands in your pockets, cos your hands are obviously not those of someone who has done manual work. Taking a rest now because my voice gives out easily.

PAUSE

Don't expect these impressions to be connected or organised at all....

You told me your father went over to Ireland with the black and tans and came back on the other side, because of his experiences. I once met your father while you were away in the airforce. I called because I hadn't heard from you for a while. I found him a lovely person. I really liked him very much.

Now what else...? We smoked, and how we smoked, whatever we could lay our hands on. There was a kiosk near the station and when shortages were most severe we found this girl who sold us cigarettes that no one else had ever heard of. There was one particularly throat searing brand called Robin. You remember? When she sold it to us she was really quite triumphant she'd be able to supply our needs. I haven't smoked for twenty years but I still.. . I've dreamnt ocassionally that I was smoking, and after a good meal I get that sensation in the chest, that I would love a cigarette or better still a cigar, but I don't, not worth it....

After we took to - they call it hanging out together these days - but I think the expression we would have used was knocking about together, in a desultory way. We went to the Havelock once to see 'Stormy Weather' with Lena Horne, singing of course, looking absolutely gorgeous. You said 'I wouldn't mind marrying her', to which I replied 'Chance would be a fine thing, wouldn't it?' You said 'well some people would object because she is black', and I was really surprised that you should even jokingly allow the existance of that sort of prejudice.

Another thing that comes to my mind is that you, and I, and a third party, whom I don't recall except in a vague and shadowy way, took to - you may disbelieve this but it's true - took to breaking into unoccupied houses. I think only three times at most. God knows why we did it... On one ocassion the three of us were crossing a sort of conservatory and suddenly you disappeared up to your knees. You'd stumbled into... I think it must have been a pond originally, dry fortunately, full of leaves and rubbish... we were very luck we weren't caught...

What else did we do? Sit about in each other's homes. On one occasion I recall we were in an icecream bar, sitting either side of one of those cubicles. On the side opposite to me a woman appeared over the top of the barrier waving for, requesting a light.....which I, I reached across and asked you to pass to her. You expressed great surprise that I'd been so observant as to notice her. I'm prepared to accept that I was a horrid and really quite stupid girl but I wasn't that stupid I couldn't see someone waving, climbing over a barrier and waving.

Every now and then I have to stop because my voice gives out.

PAUSE

Do you remember going to socialist summer school at Malham? Do you remember that? I remember one character who was staying there telling us about his visit to the pub the night before, saying I came back, on the way I bent down, I could hear the sound of someone being sick and it was me. I don't think either you or I drank to that extent, certainly not then...

I remember when we arrived, going for a walk along a stream where there were swans, it was a lovely setting, beautiful fresh clean air. You took the train part of the way and biked for the rest. I remember on the way back, seeing you out of the window, where the road rang alongside the railway track, peddling furiously to keep up, which you did, and you managed to get into the train at the next stop.

Do you remember we had a spell - I don't know who the third party was - of pretending to talk common? 'tack and common' [spelling]. The character, alderman Chalk [spelling] and we put about to each other scurrilous reports of alderman Chalk and the council. I can't remember who we played these games with. It may have been David Maccaby. I often wonder what happened to David. An amazing family that. There was Lorna and there was HZ. HZ was a formidable character. I gathered ... I think I met him once briefly. We didn't know him as well as David. I once heard an argument reported, an argument with him, reported, that you had had. You told him Marxists don't believe in formal logic. The only way you could half way win the argument.

PAUSE

I remember when my unrequited passion for Lesley Jolly reached a point where he was...when we were engaged, after a fashion. I mean I didn't realise... It took me a long time to realise his problems, or his cast of temperament. It wasn't until he and I had split up and he was involved with Julian Meckelfeld [spelling] that I fully realised the strength of the passions that could be aroused. I remember walking down the street between the two of them and it was as if I wasn't present at all. They sort of gravitated together. I remember when I told you Lesley Jolly had told his mother he was engaged to me. You said you weren't surprised. You know I expected her to be surpirsed. You said, 'Well it's better than getting engaged to Colin and Brighton [spelling].'

These recollections are very scrappy I'm afraid but I do ask if you want amplification on any of them, say so, I may not be able to give it but I'll try.

PAUSE

I remember quite vividly a happy week that we had when you suddenly turned up on the doorstep, home on leave, and in airforce uniform, and if I may say so looking very good in it,... towards the end of the school summer holidays. We spent the time going about, just sitting and talking, and when you went back, I understood - I don't know how true this was - that you had overstayed your leave and that you were in trouble when you got back. I remember you writing your ambition was to be a columnist like Alexander Woolcott. God forgive me, I wrote back and said 'wanting's one thing, being's another.' I like to think this spurred you on. ...You were a rear gunner and when your plane was damaged, or landed badly, the rear gunner's pod broke away and bounced you across the air field. A shocking experience.

PAUSE

Well Alan these reminiscences are proving very scrappy and uncoordinated but I'll give you two or three more and then post this off and see what you think of them.

I seem to remember... you coached my brother, Colby [spelling], in maths... I'm not very well acquainted with that period as for some reason you and I weren't speaking to each other. I can't remember why and I cant imagine why.

There was a time when... I think it was the party held a dance in the lake, or it may have been the soviet committee, something progressive or we wouldn't have been there and I turned up in my one and only evening dress, which I rather loved, it was cyclamen, it fitted to the waist and flared out to full length and I was very pleased with myself. I tried to get you to dance and you claimed not to dance. At that time I didn't realise that there are lots of reasons why young men didn't want to go onto the dance floor. But you did say that I had a nice waist. No longer I'm afraid.

Oh yes... Another flattering bit. You and Lesley Jolly were discussing knowledge of marxism and one of you asked what I'd read? 'Only Tommy Jackson's [spelling] Dialiectics'. And one of you said 'You've made it go a long way.' How far that was a polite rejoinder and really concealed a contempt for my ignorance. I don't know.

I think I shall close now and say look after yourself. Love to Joan [sic]. And I will either tape something more if I remember anything more or I'll write.

Paul Cezanne

Could Megan describe how it was the clay figure she made of Alan - from memory - for his 80th birthday, was so much like Alan whilst also being the image of Cezanne?

'IT’S APPROACHING BERNARD SHAW...'

The“Quote...Unquote”
NEWSLETTER
Publisher&Editor:NigelReesVol.17,No3,July2008

When Alan’s wife, Jane Hill, told me about the ‘memorial blog’ that had been launched to enable friends and colleagues to post tributes on his death, I was delighted to see that ‘Violence is the repartee of the illiterate’ was duly accorded a place among the top ten quotations on the website set up by his son, Adam.

The number of guests who have appeared on Quote ... Unquote over the years and who have, in modern parlance, recently ‘left the building’ is very sad. I would mention in particular Ned Sherrin and Richard Boston who were on the very first edition and returned several times in the early days. But then we have also recently lost George Melly, Miles Kington, Humphrey Lyttelton, Alan Coren, Gerry Fitt, Bill Deedes, John Rae, Dick Vosburgh, Anton Rodgers and, a relative latecomer to the show, Jeremy Beadle. We will miss them all but the death of one in particular brought back a very happy memory from 1985. The last time I encountered the writer and journalist Alan Brien was a year or two ago at a book launch. He asked why he had not been invited back to appear on Quote ... Unquote. I no doubt fudged some answer but the real reason was that there was no way we could repeat a wonderful moment from one of the four editions he had appeared in back then.

One of the quotations I asked him to provide a source for was, ‘Violence is the repartee of the illiterate.’ In his light, lilting voice he set about it: ‘I don’t think I’ve heard it before. Modernish, I think. Can’t be very old. Bernard Shaw would be too good for it, but it’s approaching Bernard Shaw. Perhaps it’s Chesterton, is it?’ Well, this is not a trick I can play very often on panellists – indeed, I don’t think I have ever done it to anyone else – and I was able to say, ‘Shaw, Chesterton ... Alan Brien, you wrote it in an article on corporal punishment in schools in Punch in 1973 ... ’ Oh, how we laughed. What I sometimes do – when I know who is taking part in the programme – is to see if indeed they do have any quotations attributed to them in the dictionaries but then usually feed these to other panellists. I had found ‘Violence is the repartee ... ’ in Frank S. Pepper’s Handbook of 20th-century Quotations. When I told Alan this, he said he would immediately go and buy a dozen copies and give them to his friends for Christmas. ‘Not quite Shaw, not quite Chesterton, but very good Alan Brien,’ I said. He responded: ‘That describes it very well. That’s what I was trying to be!’ It was a good joke to play on him but, as I say, it was absolutely unrepeatable.