The Times - Magazine 2309

23.09.
23
BEN
STOKES
The greatest My pub date with
England cricketer Ade Edmondson
of all time Caitlin Moran meets
her comedy hero
(even when
he loses) CLASSIFIED
THE
MAN
BEHIND
007
Ian Fleming
uncovered
23.09.23
22 48
7 Caitlin Moran Is Top Gear’s time up? 9 Spinal column: Melanie Reid My wild weekend in London. 10 What I’ve learnt The
actor Naomie Harris on bullies and burnout. 14 Cover story Ben Stokes England’s Test cricket captain talks leadership and
mental health ahead of next month’s one-day World Cup. 22 Ade Edmondson Caitlin Moran meets her teenage hero, the star
of Bottom and The Young Ones. 32 The loves of Ian Fleming A new biography reveals how the author created the womanising
James Bond in his own image. 37 Eat! The foodie’s favourite meals for one. 48 How I got set for Strictly The newsreader
Krishnan Guru-Murthy on shaping up for the dancefloor. 52 Growing up with Gloria Vanderbilt Will Pavia meets the heiress’s
son, journalist Anderson Cooper. 58 Home! A fashion blogger’s revamped country house. 65 Pout! Nadine Baggott’s 15 best
hair products. 68 Tony Turnbull reviews Glebe House/Millbrook Inn, Devon. 74 Beta male: Robert Crampton I keep making
a fool of myself. No surprises there then. Giles Coren is away
FAB FIVE: TINNED FISH

SHIRT AND TIE, THOMAS PINK. SHOES, RUSSELL & BROMLEY
COVER: ROBERT WILSON. THIS PAGE: TOM JACKSON, GREY
HUTTON. ADE EDMONDSON WEARS SUIT, MARC DARCY.
CHOSEN BY MONIQUE RIVALLAND
JOSÉ GOURMET, £5.99 ABBA, £3.85 LUISA PAIXAO, £6.19 NURI, £4.60 ROCKFISH, £ 5.95
Preserved sardines from Confusingly, Swedish Mussels from Porto Sourced from Porto’s Devon cuttlefish braised
Portugal’s Atlantic coast anchovies are actually in escabeche sauce Matosinhos market in ink, tomatoes and
(selfridges.com) spiced sprats (ocado.com) (luisa-paixao.uk) (thetinnedfishmarket.com) herbs (therockfish.co.uk)
EDITOR NICOLA JEAL DEPUTY EDITOR LOUISE FRANCE ART DIRECTOR CHRIS HITCHCOCK ASSOCIATE EDITOR JANE MULKERRINS ASSISTANT EDITOR TONY TURNBULL
FEATURES EDITOR MONIQUE RIVALLAND CHIEF SUB-EDITOR AMANDA LINFOOT DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR JO PLENT DEPUTY CHIEF SUB-EDITOR CHRIS RILEY PICTURE EDITOR ANNA BASSETT
DEPUTY PICTURE EDITOR LUCY DALEY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR BRIDGET HARRISON COMMISSIONING EDITOR GEORGINA ROBERTS
The Times Magazine 5

CAITLIN MORAN
I’m so over dudes doing daft and dangerous
stunts in cars. #CancelTopGear
ill Top Gear be about Britain’s 47,497,757,575 different
W
cancelled by the parking apps and their non-functionality,
BBC? Is this the or the sneaky way “School street” driving
end of one of restrictions are introduced overnight
the biggest British with no publicity and you incur at least
TV franchises three £60 fines before you get the first
of all time? letter about them.
Earlier this “Turning Top Gear into some jalopy-
month, following a major accident while based That’s Life would be boring,”
filming the show in December 2022, the I hear you say. “There’s no comparison
first photographs of Andrew “Freddie” to watching a bunch of legendary dudes
Flintoff, one of Top Gear’s presenters, chuck a caravan out of a plane.”
emerged. He seemed to be in good spirits, Except I remember how, as a child,
but his face bore the clear after-effects of That’s Life seemed like the most daring
being in an open-top Morgan Super 3 that, and important show in the world. That’s
at high speed, flipped over and slid down Life would go to war on behalf of an
the track at Dunsfold Park aerodrome. endangered and beleaguered public
Flintoff’s nose was covered with a on subjects as disparate as concrete
dressing and there were still-livid scars playgrounds, seatbelts, child abuse,
around his nostrils. His chin was similarly slimming pills and organ transplants.
magenta-coloured and what appeared to It was light entertainment, but with a
be nerve damage pulled his bottom lip. genuine sense of purpose. I’m sure its
I will be honest, I would not have 22 million viewers, like me, enjoyed the
recognised him had I not seen the caption feeling of Esther Rantzen and “the boys”
“Brave Freddie Flintoff”. The previously seemingly being the only people who were
blithe, fit cricketing hero bore the shadow sticking up for a populace who were being
of hospital. It takes a long time for those injured, scammed, abused or killed due to
months of ventilators, anaesthetics and either malice or incompetence.
twilight-ward midnights to stop haunting Here we are in 2023 and I don’t think
your eyes and posture. If at all. the populace feels any less beleaguered
Flintoff has apparently had “a lot of or endangered. In London 350 Ulez
mental health issues” since the crash, not cameras have been vandalised. Swathes
least over the agonising 45-minute wait of Cumbria, Yorkshire and Somerset are
for an air ambulance to remove him from electric-vehicle charging-point deserts.
the wreckage. Top Gear crew members The average waiting time for driving tests
who witnessed the accident still have is five and a half months. If you want to
PTSD from, let’s be brisk here, filming drive your car abroad, you could be in a
someone nearly dying just to fill a furious 16-hour queue at Dover.
five-minute slot on primetime TV. “Yeah, but an amusing film about
Following the even more horrendous Paddy McGuinness having to poo in a
accident in 2006 involving another Top carrier bag in a layby on the A2 on his
Gear presenter, Richard Hammond, which
left him in a coma for two weeks while,
Most drivers I know way to Calais isn’t the same as watching
STUNTS!” Top Gear fans will shout.
again, filming a five-minute slot for
primetime TV, there appear to be serious
spend absolutely “Men should be able to take risks. Why
are you trying to make everything all
talks about the future of Top Gear. Should
it just be outright cancelled? Or should
zero time discussing womanly and safe?”
Really, though? Male TV presenters
it continue – but minus the thrilling but
possibly fatal stunts?
how quickly a should risk being facially disfigured or
put in a coma for entertainment? This
For the only TV show about cars on
terrestrial TV, Top Gear doesn’t have a lot
Morgan Super 3 is an important part of masculinity? If
female TV presenters were being facially
of content about actual cars. Not in the
way we experience cars. There’s nothing
can hit 60mph disfigured or put in comas after pursuing
some element of femininity – say, cosmetic
about call-centre waiting times to get your surgery that went wrong – we would,
insurance renewed, or which upholstery I think, treat it differently.
can best withstand an upended Petits Filous. Things can be exciting and sexy and
ROBERT WILSON
Most drivers I know spend absolutely zero popular and something we decide we won’t
time discussing how quickly a Morgan do any more. You can always invent new,
Super 3 can hit 60mph, but they will sexy, exciting, popular things. But you
spend a whole hour in a frenzy of fury can’t bring people back from the dead. n

SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
I’m in London
when a stranger
stops me in the
street. ‘Are you
that writer in
The Times?’
t was the moment the plane respectable companion, while her husband me. “Are you that writer in The Times?” he
I
started to accelerate down the busied himself checking the in-flight price said. “I said to myself, ‘It can’t be her; she
runway that I finally let go of my of prosecco. lives in Scotland. How on earth could she
emotions. Months of planning By 11am, at 35,000-odd feet, all three possibly be in Tooting?’ But I just thought
beforehand, the kindness of a of us were on the fizz (and I don’t drink). I’d ask.” My jaw was so agape I may not
dozen friends in making it happen, And so began what I can only describe have made much sense, but this is to say
the good heart of the carer who as just about the best long weekend of thank you to Simon, who used to work
left a sick husband and toddler to my life. My son drove us from Gatwick with disabled people, with his remarkable
come to get me up at 5.30am, the stress up to a hotel in south London, where my spotter’s eye and kindly words, for helping
of driving myself across the country and friends, in solidarity, were staying with me. to make a very special day.
changing chairs behind the van in the Another friend, whom I’ve known from A friend of Doug’s helped bump me up
airport car park, the manhandling into first year at grammar school, came to join three flights of steps to the flat, where I sat
the plane seat… Little wonder I dissolved us on a minibreak – from Islington – to and gazed in wonder (I did a lot of that this
into tears as we flew up through the cloud. help me wash and dress. To these good trip, like someone freed from an institution)
I’d done it. people I owe everything. and said, “Wow!” a lot. I cried too. What the
Even better, I was decent. One’s best London was so hot I felt I was on an two of them have achieved, on a limited
mates, I discovered, are those who cover exotic foreign holiday. Can I describe budget, is creative and smart. Witnessing
one’s arse in moments of exigency. And how exciting it all was? The next morning what your child is capable of as an adult
I’m not talking metaphorically. In the I was to see, for the first time, the flat that is a most overpowering thing – you feel
rush of boarding, being hoicked from Doug and his girlfriend, Louisa, bought respect, pride, discovery, admiration. And
wheelchair to aisle chair, from aisle chair and spent a year doing up. In fact, it’s the now, when we speak, I can picture him.
to aircraft seat, and then sliding myself first flat of Doug’s I’ve been in since his It will take me much time yet to
across to the window, my leggings had initial one, in the second year at university, process the memories. The fresh treasure
slipped right down to my thighs. (Technical in the months before my accident. I helped of sitting in my son’s garden – that’s
detail: tetraplegics don’t tend to wear him move into that one. He’s subsequently something I never imagined writing;
knickers. They cause pressure marks lived in dozens, none of which I saw. So meeting his friends; reuniting with
and get in the way.) this was going to be momentous. They my most stylish cousin; laughing over
“Help,” I hissed to my friend. “My bottom were holding a barbecue in their newly Premier Inn breakfasts; seasick-y taxis;
has escaped. If I lift, can you possibly find reclaimed garden in my honour. the warm-hearted nuttiness of Abba
my waistband and pull up my leggings?” To add to the crazy emotions, a most Voyage; the trees in Kew. Being alive
Thus, on a certain Saturday morning, we random thing happened as we waited on just to be there is a privilege. n
pray that the procession of preoccupied the pavement for a taxi to take us to the
MURDO MACLEOD
travellers boarding that Edinburgh to flat. In my peripheral vision I saw a man @Mel_ReidTimes
Gatwick flight missed the sight of a fine, drive past, then stop, reverse and stare Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking
church-going woman rummaging urgently – into the hotel lobby, I thought. Then her neck and back in a riding accident in
around the bum cheeks of a rather less he abandoned his car and approached April 2010

What I’ve learnt
Naomie Harris
Naomie Harris, 47, was brought up in London by her mother the big deal? Some people don’t like avocados or curries.
and worked as a child actress before studying at Cambridge I’ve just never liked alcohol. The taste, the smell – nothing
University. She has played Eve Moneypenny in three James Bond about it appeals to me. I love to be in bed by 9.30pm.
films, was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Moonlight and The Ho�man Process is absolutely amazing. My closest
has appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean. She lives in London. friends always say, “There’s Naomie pre and post-Hoffman
[a personal development course]”. Before, I couldn’t run
I was bullied at school. I wore a brace because I had very fast or far because of the scoliosis. I would get to a
scoliosis, so I stood out. And I was on a TV show, which mile and then stop. Then I did the Hoffman Process and
most kids watched, so when I went to secondary school I ran five miles just like that. I thought not being able
I was well known – and that made me a target too. to run was a physical thing, but it was because of the
Learning to walk again was intense. In a scoliosis operation emotional baggage I was carrying.
they cut through all the muscles in your back and open Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s turned me down for jobs.
you up to get to your spine. I had a rib removed to Nobody would hire me for odd jobs and I was getting
decompress my lung. It’s major surgery. I had it because no auditions. I’d been acting since I was nine and so much
they said, “As you get older, your ribcage is going to of my identity was tied up with what I do. I felt I couldn’t
press more into the lungs. You’re not going to be able call myself an actress. It was a real identity crisis.
to breathe, then you’re going to die.” After the operation I switched o� my phone for a whole month at a retreat in
I had to learn to walk again, how to sit up, everything. India. The acting profession demands your soul. The hours
As one of only two black people in my Cambridge college are insane. You’re up at 4.30am, home at 8pm and usually
I felt like an outsider. Coming from a state school to an six days a week. At the drop of a hat you have to burst
environment where 80 per cent of the people were into tears, pretend your father has died or you’re being
privately educated was a massive culture shock for me. chased by a murderer. If you put yourself in high-
I do think things have really changed at Cambridge, but adrenaline states constantly, the mind can’t work out
when I went it was incredibly alienating. the difference between what’s real and imagined. n
My neighbours once called the police because they thought
someone was trying to kill me as I was screaming so loudly.
Adenomyosis [a condition that causes extremely painful
periods] is horrendous. People think, “Oh, I have painful
periods, just get on with it.” I’m talking about periods that
made me collapse in a bathroom in an airport.
Our industry can be incredibly predatory. It was really
important to me to talk about the reality of that [Harris
spoke about being groped by an actor in 2021].
I did an anger management course because I do not express
anger. I realised I was at the wrong course, because the
OMNES X NAOMIE HARRIS, GETTY IMAGES
people there had a lot of anger issues. I thought, “Oh

my gosh, this is terrifying. I don’t want to deal with anger
but I’m in a room with people who are angry a lot of the
time.” I’m still not great with anger. It’s not an emotion
I know how to deal with. I’m still working through that.
It’s extraordinary how much of an issue not drinking is
socially. I come from a family of non-drinkers and have
With Christoph Waltz and Daniel Craig at the Spectre premiere, Berlin, 2015
never drunk. People are like, “Oh, you don’t drink!” What’s
INTERVIEW Georgina Roberts
10 The Times Magazine

‘I had a rib removed to
decompress my lung.
Afterwards, I had to
learn to walk again, how
to sit up, everything’
The Omnes x Naomie Harris

collection (omnes.com)

‘I only care
what my friends
and family
think. They’re
the ones
who matter… …If you have
an opinion
about me, I’m
not bothered
about it if you
don’t have my
phone number’
He’s survived anxiety
and a bad-boy reputation.
Then last year he was made
England’s cricket captain and
turned around the fortunes
of the national team. Now
Ben Stokes is being hailed as
the greatest English player.
Damian Whitworth meets
the record-breaking star
Ben Stokes, 32, hitting
a six during the second
Test against Australia
in this summer’s Ashes.
Opposite: photographed
by Robert Wilson
Celebrating with Jack Leach after beating Australia in the third Ashes Test, 2019
‘Y
ou don’t really take in
the crowd. It’s like a fuzz,
30, 40 yards away from
you; just sort of there in
the background. You take
in what’s going on around
you at close proximity.”
When Ben Stokes is out
in the middle of a cricket
pitch, smashing Australian
bowlers deep into the stands, as he did at
Lord’s this summer, he hardly hears the
spectators going berserk because he is so
focused on what he can detect from the
chatter and body language of the fielders.
“You get these massive tells of how
they are feeling by how they look. They’re
very nervous about what’s going on right
now. And I’m not. You get a sense, ‘You’re
f***ing shitting yourself here.’ It’s just little
things that tell you that you are massively
on top. It’s a case of, ‘I really need to
take advantage of this moment right 2018 he had been defending a gay couple
now because they are quite vulnerable.’ ”
That’s when he goes for the jugular.
‘WE WANT TO ENTERTAIN. who had been subjected to homophobic
abuse. He was acquitted, but was charged
I had been warned that Stokes, 32,
can be an unpredictable interviewee who
THE STYLE WE PLAY IS by the England and Wales Cricket Board
with bringing the game into disrepute. (He
sometimes clams up. But today, sitting
with a coffee, overlooking a putting green
ALWAYS LOOKING LIKE later accepted this charge and was fined
£30,000.) In the documentary, he said he
at Woburn Golf Club in Bedfordshire,
where he is about to play a round with YOU’RE HAVING FUN’ felt let down by quite a few people who
“wear a suit”, seemingly a reference to
fellow investors in a new business venture, some of the game’s administrators.
he is happy to chat. The mist has just Stokes worked with a therapist and
lifted to reveal a glorious September took anti-anxiety medication. Surgery
morning and he has arrived full of the joys on his finger also improved how he felt
of golf, sauntering into the room clutching about cricket and he returned to playing
a sunhat, making an unnecessary in the winter of 2021. The following April
introduction – “I’m Ben” – and ready to he was appointed Test captain when Joe
reflect: on the Ashes; on how he has led an Root stood down. Brendon McCullum,
extraordinary transformation of English the former New Zealand captain, was
cricket’s fortunes and revolutionised the appointed head coach a few weeks later.
way the game is played after enduring a When the pair took over, England were
dark period in his personal life; and on his in a desperate slump, having won just 1 of
With Joe Root, centre, and Ben Duckett, Ashes 2023
ambitions, on and off the field, beyond their previous 17 matches. Since then the
next month’s World Cup. team, which is essentially the same group
His ginger thatch is slicked back on top his mental health. Two weeks later of players, has won 13 out of 18, playing
and shaved at the sides, his beard neatly he recorded the first of two interviews in an assertive, confident, fast-scoring,
groomed. He wears a bracelet on the wrist with the director Sam Mendes for the often very aggressive and dominant style.
of one lavishly tattooed Popeye arm and a documentary Ben Stokes: Phoenix from This has been dubbed “Bazball” after
classic gold watch – not super-blingy – on the Ashes. In the film, Stokes looks McCullum’s nickname, though both he
the other. And he’s smiling, relaxed, a few shellshocked. He explains how he had and Stokes dislike the term. “I hate it. It’s
PREVIOUS SPREAD: GETTY IMAGES. THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES, REX FEATURES
lines around his eyes creasing as he says, called his manager at 6am one day a media name,” Stokes says with feeling.
self-deprecatingly, that he can “get round” while sitting on the bathroom floor of Whatever you call it, it is highly
a golf course, but that strikers of massive his hotel crying and struggling for breath. entertaining to watch and mostly extremely
sixes might be able to hit a golf ball well, He described other panic attacks in effective. Michael Atherton, the Times’s
but can lack something when it comes to a dry cleaners when approached for an chief cricket correspondent, regards Stokes
determining its direction. autograph and when collecting one of his as the most inspirational England captain
At one point he makes the sunny children from a party. It was not only the he has seen and says the team are playing
observation, “I’ve not experienced a bad sport that had been mentally fatiguing, the most thrilling cricket of his lifetime.
day being England captain.” It is hard to but a number of other issues that had Stokes is leading a side built in his
square this Stokes, in love with cricket been building up over a lengthy period, image. He explains how McCullum, who
and life, with the stricken-looking man he said. He had been dealing with an experienced low periods in his playing
who described having “massive” panic injured finger and his adored father, Ged, days, enjoyed his cricket much more in
attacks and being gripped by negative a former rugby league footballer, had died the final years of his career. “When he
feelings about his sport in a revelatory at the end of 2020 after a long illness. was younger, he put so much pressure on
documentary last year. Stokes had also been processing the himself to perform that he didn’t enjoy
A little over two years ago, Stokes fallout from his involvement in a brawl it as much. When he let rip with how he
announced that he was taking an outside a Bristol nightclub in 2017. He was wanted to play he had so much more fun
indefinite break from cricket to prioritise charged with affray but said at his trial in and his record was so much better.”

With his wife, Clare, at Sports Personality of the Year
Stokes and McCullum have imported I can do is try every day to do what I need
some of the swashbuckling, risky play of to do. And I know that every player who
the T20 and 50-over one-day games into goes out there and plays for England under
the five-day game. “We said, ‘Why don’t my captaincy is trying to do something
we change the mould around how Test great every day. When they fail [you say],
cricket is thought about in our country ‘Good effort, nice try, keep going.’ Part of
and what people think Test cricket is.’ You sport, part of life is failing, and how you
don’t have to play the way that everyone cope and how you move on from it is the
thinks you should play to be successful. most important thing. Wake up the next
We just started afresh and went, ‘Lads, day after a failure and hopefully the sun
we’re going to go out and entertain the is shining and you get another chance.” Is
crowd.’ I want the people who pay money this why he has a phoenix tattooed on his
to watch us to enjoy the cricket, regardless forearm? “Yeah, exactly.”
if it’s been a good day for England or a If there had not been a deluge during
bad day. How do we do that? The style we the Old Trafford Test, England would
play is always looking like you’re having
fun, because you’ve got kids watching you.
‘PART OF LIFE IS FAILING, probably have won that game and,
eventually, the Ashes. The Australians
I want that 10-year-old watching going,
‘This is what I want to do when I’m 20
AND HOW YOU MOVE ON know that, but how deep has Bazball
burrowed into their team psyche? Some
years old, because that looks like such a
good thing to be able to go out and do.’ ”
FROM IT IS THE MOST bold England ploys did not work on the
face of it, such as Stokes’s decision to
Stokes emphasises entertainment
over winning. After losing the first match
IMPORTANT THING’ declare early in the first Test at Edgbaston
while more runs could have been accrued.
of the recent Ashes series he spoke to the He wanted to make Australia bat for
players. “I said to the group, ‘I don’t want 20 minutes at the end of the day, but
this team to be remembered as an Ashes- England did not take any wickets that
winning team. I want this team to be evening and when Australia went on to
a legacy team.’ If we win things along win the match by a narrow margin, that
the way, great. But winning [is] not the early gambit was questioned. Defenders
overriding factor and desire. Because if of the aggressive approach disagree,
we play cricket in the way we want to play, suggesting that the way Stokes surprised
we know that no team,” he checks himself, Australia was part of a longer-term
“well, we know that teams are going to strategy of demonstrating that England
find it very, very hard to keep up with us play on their terms. Bazball thus became
because of how we take the game on.” a psychological weapon.
One of their aims is to reduce the “What we have found is that the
With his parents at Cockermouth Cricket Club, 2006
pressure on players. “There’s always that opposition speak a lot about what we do.
pressure when you walk out to play. But We just sort of crack on and don’t really get
we’re not putting any more on people’s He believes he has a better caught up with it all. Whether or not it’s a
shoulders.” They emphasise the importance comprehension of the difficulties players psychological advantage, I’ve no idea. But
of maintaining a perspective on what may be having. “When we’re off the cricket teams seem to speak a lot about what we
happens in any single game. “No matter field, life continues for everyone. It’s having do these days rather than themselves.”
what happens here, it won’t define you. that understanding that people are going For all his guile as captain, Stokes is
You’re all good enough players because to have ups and downs. People are going to still first and foremost one of the greatest
you’re in the England dressing room. Go feel great one day, shit the next day. Being – some would say the greatest – of
out and show the world what your talent captain, it’s great to have that relatability. England all-rounders. Watching Stokes,
is and make sure you do it with a big I think it’s having that compassion with his heroic self-belief and superhuman,
smile on your face. That was the plan and towards people, not only in sport but explosive power and swagger, dispatching
thankfully it’s worked more times that not.” also away from sport.” a bowler in every direction or clonking a
Mike Brearley, the former England He was lauded for his candour in batsman on the head with a bouncer, is
captain who is now a psychoanalyst, has talking about his mental health problems perhaps as close as we can get to seeing
a hypothesis that Bazball can be traced in the film. “It was important to do that,” Achilles wielding his massive shield and
to both Stokes and McCullum suffering he says. He does not want to talk about spear on the Trojan plain.
depression, and that their reaction to that his current mental state or treatment. But His unbeaten 135 against Australia at
and return to good mental health has had he compartmentalises different areas of Headingley in 2019 is regarded as perhaps
an infectious effect on those around them. his life and focuses on them fully, whether the finest of all England Test innings. He
Has the hard stuff Stokes has come it is cricket, his business interests, family and the spin bowler Jack Leach shared a
through in his life given him a new or just being on holiday. “It’s being able last-wicket stand of 76 in a sudden-death
PA, COURTESY OF COCKERMOUTH CRICKET CLUB
freedom? “I think it’s just having an to switch between the different phases drama in which the dogged Leach ensured
understanding there’s sport and then there’s of what’s going on in your life at that his own place in cricketing folklore with
life as well,” he says. “You’ve got the bigger moment. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not an epic defensive display for just one
picture. When you have no influence on going to give 50 per cent to this, then run, while Stokes, by turns crafty and
what’s going to happen, that’s the worst 25 per cent to that and 25 per cent to combative, accumulated the runs to give
bit. But when it’s all done and dusted, you the other. It’s 100 per cent.” England an improbable victory.
can’t change that. Learn from something Stokes is described to me by someone If victory had been secured with his
that’s happened, but you can’t hold onto it who knows him well as having a highly Lord’s innings this summer he might
because if you do that it’s just going to eat developed sense of not wanting to let have eclipsed even that 2019 achievement.
you up. You can never go back and change others down. “I’m fully aware that in sport England’s position at Lord’s was hopeless,
something that’s already happened.” you can let people down. You will fail. All but his never-say-die innings, in which

he hit nine sixes – the most in an Ashes The riches of the Indian Premier blow smoke up my own daughter’s arse, but
innings – gave cause for hope of a League, his lucrative England contract I’m amazed at some of the stuff she can do.
miraculous victory, before he was out and sponsorship deals have made him She’s a serious athlete, incredible. My boy,
for 155 and England then capitulated. wealthy. He lives in a large house in I don’t know where he’s got his intelligence
The display of muscular, Trojan- Co Durham and is looking ahead to from. Definitely not me. Very smart boy.”
obliterating hitting came after Jonny securing his financial future and building Ged Stokes, his father, was a New
Bairstow was controversially stumped his business career. Zealand rugby league player and coach,
when he wandered out of his crease. The With England fast bowlers Jofra who brought his family to England when
crowd was incensed and three members Archer and Stuart Broad, who retired he was appointed coach of Workington
of the MCC were suspended for heckling from cricket at the end of July, he set Town. Ben was 12. Is there anything of his
Australian players in the Long Room. up an athlete entrepreneurial collective, father that he would like to pass on to his
However, Stokes plays down the idea 4CAST. This has now become part of the own children? “Just be polite. If my two
that he had been fired up after the row. Players Fund, which promotes itself as the kids grow up to be extremely polite to
“It’s easy to say I switched gears because UK’s first athlete-led venture-capital fund. everyone around them, then I’ll be happy.”
I was so angry that Jonny was given out in Other founders include Jos Buttler and Although sport is not war, he is careful
that way.” In fact, he says, he just decided the footballers Chris Smalling, Héctor to point out, he likens his approach to
he had to start scoring quickly because he Bellerín and Serge Gnabry. leading a platoon. “I’ll be the first one over
was running out of batting partners. The fund will invest primarily in sports [the top] if I’m leading you, because I’m
As well as reading the body language of tech, media, digital communities and smart not going to send you boys in there first to
his opponents, he was making calculations commerce, and an athletes committee take a few bullets and then make my way
about the wind and the slope of the pitch, will work alongside professional investors. through. I’ll be going out there and take
so for two hours he almost exclusively Stokes believes the two groups can them so you guys can get through. That’s
attacked one side of the boundary. complement each other. “You’ve got the something I can take into certain parts of
“There’s a lot of thought that goes into it.” ‘go with it and just see how things end up’ leadership within sport. Obviously I don’t
I’m intrigued to know what it feels [approach] from the athlete side, because have bullets flying at me.”
like after a batting performance like that. you get presented with so many different He tries to avoid showing any
Initially he is awash with adrenaline. situations in sport you’ve got to find a way disappointment in his team-mates in
“And then half an hour later absolutely through. But then someone who’s more public. “If I do need to do that I’ll do it in
exhausted. And half an hour later, I’m experienced in the field of investing or the dressing room away from any cameras.
pissed,” he says, smiling.
Last year Stokes retired from one-day
international cricket to reduce his
workload. But after the Ashes he unretired
AFTER THE ADRENALINE OF BATTING, ‘HALF AN HOUR LATER
himself so he can play in next month’s
World Cup in India. England are defending
I’M EXHAUSTED. AND HALF AN HOUR AFTER, I’M DRUNK’
the title they won in 2019 at Lord’s “by the
barest of margins”, in the immortal words the business world can go, ‘OK, it’s not as It very, very rarely happens. Every now
of New Zealand commentator Ian Smith. simple as that.’ I think it is actually really and again I will be like, ‘F***ing quiet,
Stokes was man of the match and the interesting to see how it all works.” lads, sort it out.’ It’s very subtle things
prospect of trying to retain the trophy is That sportsmen can struggle to like, ‘Can we just perk it up a bit? We’re
“exciting”. After we meet, he limbers up maintain their lifestyle once they stop playing for England, lads, come on.’ ”
for the tournament by breaking the record playing is something of which he is I have been told by someone who
for an England batsman in a one-day acutely aware. “Live within your means knows him well that his team-mates love
international, scoring 182 runs in a victory as much as you possibly can, because you him but also respect his forcefulness.
over New Zealand at the Oval. As for how need to make sure that when the day Might they occasionally be a little scared
Bazball (as I don’t call it to his face) might comes where you’re not earning the of him? “No. I don’t shout at anyone.
be developed in future Tests, he is giving money that you were when you were I don’t tell anyone off.” His team-mates
nothing away. “Who knows. We’ll keep playing, you’ve looked after the money should be motivated by admiration for his
plodding along.” Plodding seems unlikely, and that’s going to last you. captaincy “rather than fear and [thinking],
I say. “Limping along then.” “You’ve got a wife and kids. When my ‘Shit, I need to do this.’ I wouldn’t do
He has been limping literally with a kids are grown up and when they have kids anything for anybody I didn’t respect. If
knee injury that meant he bowled only will there be… not a legacy, but something? someone’s being a dick, I will tell them
a few overs all summer. “Just getting old. That’s obviously what you worry about. to f*** off.” This is what he said to one of
We’ll be all right.” There is a plan for the I need to make sure I’m doing as much the “suits” who asked for a selfie with him
knee after the World Cup but he is vague. as I can while I’m still relevant to benefit after the World Cup triumph.
“I’m in the latter part of my career, myself and the family when I’m 65 and in Stokes has little time for cricket officials
so there are obviously things I need to a wheelchair.” he does not respect or for critics. His focus
start thinking about. I won’t be able just He has been with Clare since he was off the pitch, just as it is at the crease, is
to stop, because doing stuff is embedded 18 and they married in 2017. “We’ve been on those in his immediate proximity and
in me. I don’t see myself when I finish together for a very long time now. The he blocks out the wider cacophony.
playing not being involved in the game way in which my life and career have “I only care about the people who are
somehow. I’d love to go into coaching. progressed, Clare’s just used to it and important to me, like friends and family
And play golf as much as I can.” understands it. Obviously it’s tough at and their opinion. They’re the ones who
Coaching children, like the youngsters times with all the time spent away. The matter. If you’ve got an opinion about
at Cockermouth Cricket Club in Cumbria kids still don’t like me going away. But it’s me, I’m not going to bother about it if
where he played as a boy, is not on the part and parcel of the life that I chose.” you don’t have my phone number.” n
cards. “It takes a certain type of person They have a son, Layton, and a
to be able to coach children. I’ve got my daughter, Libby, who is a very good dancer playersfund.vc. The World Cup starts
own and I can’t do it.” and cheerleader. “I obviously don’t want to in India on October 5

WITHIN TWO
MINUTES, HE
STARTS CRYING...
When Caitlin
met Ade, her
comedy hero
Growing up, Caitlin Moran could
recite whole scripts by the comic actor
Adrian Edmondson. Now the star
of The Young Ones and Bottom
has written a brilliant new memoir
about his traumatic childhood, his
relationship with fellow legend Rik
Mayall – and the relief he feels about
not having to be funny any longer
Ade Edmondson, 66, photographed
by Tom Jackson at the Wigmore,
and, opposite, with Caitlin Moran
The Comic Strip Presents… Bad News Tour, 1983
From left: Christopher Ryan, Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Nigel Planer in The Young Ones (1982-84) Ruby Wax, Jennifer Saunders and Edmondson, 1989
I
t is an overcast morning in the cosy and does so twice more before we finish
back room of a pub, and Adrian
“Ade” Edmondson and I have totally
AT BOARDING SCHOOL two hours later.
“Why do I keep bursting into tears
ruined the initial concept of this
feature by both having hangovers.
EDMONDSON WAS these days? Do you have a theory?” he
texts me the next day. “Are they making
Mine, pathetically, is from last night’s REGULARLY BEATEN SO up for all the tears I didn’t cry when
mere two glasses of wine. His, more I was younger and in pain? I think they’re
admirably, is from a lunch yesterday SEVERELY HE BLED mainly tears of happiness. Of seeing
“that developed into something what’s good in the world that I couldn’t
bigger” and saw him finally get home see before.”
at 6pm – only to receive a phone call Blackadder, Absolutely Fabulous and the Edmondson doesn’t really need my
from another friend who suggested the eternal masterpiece that is Bottom. theory because this is, obviously, what
pub. “And I thought: why not?” However, this psychogeographical has happened.
We were supposed to spend the attempt to dig deep into Edmondson’s Because before he changed the world
afternoon wandering around Soho in memories is scuppered by the fact that we of comedy and made millions of people,
central London. Edmondson’s old haunts both feel “quite sweaty” and “a bit pale” and then himself, happy, he was a “slightly
from his Comedy Store days when and, as Edmondson wisely points out, damaged”, “rather smelly” boy who was
he, Rik Mayall, Peter Richardson, Alexei “I can remember it all perfectly well from told, on his seventh birthday, that he was
Sayle, Dawn French, Ben Elton and here. Sitting down.” “too old” to hug and kiss his father “like
Jennifer Saunders upended the existing So we sit down. And, in the event, we a girl” any more and was proffered a
establishment with a tsunami of, variously, really don’t need to walk down D’Arblay brisk handshake. He was then sent to a
youthful energy, silliness, physical comedy Street looking for individual doorways “freezing” boarding school where he was
ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES
and political bite. At first it was dubbed where he and his wife, Jennifer Saunders, regularly beaten so severely he bled.
“alternative comedy” but it swiftly became kissed. Because, within 1 minute and “Nearly there,” the master would say.
90 per cent of all comedy – with Friday 48 seconds of our interview beginning “I’m going to hit you until you cry.”
Night Live, The Young Ones, The Comic and the past being remembered, At the end of each beating the
Strip Presents…, French and Saunders, Edmondson has already started crying, schoolmaster would hold out his hand.

With his wife, Jennifer Saunders, in 2017
Edmondson with his parents and sister, Hilary, in 1958
Performing in the Rocky Horror Show Live with Emma Bunton, 2015
“Thank you, sir,” Edmondson would

say, shaking his hand.
Sadistic detail: if the cane broke during
‘I LOVED RIK AND THOUGHT HE WAS VERY, VERY
the beating, the boy was invoiced for it. FUNNY. BUT HE WAS COMPLICATED TOO’
Adrian Edmondson, like so many
middle-class British children before him, The first ten chapters of Edmondson’s them than let them have the upper hand.”
had the bad good fortune of parents able to brilliant new autobiography, Berserker!, The most remarkable thing it does,
send him to boarding school (at Pocklington detail this cold, lonely, rather frightening however, is convey a little boy who,
in Yorkshire). Again, like so many girls and childhood using some kind of tonal despite everything that was happening to
boys before him, Edmondson departed for alloy that allows it to be simultaneously him, never seemed to suffer any loss of
school without a clue of what it would be absolutely heartbreaking and – as you ego or moments of self-doubt. There was
like, having already encountered the British would expect from one of Britain’s comedy a deep bedrock of rage to Edmondson,
establishment’s Heavy Propaganda Wing: gods – often barkingly funny. Against all even then, that allowed him to see how
Enid Blyton novels. the odds, he manages to turn a six-page wrong it all was. There’s a moment where
“It wasn’t like the books at all,” description of being brutally caned into a he describes the boys who get to go home
Edmondson says ruefully. “They don’t comedic tour de force; makes the moment in the holidays as “the non-abandoned
have many scared children in Enid Blyton where his mother essentially tries to kill boys”, and it’s both a martini-dry
novels, do they?” him – strangling him in a rage – read like quip and an absolute scream of astounded
COURTESY ADE EDMONDSON, GETTY IMAGES
His dispatching to boarding school an outtake from a Bugs Bunny cartoon; fury. “The non-abandoned boys.” It’s
had a second psychological twist: his other and even makes the fact that his parents devastatingly clear-eyed.
three siblings were not sent away. He was really don’t seem to like him land like It’s also the phrase that, when I repeat
the only one. As if to finally compound a joke: “We share too little time to really it back to him, makes him start crying less
this sense of intensely personal rejection connect. And because I’m learning to than two minutes into our chat.
from his parents, Edmondson rarely, if repress my emotions so effectively I don’t “Yeah, there was a group of us who
ever, went home in the school holidays. bloody care!” were abandoned. Generally the same two
Instead, he was shunted from distant “Well, that’s been the story of my life or three. There’s a really… Oh, it makes
relative to distant relative where it was – to make it all into a joke,” Edmondson me cry.”
clear he was a “huge imposition”. says. “You know, it’s better to laugh at And here Edmondson stops.

Edmondson as Daniel Cook in EastEnders, 2019
Whatever it is he’s remembered, it’s made our Definitely Maybe. We don’t just know
his face flush red. His hand makes an “I’m every word of every show; we know every
sorry” gesture, and then his soft blue eyes sound effect. At one point we all called
flood with tears. He tries again. each other “Eddie” after Eddie Hitler, the
“There’s a French and Saunders sketch character played by Edmondson. One
about two girls sent to [boarding] school. brother is still called Eddie – he gave his
That one always gets me.” wedding vows in the name of “Eddie”
Even as he cries, it strikes me that – and my sister is called “Weena”, short for
there’s something very beautiful about a “Edwina”, which we felt to be the suitable
man crying over a comedy sketch written female equivalent of “Eddie”.
by his wife. I know a lot of comedy As you can see, we really related
couples and a lot of the husbands are, to to Edmondson, on an emotional and
be blunt, quite dismissive of their wives’ existential level. But as for Rik Mayall
work and careers. Amid all Edmondson’s – well, we simply couldn’t believe he
devastated emotions, it’s also novel and ‘QUITE OFTEN I’D THINK, existed at all.
joyous to see this level of respect.
What is it about that sketch that’s
“WHAT’S THE POINT? I think it’s fair to say that no one has
ever enjoyed having a face more than
making you cry?
“Just how…” and there’s a long pause as
IT MIGHT BE EASIER Rik Mayall. He seemed to have six more
facial muscles than anyone else, and
he cries again. When he resumes talking,
his voice repeatedly breaks. “Just how
NOT TO BE HERE”’ a never-ending catalogue of expressions
he could ripple through at light speed.
they understand they’ve been abandoned, There’s a video online that sporadically
but they make excuses for their parents.” descriptions of someone trying to kill their goes viral and can be found under the
Well, that’s what kids do, isn’t it? The own child. self-explanatory title of, “Rik spots a
unthinkable thing for a child is the idea “Well, was she trying to kill me?” camera on him. Even when not on stage,
your parents might not love you. You have Edmondson asks, in the “reasonable” pub he’s ever the showman.”
to presume that everything they do is love. philosopher voice often used by Eddie Mayall is standing with an audience
That’s the horror of abuse. Hitler in Bottom. watching a speech when a fan begins
“They’re protecting their own c***s of Well, it’s definitely… death adjacent. filming him. As soon as Mayall sees the
parents, you know,” Edmondson cries out. “She gave up before she killed me,” camera he starts a one-man performance
His tearfulness and anguish are all Edmondson argues. – as in, the performance is for the one
the more affecting as, for the ten minutes I’d say that’s more a lack of commitment man filming him. His eyes become
we chatted before starting the interview, than a lack of murderousness. lascivious; he pretends to be aroused
Edmondson was impossibly warm, relaxed Edmondson looks thoughtful. by the speech, then deeply, parodically
and joyful company. He exudes the air of “Yeah,” he says, sighing. It’s almost as thoughtful. He cycles through “Leslie
your best friend’s older brother or the guy if he’s thinking about it for the first time. Phillips at his most fruity”; “A poet
who works in a second-hand record shop Eventually he sums up where he’s got to considering humanity’s beauty”; and then
in a small town – the one who ends up on the whole matter. ends with the Classic Rik Face: nostrils
giving you one of his mandolins as “I have “I mean, what a weird thing to do.” flared, upper teeth bared, eyes full of
too many in my collection”. absolute manic silliness.
It’s telling that he seems to have It would be tempting to make this As anyone who’s seen Mayall’s
found the most understanding take whole feature about Edmondson’s cameo as the priapic Lord Flashheart in
on his childhood from his wife – from childhood and adolescence: his description Blackadder II will know (“Am I pleased
the new family that he chose. Of his of it in Berserker! immediately soars to see you or did I just put a canoe in my
original family, Edmondson’s father is to the top of the pantheon of ultra-vivid pocket?”), whatever you put him in, he
dead and he is reconciled to the great Seventies/Eighties memoirs. The cold, was like a comedy bomb going off over
fact of their relationship: “I just… don’t The Muppets, the Archies, the drinking, and over again. When the scene finished
think he liked me.” the kissing, the violence. – with Mayall’s co-actors including Stephen
His mother, meanwhile, is 93 and their In one sentence Edmondson recalls Fry, Miranda Richardson and Rowan
relationship is more… complex. Whenever that a child’s arse, when repeatedly beaten Atkinson reduced to outperformed rubble
Edmondson has tried to raise the subject with a cane, bears marks “that look exactly – Mayall apparently asked, “Did I win?”
of his childhood – and her motherhood like the British Rail logo”. Yes. He won.
– her reply is always a rather tetchy, “Oh, But for someone of my generation, the It must be quite difficult, knowing and
don’t bring that up again!” reason we’ll buy Berserker! – and we will, working with a bomb. Since Mayall’s death
“From her, there’s just a constant in our tens of thousands – is because the from a heart attack in 2014, at the age of
dislike of everything I do,” Edmondson Nineties sitcom Bottom was our defining 56, a borderline cult has sprung up about
says with a sighing honesty. “You know? comedy show, and at the centre of it him. There’s an almost hysterical sense
When I was in War & Peace – War & sits the white-hot anarchic Big Bang of of loss; endless cries of, “Think what he
Peace! – I asked her what she thought Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall. could have gone on to do.”
and she said, ‘Oh, there were too Despite being a teenage music One of the most deft and honest things
many people.’ ” journalist I never worshipped any rock Edmondson does in Berserker! is explain
You deal with the incident where she stars. Mainly because, even at the age of what it was really like loving and working
tries to kill you very lightly. 16, I already knew the big secret about with Mayall. His description of first
“Well, it seems a very funny thing to rock stars: they’re all quite boring. meeting him – on a bus, in Manchester,
do. Throttle someone. It’s kind of…” Instead, the nearest I got to a Mick and where they were both at uni – reads like
Cartoony? Keef, or Liam and Noel, was Rik and Ade. the meet-cute in a rom-com. Mayall does
“Yeah, like, you know – tongue sticking It wasn’t just me: all seven of my siblings some ostentatious business while lighting
out. Wile E Coyote.” adored them. And Bottom was our his cigarette – “This is how I know this
BBC
It’s definitely one of the funnier Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, bloke is an idiot” – but then “blows six

perfect smoke rings – thick circles of Mayall cuts whole sections of carefully him and found him very, very funny.
rippling, tightly configured smoke, all written jokes “just in order to get to the But I don’t think many people knew what
perfectly equidistant from each other”. next fight”. he was. When I was writing [the book],
Edmondson is envious but fascinated. In one heartbreaking scene I’d keep asking myself, ‘What would he
Mayall’s ridiculousness is so extreme Edmondson sees that Mayall is, silently, think of me, saying that?’ Because he
it becomes cool again. And so begins counting on his fingers how many was complicated, and he wanted to be
their relationship. jokes he gets and how many Edmondson complicated, and I think doing his rock-
All the descriptions of their working gets – and then argues that his partner star thing was hard work, you know? It
methods, their shared references (they is “winning”. was relentless. Him having to play Rik
both insist on being home from uni in “I thought they were our jokes,” Mayall all the time. And he was incredibly
time to watch The Muppet Show together), Edmondson says. “We’re a double act.” insecure. He really worried no one would
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and then their dizzying rise to fame Mayall keeps doing it. “And I realise remember him. Particularly after he hurt
are just delightful for Rik and Ade fans, our double act is over. There’s no trust his head. He got strangely emotional. He’d
or any students of comedy. Edmondson any more.” cry a lot. And in a worrying way.”
interweaves genuinely fascinating Mayall and Edmondson remain friends, All through Berserker!, Edmondson
masterclasses on physical comedy, but Mayall cannot believe Edmondson has makes constant connections between his
clowning and comedy partnerships in truly quit the partnership. Every time they and Mayall’s performance styles: joyful,
between accounts of them being mobbed meet for lunch he presumes Edmondson yes, but also incredibly physical and
on the streets by screaming fans. The is going to apologise and return to the dangerous – more than once they end up
whole thing reads like a joyous caper. fold. “It’s like Groundhog Day.” on stage covered in blood after stunts go
Until Rik’s accident. In 1998, Mayall Anyone reading Berserker! can see wrong – and either the insecurities or rage
is thrown off a quad bike on his farm in why Edmondson couldn’t have gone back that drove them.
Devon and is put in an induced coma. – there was no fold any more. A lot of In one of the most striking parts of the
Although he physically recovers, the brain what the world loved about Rik Mayall book, Edmondson recalls the day in 2007
damage from the accident disrupts his had already left the building. when he realised that “thinking about how
finely tuned balance of knowing swagger. Humanely, Berserker! finally puts to I’d kill myself almost every day” wasn’t
Mayall starts drinking; he lets fame rest any lingering fan sorrow/outrage normal. This was after he mentioned it,
go to his head. (“Everywhere we went, that Rik and Ade never worked together almost casually, to Jennifer Saunders and
he’d put on a performance. It was again: as Edmondson explains, a vital part she suggested he might just need therapy.
exhausting.”) Onstage during the Bottom of Mayall’s magic simply disappeared in “It never occurred to me that other
live tour, he starts breaking character that accident. people didn’t,” he says now, very calmly.
– “He becomes Rik the Sex God… but the “How does it come across?” “It wasn’t every minute of every day
lines are written for the exact opposite. Edmondson asks, clearly concerned. but quite often I’d think, ‘Oh, what’s the
We start getting diminishing laughs.” “I hope it comes across that I loved point? It might just be easier not to be
here.’ It felt normal. One way out of not around to everyone and said, ‘Well done,
feeling this feeling would be… not to have HIS VIBE IS OF SOMEONE everyone!’ I blubbed then. Just in floods.”
any feelings any more.”
It was “the mess of disappointing
WHO WAS SHIPWRECKED And thinking about it, Edmondson
starts crying once more.
people” Edmondson couldn’t stand:
“Arguments where you don’t know how
FOR MANY YEARS ONLY Why are you crying this time, I ask.
Edmondson thinks.
to express yourself.”
Clearly, the complete emotional
TO WASH UP IN PARADISE “Because… because little things make
me happy now?”
shutdown he’d had to perform to survive Maybe. But also, I suspect, because that
his childhood was taking its toll. In fairly (“If you want to know a tough crowd for cheerful and generous grandson proves
quick succession, Edmondson went into comedy, try six-year-old boys.”) that Edmondson’s ultimate life work has
therapy and then quit comedy. “The relief After winning Celebrity MasterChef been successful. Among all the awards,
of realising I didn’t need to do it any more in 2013 he’s become a passionate cook fans, pratfalls and hitting someone with
– that I didn’t want to do it any more – (“It’s how I show my love”). He splits a frying pan 48 times until it becomes
was just… elation. Imagine not having to his time between houses in London and levitatingly absurd, he has broken his
prove you’re funny any more. Brilliant.” Devon (“I’m very good at pinching out family’s inheritance of emotional repression
Although, or perhaps because, our tomato plants at the right time”), and and disapproval and set himself, and his
conversation has been so focused on pain, life seems to consist of gigging with his descendants, free. This, ultimately, is why
abuse, suicidal thoughts and death, it’s band, the Bad Shepherds, now on hiatus, Adrian Edmondson doesn’t feel the need
paradoxically very clear that, for some the odd straight acting role and lots of to clown on stage any more.
time now, Adrian Edmondson has been long, boozy lunches with friends. As he says in the book, of his and
uncomplicatedly happy. He has the most If he, or Rik Mayall, ever wondered if Mayall’s early work, “It’s the pain we find
enlightened, childlike contentment of they would be remembered, the fact that funny. The more it hurts, the funnier it is.”
almost anyone I’ve met: his vibe is that of in the past year both the prime minister And it doesn’t hurt any more. n
someone who was shipwrecked at sea for of Australia and Mark Hamill (“Actual
many, many years only finally to wash up Luke Skywalker!”) asked for selfies Berserker!: An Autobiography by
in absolute paradise. confirms that what they did has made Adrian Edmondson (Pan Macmillan, £22)
His 38-year marriage to Jennifer them comedy immortals. is published on Thursday. To order a
Saunders is famously one of the most “What do I want to do now?” he copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK
stable and, not unrelatedly, private muses. “I’d love to set up a morris-dancing standard P&P on orders over £25. Special
celebrity partnerships – there is a grand troupe. Bell-ringing. I’d love to join discount available for Times+ members
total of three anecdotes about her in a church choir. My grandson was in
the book, all of which he’s told before. a regatta last week down in Devon and IN THE TIMES ON MONDAY
He also dotes on five grandchildren. his boat came second, but he turned Exclusive extract from Berserker!
aica
With Blanche Blackwell in Jam
‘HE HAD A GREAT
REPUTATION AS
A RAVISHER OF
VIRGINS IN TAXIS’
In real life, the creator of James Bond,

Ian Fleming, was as much a lothario as
his fictional superspy. In a new biography,
Nicholas Shakespeare uncovers the
writer’s string of affairs and how his
misogynist attitude stemmed from a
Ian Fleming in his study,
1958. Above, from left: Sean
Connery and Ursula Andress
toxic relationship with his mother
in Dr No; Daniel Craig and
Eva Green in Casino Royale
With his mother, Eve, 1957
Fleming in Leysin, Switzerland, 1931 His first great love, Monique Panchaud de Bottens
‘James Bond
embodies Ian’s
revenge for the
terrible hurt’
T
he American journalist Monique Panchaud de Bottens was to the hero of his books, was his American
Dorothy Thompson sighed 19 and came from Vich, a village 20 miles friend Ernie Cuneo’s conclusion. “It seems
after meeting the young from Geneva. “She was slim, dark-haired, to me that James Bond embodies Ian’s
Ian Fleming in Kitzbühel: with blue eyes and a strong sense of revenge for the terrible hurt; Bond
“The moulding of those humour, not shy, a lady of culture who tumbles them into bed, leaves them with
cheekbones.” His nose had read many books and bought paintings, the memory of a savage ravishment which,
been broken in a head-on and was very difficult to live with,” says ye gods, leaves them pining for Bond and
collision on the soccer pitch her only child, Charles de Mestral, who forever bereft without him.”
with Henry Douglas-Home, still lives on the family estate.
brother of Alec, and repaired Monique swept Fleming off his feet. Ian never talked of his girlfriends. Others
with a metal plate, giving him the look of They were engaged for three years, for told stories which flared in the retelling.
a light-heavyweight boxer. His future wife, half of which time Fleming was working John Hayward, who edited Ian’s antiquarian
© CHARLES DE MESTRAL, COURTESY OF LILLY LIBRARY/INDIANA UNIVERSITY, ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES
Ann, would later ascribe his melancholy to at Reuters. In winter, they went skiing in quarterly, the Book Collector, heard
“the most terrible migraines” he suffered Leysin. Monique took a photograph of Ian rumours that Ian had “a great reputation
from. “Inside a hot room, the brass used on their hotel balcony. He stares at her as a ravisher of virgins in taxis”. Roald
PREVIOUS SPREAD: THE SUNDAY TIMES, GETTY IMAGES, REX FEATURES. THIS SPREAD:
to expand and cause the headaches.” with an intense expression, black-lensed Dahl explained Ian’s discretion otherwise,
His vitality was singled out by Noël ski goggles strapped over his tanned having shared one of his postwar partners
Coward. “Half of his world was fantasy. forehead. Like Bond with Vesper Lynd in in Washington. “This was because they
That was what made him such an Casino Royale, Fleming was “excited by her were almost always married.”
enchanting person to be with.” Coward beauty and intrigued by her composure”. A procession of women moved to
never disguised his feelings for Fleming. In September 1931, Fleming wrenched occupy the vacancy left by Fleming’s
“I loved him and he loved me. There was himself back to London to sit the Foreign Swiss fiancée. His journalist friend Mary
nothing physical about it. I’m not saying Office exams over ten days in Burlington Pakenham once tried to list his conquests
a little boozle or two wouldn’t have done Gardens. When he failed them, Ian’s and gave up. Even so, her partial tally
Ian the world of good. I always felt that mother blamed Monique and, over the next gives the flavour. A deb called Olivia; an
he was almost suspiciously overemphatic 18 months, was unrelenting in her pressure American girl who “acceded to his lust”
about sex. Of course, he loved f***ing on Ian to abandon the idea of marrying in his mother’s Rolls-Royce – “after which
women. It was as simple as that and he her. This was the most serious conflict with he never bothered with her again”; a
was quite unscrupulous about it.” her son to date. She issued an ultimatum. marquess’s chubby daughter known as
A vigilant overseer of her sons’ love As reported to Fleming’s friend Lisl Jokl, the “galloping bedstead”; the wife of the
lives, Fleming’s mother, Eve, stamped on it boiled down to money. “It was a straight monocled Austrian tenor Richard Tauber;
any blossoming romance. But, at the age choice, the girl or his allowance.” Finally, a mink-coated American girl called
of 22, Ian was ready to have his spirit in October 1933, Ian “flung his hand in”. Phyllis, whom he drove with his friend
liberated by a headstrong Swiss girl “of Fleming’s first adult love would always from childhood Ivar Bryce to Kitzbühel
considerable character”. be a taboo. The break-up had bound him and then dumped on the way; a bubble

On the set of 1964’s
Goldfinger with Sean Connery
and Shirley Eaton
dancer named Storm; a divorcée in Capri. made him renounce Monique. “He was Stanyhurst’s, which features a woman like
Yet another married woman was the Irish always looking for his mother in women,” Eve, “my sainted and peculiarly detestable
wife of his Geneva friend Martin Hill, who said his friend Morris Cargill, “and then mother”, and a plot redolent of Ian’s
had invited Fleming to be best man at their hating them when they gave in.” situation: the story of a young man who
wedding. He was a good lover, she said, Back in his late twenties, with confuses a woman with the dead girl he
though selfish. “He had no compunction. 22b Ebury Street as his base, Fleming had loved. This was the narrative of Ian’s
If he saw someone, he thought he must went after women in the alternately relationships in the mid-Thirties with
have her. I don’t flatter myself; he wanted determined and careless manner with Edith Morpurgo and Muriel Wright. He
somebody and it happened to be me.” which he collected first editions: the hunt, had met both girlfriends in Kitzbühel.
Pakenham understood Fleming’s cut- the acquisition, the shelving. One book Edith spoke English with a Chicago
and-run conduct as his ugly response to he read from start to finish was Hugh accent, and represented one of the
Eve Fleming and the brutal way she had Edwards’s 1933 novel All Night at Mrs forthright young women Ian found hard
to resist. Their affair was serious enough
With Ursula Andress during the filming of Dr No, 1962 for Edith to move to London at the
end of 1934, where Fleming put her up
in the studio of his Reuters colleague,
Alaric Jacob. Handwritten in German,
Fleming’s letters illustrate the gamut
of passions he provoked.
In one, he sketches her without clothes
on and writes, “Wo ich Dich küssen will”
– “Where I want to kiss you” – marking
crosses on her lips, breasts and between
her legs. In a longer letter, Ian reveals more
risqué sexual preferences. “If I were to say
‘I love you’ you would only quarrel with
me, and then I would have to spank you,
and you would cry and that I don’t want.
I only want you to be happy, but I also
want to hurt you because you deserve it
and to tame you like a little wild animal.”
These outpourings established a
formula Ian repeated in letters to future
Continues on page 43

Eat!
4-P LLOU
PU
AG T
E
Solo suppers
by Hannah Evans
THE
FOODIE’S
FAVOURITE
MEALS
FOR ONE
PHOTOGRAPHS Romas Foord
U
nlike my editor, Tony Turnbull, who rarely eats on his BAKED SALMON
own, I cook for myself most days of the week. Hold the
tears – I am not a hermit and I am not looking for your Salmon is your best friend if you’re cooking solo. This is one of
sympathy. I just like being in charge of what I cook and my favourite things to eat it if I don’t have much time – a cheat’s
when I eat it during the week. My priorities are comfort, teriyaki. Serve with noodles if you don’t have brown rice.
simplicity and flavour. Importantly, delicious does not have to
mean a shopping basket full of ingredients. These are the six • 1 tbsp honey
meals I have on rotation at the moment. • 1 tbsp soy sauce
Hannah Evans, deputy food editor • 1 tbsp mirin or sherry vinegar
• 1 tbsp finely grated ginger
TOMATO AND GOAT’S CHEESE FRITTATA • 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 salmon fillet
You can turn anything into a frittata if you have eggs and • 1 pak choi, sliced into quarters
potatoes. I always have tomatoes and cheese in my fridge. • Brown rice, to serve
• 2 medium free-range eggs 1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas 6. Mix together the honey,
• 1 spring onion, chopped soy sauce, mirin, ginger and 1 tsp sesame oil.
• 50g baby new potatoes, boiled and sliced into rounds 2. Put the salmon in a shallow dish lined with baking paper and
• 50g cherry tomatoes, halved pour over the honey and soy mix. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
• 50g goat’s cheese, crumbled 3. Heat 1 tsp sesame oil in a wok and add the pak choi. Toss, then
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper put the lid on. Reduce the heat and cook for 5 minutes, stirring
• Olive oil occasionally, until the leaves have wilted.
4. Spoon the juices over the salmon. Serve with the pak choi
1. In a bowl, beat the eggs, add the spring onion, potatoes, and brown rice.
tomatoes and half the cheese. Season to taste.
2. In a small pan over a medium heat, add a glug of olive oil.
Pour in the egg mix. Cook until the bottom has set, then put
under a preheated grill for 5-7 minutes, until the middle is firm. For Tony Turnbull’s favourite recipes for one, go to thetimes.co.uk
Let it cool in the pan, then crumble the rest of the cheese on top.

Eat! TABLE FOR ONE
TAHINI NOODLES BUTTER BEAN PUTTANESCA
A chef friend once told me that tahini turns any ingredients Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with
into a meal. This recipe demonstrates that perfectly. Tahini gives butter beans. My favourite ones are from the Bold Bean Co
a depth of flavour that you would usually get from a broth that and they are so good I eat them from the jar. Any that are left
has been cooked for hours. You can use pak choi instead of go into this puttanesca.
spinach, if you like, and egg noodles if you can’t find udon.
I love chilli flake oil. • Olive oil
• 2-3 tinned anchovy fillets, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp chilli flake oil • 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbsp tahini • ½ tsp chilli flakes
• 100g udon noodles • 100g tinned plum tomatoes
• Large handful of spinach • 200g butter beans
• 1 soft boiled egg, sliced in half • 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp sesame seeds • 1 tsp capers
• Chilli flakes, to serve • Large handful of Kalamata olives
• Small handful of parsley, roughly chopped
1. Mix together the chilli flake oil and tahini in a small bowl. • Salt and freshly ground pepper
2. Cook the udon noodles according to the packet instructions.
In the final minute add the spinach. Remove from the heat. 1. Put a drizzle of olive oil, the anchovies, garlic and chilli flakes
3. Pour the spicy tahini mix into a bowl. Add a few ladles of in a medium pan over a medium heat. Cook until the anchovies
the water you cooked the noodles and spinach in, then mix. begin to dissolve.
Add the noodles and spinach. Top with the egg and sesame seeds 2. Add the tomatoes and butter beans. Stir using the back of
and serve with a sprinkle of chilli flakes. a fork to break up the tomatoes. Add the puree. Leave to simmer
for 10 minutes until you have a thick sauce.
3. Add the capers, olives and parsley, saving some to garnish.
Season to taste and serve.

Eat! TABLE FOR ONE
CHEESE-STUFFED JACKET POTATO WITH GREEN SAUCE SPICY GARLIC PASTA

You are never above a baked potato and don’t let any food snob I run a lot in my spare time. This is my go-to meal before
tell you otherwise. This is a slightly more sophisticated version a big run or a race, but I love it so much I have it much more
of a cheesy jacket potato served with an easy green sauce, often. It looks simple, but has lots of hidden flavours.
which you can make with parsley or dill. I like feta cheese,
but goat’s is also great. • Olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1 baking potato • 75g rigatoni (or any pasta)
• Small handful of parsley, roughly chopped • Small knob of butter
• Juice of half a lemon • 1cm knob of fresh ginger, finely grated
• Pinch of salt • 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp olive oil • 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp capers, roughly chopped • ½ tsp chilli flakes
• Small handful of chives, finely chopped • 1 spring onion, finely chopped
• ½ tsp chilli flakes • Small handful of parsley, finely chopped
• 80g feta or goat’s cheese, crumbled • 60g parmesan, grated
• 50ml milk • Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp chilli flake oil
1. Bake the potato in an oven preheated to
180C fan/gas 6 for 1 hour. 1. Heat a glug of olive oil in a pan over a medium heat. Fry the
2. Meanwhile, mix together the parsley and lemon juice with garlic. When crisp, drain and set aside.
a pinch of salt. Stir in the oil. 2. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
3. In another bowl, mix together the capers, chives and 3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium pan. Add the ginger
chilli flakes. Add the cheese. and cook for a few minutes. Add the tomato puree, soy sauce
4. When the potato is baked, slice in half. Spoon the flesh into and chilli flakes and stir.
a bowl and put the skins back in the oven to crisp up. Mix the 4. When the pasta is al dente, drain and add to the pan. Add the
potato with the milk and cheese mix. Refill the skins and bake for spring onion, parsley and parmesan, then season to taste. Drizzle
5 minutes until the tops are golden. Serve with the green sauce. with chilli flake oil and top with the crispy garlic. n

Ian Fleming Continued from page 35
Roger Moore in his first
Bond film, Live and Let Die,
with Jane Seymour
Eva Green and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale
‘We had the image of rather a nasty, selfish, cruel man’
With Muriel Wright, who came close to being his wife Maud Russell with her husband, Gilbert
girlfriends: the teasing tone, the treasure displeasure on Fleming, Muriel’s eldest In 1934, Maud and her husband,
map of buried kisses, the housemasterly brother “Fitz was sent by grandpapa and Gilbert, bought Mottisfont Abbey in
threat of corporal punishment, the grandma to horse-whip him.” He was out Hampshire, set in 2,000 acres. They
aggrieved denouement. Edith’s great- at the time. transformed it into what Norwich called
nephew says, “She told me she was always Ian’s reluctance to commit defined his “the most desirable country house in
quarrelling with him. He wanted to marry private life. Once again, his mother was England”. Maud’s weekend guests were
her and live in London, and she didn’t the stumbling block. She watched him heady company for a bachelor in his mid-
want to. He was very jealous.” dance with Muriel at one of her parties, twenties. Fleming argued with Randolph
In the summer of 1935, Fleming started and was overheard lamenting that it only Churchill “like some fair gorilla” and
a new affair in Kitzbühel with Muriel. remained for Ian to marry a barmaid. discussed art with Cecil Beaton.
Fleming knew her as “Moo” or “Honeytop” Maud’s granddaughter Emily believes it
after her mop of blonde curly hair. She Maud Russell was 17 years Fleming’s likely that Ian and Maud became lovers in
was 26 years old, a competitive polo senior and in her mid-forties when the Thirties. The clues: a small envelope
player, and worked as a fashion model their affair began. On June 21, 1945, containing a lock of black hair, with “I.’s”
REX FEATURES, ALAMY, COURTESY OF MAUD RUSSELL ESTATE
in Knightsbridge. The holiday romance she wrote in her diary of Ian: “He is my in pencil on the envelope; a report of
developed into one of the most enduring oldest friend… the one person I could Maud’s lady’s maid Adele once finding
relationships in Fleming’s life, despite his say anything to – and often do.” them in bed together; and a reference in
infidelities and wretched treatment of her. The daughter of a wealthy German- Maud’s diary to Ian seeing “my bedroom”.
Merry, beguiling, dotty, Moo was a Jewish stockbroker and racehorse owner, Russell was not only privy to Fleming’s
rebellious aristocrat from Derbyshire, she had been painted by John Sargent and love life as well as a continuing part of it;
who grew up at Yeldersley Hall, near William Nicholson, and twice in charcoal she was involved intimately in his career.
Ashbourne. Her parents perceived by Henri Matisse, whom she found boring. Six years after facilitating his passage
Fleming in the same dubious stripes She was not at first glance remarkable: from Reuters to her husband’s merchant
as Lady Chatterley’s gamekeeper. quiet country clothes, immaculate dark bank, Cull & Company, she and Gilbert
“We had the image of rather a nasty hair and, in the words of the historian manoeuvred Fleming from his dead-end
man, frightfully selfish and cruel,” says John Julius Norwich, “a soft, gentle, slightly stockbroker’s job into Naval Intelligence.
her niece Cathryn. According to her breathless voice, with a tendency to repeat Fleming’s bachelor status was an advantage
niece Tamara, to impress their collective what you had just said before answering”. at work. Bond reflected in Moonraker

With his wife, Ann, at Goldeneye, their home in Jamaica
that for men in the Secret Service, “marriage
and children and a home were out of the
question if they were to be of any use ‘in
the field’ ”. Bond was married to “M” as
Fleming was wedded to Rear Admiral John
Godfrey, director of Naval Intelligence. Still,
it did not mean he was correspondingly
faithful in his private life.
If Fleming never did “sleep with a
problem”, as one colleague alleged, this was
because he was otherwise engaged. He had
employed Maud in the propaganda section,
while Muriel was taken on as an Admiralty
dispatch rider and swiftly became the
department’s “enchanting and beloved
mascot”. Both continued to be his lovers.
Muriel was especially devoted,
Fleming’s boyhood friend Selby Armitage
noticed. “Rather a deadpan, disorganised,
beatnik sort of girl. Used to arrive for a
weekend without any nightclothes and
forget her toothbrush.”
Maud was older, more cerebral, more
experienced, and recently widowed. ‘‘He
talked about marrying me,” she wrote in
her diary. “I said, ‘No, our ages make it
Ann said, ‘I love cooking for you
impossible…’ If he were 10 years older I
would marry him, but it’s no use a woman
and being whipped by you’
of 52 trying to keep pace with a man of 36.”
Like his admirer Philip Larkin, who told she and Ian were going out to dinner letters which nearly make me sick with
ran three women at once, Fleming also and he’d come to fetch her and they were wanting you and wanting to squeeze you
began sleeping with Ann O’Neill. “She was talking in the sitting room, and an air until you pant. They make me want to
funny and vital,” recalls Antonia Fraser. raid started and she ran onto the landing pull your hair and kiss the corners of your
“But her true interest was herself.” because her horrible dog might have been mouth and lick your breasts and bite you
frightened, and a bit of metal killed her and lick you and beat you and kiss you all
For three years, Muriel zigzagged through instantly. That’s what we were told.” over.” Ann, after they had spent a week
the ruined streets, carrying urgent The following week, Fleming went to together at Shane’s Castle in Ireland: “I
decrypts to Bletchley. Ted Merrett, who dinner with Maud, “first time since Muriel love cooking for you and sleeping beside
worked with Fleming in the Admiralty Wright’s cruel death. We didn’t talk about you and being whipped by you and I don’t
during the war, thought that she was the her at all. I left it to him if he wanted to, think I have ever loved like this before.”
bravest person he knew, and he resented but he said nothing and I didn’t probe. Fleming was more petrified than Ann
Fleming’s behaviour. “He treated her very, But he talked about his health and that his of exposure. He pleaded for her to stop
very badly. She’d do any chore for him.” fingers trembled. We talked about things “treating my letters like cracker mottoes”
When Fleming wanted his Morland like that – hair, health, skin, twitching, and carelessly leaving them around
Specials collected, the handmade Turkish fingers trembling. He’s going to Scotland “among your brassieres or your pants”.
cigarettes with three gold bands round for a week’s getaway.” He did not say he He even made sure not to reveal her first
them to represent the braid on his was going to Muriel’s funeral. name when he booked Ann into a double
lieutenant commander’s sleeve, Muriel She was buried at Osmaston, one mile berth on a train from Paris. “I have said it
would speed off to his tobacconist at from Yeldersley. Fleming did not stay is Amaryllis! Please bring a heavy veil.”
83 Grosvenor Street. “Also sexually, of around after the service. Before he returned to Jamaica in
course, she was absolutely available for January 1947 to take possession of
him. She was a very sweet girl, she was On October 22, 1946, Ann landed with her Goldeneye, the house Maud had paid for,
compliant, she was motherly… And this new husband, Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, he told her about how “his light-hearted
wasn’t really what Ian wanted, or part of Lord Rothermere, in New York on the spasmodic affair with Ann Rothermere
Ian wanted. He found it very difficult to Queen Elizabeth’s maiden trip. As soon began to change its character”. Maud’s
love consistently anybody.” as Esmond, the chairman of Associated reaction? “Poor I.! He knows he is in great
Fleming had taken all this while to Newspapers, departed for Canada “to see danger & that they will both end in a
forget Monique, but in the spring of 1944 about obtaining newsprint”, “Ian arrived at hideous mess if he isn’t careful. He said
he decided to travel up to Yeldersley to ask our suite in the Plaza Hotel with a small to me: ‘You never tell me the truth about
Henry Wright’s permission to marry his briefcase and said, ‘I’m moving in.’ I was myself. You never give me enough good
daughter. Muriel’s niece Tamara picks up appalled. Said I was now so rich and grand advice.’ To which I said in warning &
the story. “One afternoon, we heard the that a lady’s maid arrived each morning. sepulchral tones, ‘I will this time; Listen
grown-ups talking. One of the aunts said, ‘Get rid of the bitch,’ said Ian. So I did & remember. Whatever you do, don’t
‘You know Ian’s going to see Father to though I was alarmed and frightened of marry. It would be a squalid, a hopeless,
ask for her hand in marriage?’ My mother running such extreme risks. But in the end a disastrous affair.’ ”
said, ‘Oh, no. I hope Father says no. He’s I nearly always gave in to Ian.” Maud understood Fleming too well.
GETTY IMAGES
too conceited and selfish to make her a Once the lovers had declared
good husband.’ [Muriel] died the next week. themselves, they were infatuated. Fleming, At the start of her romance with Fleming
We were horrified at her death. We were from Jamaica: “You write sweet sweet ten years earlier, Ann had promised

‘I like all my wife’s lovers,’ Ian Fleming wrote to a friend
him “it would be impossible for me to be recited some DH Lawrence poems. She remembers how, “Ann would talk about
unfaithful to you”. That became less the said that she was not accustomed in such going to bed with the philosopher Marcus
case for Fleming after their son, Caspar, circumstances to have poetry read to her. Dick. ‘I only like it if it’s almost rape.’ ”
was born [in August 1952, five months After Paris, Gaitskell found a place Fleming had told Ann on the eve of
after they married.] where they could discreetly meet: the her marriage to Esmond, “I want to leave
Ann explained her affair with Bolton Street flat of his best friend, the some kind of mark on you.” It worked
the leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Labour politician Tony Crosland. Ann both ways, to judge from their letters.
Gaitskell, as a consequence of Fleming’s soon became friends with Crosland, telling Fleming: “You have made bruises on
neglect. In political terms they were her niece Sara, “On Tuesday afternoons my arms and shoulders” – apparently
opposites. Gaitskell’s solicitor, Arnold when I slept with Hugh Gaitskell, I tried administered by a hairbrush or sometimes
Goodman, was one of many who to pretend it was Tony Crosland because a “raw cowhide”. Ann: “I must be perverse
positioned Ann “slightly to the right he’s so much more attractive.” and masochistic to want you to whip me
of Attila the Hun”, but Gaitskell appealed Before the end, though, Ann had begun and contradict me, particularly as you are
to the contrariness in her nature. loving Gaitskell. After he died, on January always wrong about everything.” Fleming,
“Leaderkins”, as she called him, was a 18, 1963, following a kidney operation, threatening 20 strokes after Ann flirted
Bond devotee. He wrote to thank Fleming Ann wrote to her friend Diana Cooper, with an Old Dunfordian in New York:
for a signed copy of the latest Bond: “As “I am profoundly unhappy, but Thank “10 on each buttock because I am the
you know, I am a confirmed Fleming fan God he knew I loved him.” chosen instrument of the Holy Man to
– or should it be addict? The combination How did Fleming feel? In public, at whip some of the devil out of you.”
of sex, violence, alcohol and – at intervals least, he affected not to take the Gaitskell
– good food and nice clothes is, to one “crush” on Ann too seriously. “Annie was The affair Fleming began in Jamaica in
who leads such a circumscribed life as much lowered by Hugh’s death,” he wrote 1957 had a different sort of heat. It was
I do, irresistible.” Ann provided Gaitskell’s to Robert Harling. “I was too. I like all my the first time since his marriage that he
passport into that world. wife’s lovers and, indeed, husbands.” had been in Jamaica without Ann, who
In mid-November 1956, Gaitskell was had stayed in England to take a health
in Paris as a delegate at a Nato conference. With Ann, Fleming had found a willing treatment for an addiction to barbiturates.
Ann joined him later. They danced in accomplice, someone he could treat as “Don’t use up your health and take to pills
Montmartre and went back to the Hôtel Bond treats Vesper Lynd. She admitted to again too soon,” he begged.
Beaujolais. The married Gaitskell was not sharing the submissiveness of Bond girls “A very rich widow with a toothy
an experienced seducer. Yet neither was like Vivienne in The Spy Who Loved Me. smile and Joyce Grenfell’s voice” was how
he disgusted by her scars. Afterwards, he Rachel Toynbee, a girlfriend of Caspar’s, Blanche Blackwell struck John Gielgud.
It was her laughter “like the sound of Ann’s friends sought to downplay Fleming had asked Blanche to tend
water tinkling over a waterfall” that had Blanche’s importance but both of Ann’s the garden at Goldeneye in his absence.
captivated Errol Flynn, who proposed to children became very fond of her. “There “All your news about the hedge and the
Blanche: she rejected him because of his was something winning about her,” says flowers is very exciting,” he wrote to her
drinking. This was also her attraction for Fionn. “She wasn’t remotely intellectual; in October 1961. “You are an angel to have
Fleming, she felt. “He was so depressed, she was gutsy for life. Mama could be taken so much trouble and I am longing
and I felt that really my principal friendship quite spiky. Blanche was calming and to see it all.” In her most violent response
for him was to make him laugh or to forget soothing. I know exactly what he saw. to Blanche, Ann ripped out the new
anything that made him so sad.” She was comfort food. What Blanche tried shrubs she had planted and hurled them
Blanche was 44, a well-connected local to do was to keep Ian happy when his over the cliff.
divorcee. She described their first night health and his marriage were in decline.” Following Fleming’s death, Rebecca
together to a French friend, Jean-Noël Yet to see Blanche as a maternal West wrote to his secretary, Beryl Griffie-
Liaut. “Ian was a little nervous undressing substitute like Kissy Suzuki in You Only Live Williams, to say that her husband had a
and then he spilled some coins from his Twice is also to miscast her, says her son new secretary from Jamaica, whose sister-
trouser pocket onto the floor. ‘Why do Chris. “My mother was like a tomboy.” Her in-law, Blanche Blackwell, “believes herself
you want to pay before you’ve tasted the father had brought her up like a son. He to be the one woman Ian Fleming ever
merchandise?’ she asked him. He burst taught her cricket. She said, “I was treated loved! There must be enough of them to
out laughing, relaxed, and everything went like a man, really.” She cherished her fill the Albert Hall bless his heart!” n
wonderfully well. In memory, she picked up independence as much as Fleming.
the coins and made them into a bracelet.” Robert Harling saw in Blanche the Extracted from Ian Fleming: the Complete
That Fleming might not have lost sweetness of Muriel Wright. “Fleming Man by Nicholas Shakespeare (Harvill
any of his taste for spanking, Blanche had undoubtedly discovered in Blanche Secker, £30), published on October 5. To
confirmed to Liaut. He says, “I remember a Blackwell much of the warmth and delight order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or
conversation about sexuality. As you know, in his company that he had known with call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P
Fleming liked to be whipped. Blanche, who Muriel and what he had experienced on orders over £25. Special discount
didn’t really appreciate this practice, was so rarely in his life with Ann. Probably available for Times+ members
very pragmatic, and she said to me, ‘You more. This time round he was more
understand, if the man you love asks you, appreciative. In her company, Fleming
you have to do it, even if you don’t like it. seemed far more relaxed than I had IN THE TIMES ON MONDAY
I did it as often as he wanted, and I can tell known him at any time.”
you that he was begging for mercy!’” Ann was an unforgiving rival, though. Uncovered: Ian Fleming’s
This may explain Fleming’s inscription She pointed out Bolt, Blanche’s house, as secret missions in the Second
in her copy of Dr No, “In Exchange for she drove back from Port Maria with a World War
much slave-time!” friend. “You may look. I cannot.”
How I got glitterball-body ready
(and lost almost two stone)
Newsreader Krishnan Guru-Murthy
was nearly 15 stone, a chocolate addict
with a genetic heart problem and gout.
Now, with help from a famous
Austrian clinic and a personal trainer,
he’s fit for Strictly
PORTRAITS Grey Hutton
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, 53, with

personal trainer Sandy Gretton
‘S
o that’s why you lost all Indian state of Kerala for a week five
that weight,” said one of my I’d quietly given up on years ago to rest and recharge, she had
Channel 4 News colleagues
as soon as I revealed I was exercise. I couldn’t dramatically changed her life. She was
running half-marathons, doing yoga,
doing Strictly Come Dancing.
It’s an accusation I’ve heard
remember what it’s joining a rowing club and matching
or beating women half her age on the
quite frequently recently.
In fact, Strictly wasn’t the
like to feel attractive machines. She has the figure of her
20-year-old self and is somehow in that
reason I lost the weight, but logic-defying state I never really thought
losing it was a big reason the ways you could possibly die, a sudden possible at our age: she’s getting stronger,
I finally said yes to the show. I shed 1st 10lb heart failure is really quite a good way to faster and fitter than she’s ever been. The
in April and May and have spent months go.” Besides, it was the perfect excuse for truth is I was a bit annoyed about it, a bit
since pretending not to feel hungry all the not doing much exercise. “I must keep jealous and, don’t tell her, a bit insecure.
time. When I agreed, somewhat nervously, my heart rate down,” I’d explain while “I bet it’s like having a new wife,” joked
to take part in Strictly, in the back of my upgrading my bike to an electric one or one friend, as I wondered what her friends
head a voice was saying, “Well, even if you just getting in the car. I had quietly given were joking about when they looked at me.
turn out to have two left feet, it’ll be easier up on ever feeling healthy or physically Kerala felt too far away for a week
to keep the weight off.” confident again. I certainly couldn’t and perhaps not best for my fidgety
Of course, doing Strictly is a major, remember what it’s like to feel attractive. disposition. I wasn’t in the mood for
slightly terrifying commitment for anyone. Then one night in March, I was unable temples and holy men on an empty
Maybe it was the pandemic, or knowing to sleep as an excruciating, throbbing pain stomach. I was discussing my dilemma
people who are near the end of their lives. in my big toe got worse. After half an hour with the actor Eddie Marsan in the
Perhaps it was the intense news agenda on the internet, the embarrassing truth Channel 4 News make-up room when he
of war and political chaos, or even the sunk in as Google merrily informed me came in for an interview. His publisher
exhausting culture wars we seem to be I probably had that disease of gluttonous heard me and suggested a health resort in
living in, but suddenly I felt it was time to kings and I had to sheepishly tell my wife, Austria where they starve and detox you.
say, “Sod it, why not?” And it was probably “I think I’ve got gout.” This was not what I had heard of it before because a friend
now or never. The longer I waited, the the GP had meant when she’d told me from work had been going there for years.
less likely I’d physically be able to do it. I needed a new diet. It always sounded awful, but she’d come
“Obviously, I can’t give you a 100 per cent It’s taken my whole life for me to back swearing by it and looking ten years
guarantee,” one of my doctors said in realise that my relationship with food younger. The comedian Michael McIntyre
answer to, “Will I drop dead live on the is pretty dysfunctional. I always thought had done a hilarious routine about a place
BBC?” But he was reassuring, telling me, I had a wonderful attitude, because food is just like it at which everyone loses a stone
“I think you should do it without worrying one of the great joys of my life. Whenever in a week. “They don’t give you any food,”
and should be fine as long as you’re I was asked how I readjust to normal life he explained, while they make you drink
SANDY WEARS TOP AND LEGGINGS, LULULEMON. TRAINERS, ALLBIRDS. KRISHNAN WEARS T-SHIRT AND SHORTS, GYMSHARK. TRAINERS, HIS OWN
sensible.” No matter how out of character after a grim trip to a war zone or disaster, Epsom salts to flush out your insides. But
me doing Strictly might seem to many my answer was always family and food. before I had time to think too hard about
GETTY IMAGES, GREY HUTTON. STYLING: HANNAH ROGERS. HAIR: LOU OSBORNE. MAKE-UP: JULIA WREN AT CAROL HAYES USING CLARINS.
people, to my mind it was logical. I had The love comes from my mum’s amazing the downside, I had booked the time off,
already spent months confronting some Indian cooking, then from having a job paid the deposit and was being packed off
uncomfortable truths. in TV from the age of 18, which gave to the airport by a delighted other half.
It wasn’t exactly a midlife crisis. I didn’t me a disposable income I could spend in As McIntyre’s wife supposedly said to him,
have a problem with my age, identity or restaurants. My first job was in 1988 at the “Go away and come back better looking.”
marriage and I’d done fast cars when I was BBC in Glasgow, just when its food scene That’s what you hear at any rate.
young. But as I approached 53 this year, no was exploding. After university I moved My mum kept telling me, “You can’t put
amount of great tailoring could hide the to Notting Hill in London when it was a price on health,” but it turns out you can:
fact that 14st 11lb when you’re only 5ft 8in brimming with great places to eat. at £2,100 for a basic package it would cost
is far too much, and the self-loathing when But my food passions were not all almost as much as a week in Lanzarote
I looked in the mirror was growing. I didn’t so sophisticated. I’ve always loved rice with the kids. This was not the flashy place
need the NHS body mass index calculator pudding from the tin, four-packs of frequented by Hollywood stars but an
to tell me I was obese. Between my mother custard tarts gobbled down on the way altogether more sober experience in the
and my 16-year-old son I was getting a home from work, and I’ve never failed at original Mayr resort, a rather austere
steady flow of, “Krishnan, look at your putting away a whole packet of chocolate Thirties house on a lake where they claim
stomach – it’s terrible for your heart,” fingers, marshmallow teacakes or family- British aristocrats once came for holidays.
and, “Dad, you’re so fat!” sized chocolate bars. I have a reputation They describe the regime created by Dr
My medical history made everything at Channel 4 News for supplying chocolate Franz Xaver Mayr in the early 20th century
worse. I’d had high blood pressure and or cake in the newsroom around 4pm, not as a cure that takes three weeks.
mild cardiovascular disease for years. because I’m a generous colleague as much I’d booked in for one week and would
I’d get out of breath walking from as being too embarrassed to eat it alone. complete the second and third at home.
our Westminster office in Millbank to For my first two decades at Channel 4 My arrival in time for lunch was not
Downing Street to present the news. News Jon Snow was the tall, thin one and promising. It momentarily looked like a
The GP had recently told me I was pre- I was the other one. He would happily do normal meal of fish and vegetables and
diabetic and this was on top of having a five-minute plank on the studio floor tasted delicious, but it was tiny, as if made
Crohn’s disease. Then there was the matter before going on air, while I would roll my for a toddler. It was gone in two minutes.
of an inherited genetic heart condition eyes holding a piece of cake and asking “I feel absolutely terrible,” said a thin lady
called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. who was up for beers after the programme. from Grenada on the next table, picking
That’s the one in which people drop dead While I was on the one-way train to at a sort of buckwheat biscuit with some
suddenly. I had started copying the dark decay, my wife was heading firmly in the vegetable spread. “My daughter booked
humour my dad has deployed since his opposite direction. Since checking herself me in here for some reason and I can’t
diagnosis with the same condition: “Of all into an Ayurvedic retreat in the southern cope, especially without coffee. I get

all day until about 5pm and then graze to Strictly, I was still basically unfit and
nonstop until bedtime. Intermittent fasting flabby. The pain was only just beginning.
is what I’ve been doing, inadvertently, all “I am sick of the sight of this stomach.
my life. I just had to swap the time of day I don’t want to see it any more,” is a phrase
I did the eating. seared onto my memory from the first time
They tested and prodded and massaged I had taken up personal training, about
and I decided to pay a bit extra for food 12 years ago, my trainer standing over me
intolerance tests. The doctor was sceptical. as I failed to do sit-ups. I had decided to
“There’s only any point if you’re going raise money for my friend’s new charity,
to give up what it says you should,” she Duchenne UK, by cycling from London to
explained, “and you look like somebody Paris in 24 hours, and I needed to get fit
who isn’t very good at sticking to the enough to do it. I managed the ride, but
At the Baf ta television awa rules.” But I was insistent on giving it a the exercise was abandoned quickly and
rds in 2016 try, knowing how diet affects my Crohn’s the fitness was short-lived.
disease. When the results came back, they For Strictly I would need a very
were pretty horrifying. The doctor told me different regime, and I only had a couple
I had developed an intolerance to gluten, of weeks before the dance training started.
rye, dairy, sheep and goat’s milk, eggs, I couldn’t get fit in that time, but I could
ginger and vanilla, and I would have to do something about my terrible lack of
stop having them all for a while. “But that’s flexibility. After all, having not been able
basically everything nice,” I wailed. No to see my toes for years, the idea of trying
cake! No bread! No cheese! I spent half to touch them hadn’t even occurred to
the week alone in my room glued to my me. I was going to need some help, and
phone, looking up what was left to eat fortunately I knew just the person.
that might make life worth living. Sandy is married to my oldest friend,
But as the days went on I felt less Ed. She’s a Brazilian dance champion
despairing, more like I could carry this turned personal trainer and Pilates
on, and a sense of amazement that it was instructor and she leapt to my aid when
possible to live on such a low-calorie diet I told her about Strictly. “I don’t know
without feeling so hungry you could eat how I’m going to do it. I’m so stiff and
your socks. By day seven and time to check inflexible,” I moaned. Sandy set about
out, I was convinced about the method but trying to make me more bendy and
ready to go home. My leaving instructions improve my balance with Pilates and
were to stop snacking and to eat smaller, stretching. It is surprisingly difficult, even
balanced meals slowly. Most importantly, though a lot of the exercises consist of
I had to eat just breakfast and lunch, with essentially just lifting your own limbs.
soup for dinner or something very light. “If you can’t lift your arms on their
The week had gone quickly, but the own, imagine what it would be like with
weight didn’t. I had only lost 5lb and was weights,” Sandy said, while I wondered how
a bit cross. “Keep going and it will fall off I would ever lift a whole dance partner.
in weeks two and three,” reassured the Decades hunched over a laptop have
Jon Snow would do a medics. And it did. Giving up dinner
is hard. Especially when invited out for
taken their toll and I am lopsided, bent
and my shoulders are all wrong for dance.
five-minute plank before a meal. “I’ve told them you’ll come but
won’t eat,” my wife said about our first
But Sandy somehow knows how to target
individual muscles and straightens me out.
going on air. I’d ask who post-Austria dinner invitation. Everyone “I can’t,” is my usual complaint when told
was up for beers later thought it was mad and I spent most of
the evening explaining. “No, you get quite
to do something. “Yes, you can, come on,”
she replies, and more often than not she
used to it after a while and don’t feel at all is right. Ten days’ filming in Taiwan two
terrible headaches. Are you having the hungry,” I lied. “But maybe I’ll just have a weeks before the first live show was a
intravenous detox infusion?” few vegetables to keep you company.” By disaster for my regime, but Sandy would
“No, I’m just here for the basic course,” week three I was 19lb lighter and lost a be there on a video call telling me to
I replied, wondering if the golf course little more over the following weeks. straighten my legs, flex my toes and
across the road had a restaurant. By 7pm Being lighter definitely makes me feel stretch out, even late at night.
I was hungry and slightly panicked about better, as do all the comments from people If only I had started this months
the week ahead. who notice. In fact, I was so surprised ago I might be in better shape for the
The Mayr method isn’t just about that I went back to look at some recent competition. As it is I’m better than I was,
weight loss but a full reset of your pictures of myself. That was a bad idea. but with a long road ahead. Strictly, they
digestive system, the idea being that You suddenly realise how terrible you’ve say, is all about the journey. And even if
everything stems from how you treat your looked for years. “Why didn’t you tell me it’s a short-lived one on the TV, it starts
gut. It is true that you lose weight, because I looked so awful?” I asked my wife and a something longer and deeper in many of
you don’t consume more than 500 calories couple of friends. Awkward glances were those who do it. I hope I’m in that camp.
a day, but there’s a lot more to it than that. exchanged as they muttered about having Either way, I think my relationships with
On my second day, the doctor had tried. But when you’re in the public eye food, drink and my body have changed
told me my metabolism test suggested you develop a thick skin, and I guess quite fundamentally. OK, maybe it is a
I was going to be fine on the new regime people have to be really quite blunt before midlife crisis. But it doesn’t feel like one. n
because my body was used to burning fat. you properly take in something bad. But
We put this down to the fact that since losing weight does not transform your Strictly Come Dancing continues on
childhood I’d had the ability not to eat body on its own. And having said yes Saturday night on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer

Love, loss
and growing
up with my
heiress mother,
Gloria Vanderbilt
The TV presenter and war reporter Anderson Cooper

knows all about trauma – his father died when he
was ten, his brother took his own life and he grew
up knowing his mother’s fortune had all been spent.
Now he’s the host of a hit podcast about grief – and Anderson Cooper, 56, with his
mother, Gloria Vanderbilt,
Prince Harry’s go-to interviewer. By Will Pavia New York, 2016. Opposite: with
his brother, Carter, and mother
PORTRAIT Jeff Riedel at home in Long Island, 1972
hen Anderson Cooper mother died in 2019, he felt like the last
W
was a boy, his parents had man standing.
a quiet word with him “My mum had a very fractured
about his relatives. relationship with the Vanderbilt family,”
“It was just like, ‘We he says. “It was only really after she died,
want to be very upfront,’ ” and after I had kids, that I realised there
he says. was a lot I didn’t know about that branch
He knew that his of the family.”
father’s family, the Coopers, So he wrote a book, Vanderbilt: The Rise
hailed from a line of and Fall of an American Dynasty, with the
hardscrabble farmers in Mississippi. novelist and historian Katherine Howe.
His mother called herself Mrs Cooper It did well, and she persuaded him to
but she was actually a Vanderbilt, part of do another about one of the other great
With presidential candidate Donald Trump, 2016
a family that once had more money than families of the Gilded Age, titled Astor:
the US Treasury. It was really nothing to The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune.
be ashamed about. But also, he should not If he’s not careful, he will become one
get his hopes up. The money was gone. of those old duffers in a smoking jacket
“They wanted me to know that there fixated on old houses and the aristocracy.
wasn’t a pot of gold waiting for me,” he “Yes, very much so,” he says. “How
says. “They said, ‘You’re going to have to many white, Waspy families does
make your own way.’ ” everyone need to know about? I’m
For most of his life he tried not to not sure… But I do find the characters
mention his connection to one of the really fascinating.”
great dynasties of New York’s Gilded Age. He has also recorded a podcast,
“I worked very hard not to have any All There Is, about grief and about his
association with that,” he says. “I was immediate family, in which you can
very glad that most people did not know.” hear him sorting through his mother’s
He became a war correspondent and possessions. It is an incredibly powerful
a broadcaster with a nightly show on series. I would recommend it to anyone
Interviewing Prince Harry, January 2023
CNN. Now 56, he is speaking to me from who has lost a loved one.
his home in Greenwich Village on a “I never talked about any of this stuff
weekday afternoon. In a few hours he will and I did not realise the extent to which you actually have to lift up the grate.”
be on prime time, dressed in a dark suit I had never allowed myself to grieve for Still, it all fits more or less with
and a crisp white shirt. Besides the nightly my dad or my brother,” he says. my view of him as an action man
show, he does investigative pieces for the He goes after the subject of of journalism.
CBS series Sixty Minutes and showpiece bereavement like an investigative “Yes,” he says. “I’ve never had to use
interviews, such as the one with Prince journalist, looking at it from all angles. them to get to a story quickly, but I like
Harry earlier this year in which he got But also, you hear him cry. where you’re going with it.”
the prince to retell, in graphic detail, what “I deny that,” Cooper says. “I think Cooper is wearing a dark V-necked
it was like walking behind his mother’s I had allergies.” T-shirt and is sitting on a brightly
coffin as a child and of journeying alone This is what I mean, I say. He’s tough. patterned sofa with his back to a shelf
to the Queen’s deathbed to say goodbye. “Yeah,” he says. “I was not somebody of books. “This used to be the captain’s
Cooper did tell Harry about his who cried.” Making the podcast, and going office,” he says. “This is my library.”
Vanderbilt connections and his great-aunt, through more than 46 hours of voicemails Most of the books belonged to his
Thelma, who had lived for a while in left for him by listeners, “I just had many parents. “My mum never graduated from
London and dated Prince Edward, the realisations,” he says. “I’m still not sure high school, so she educated herself by
future King Edward VIII. “At a certain exactly how, but I know something has reading,” he says. “She read every one
point she had to go back to New York, shifted in some way.” of these books. It’s cool because a lot of
so she asked her good friend to take He is now working on a second series. them have notes in them.”
care of him while she was gone,” he says. He is one of those people who seems to Gloria Vanderbilt had a famously
“Her good friend was Wallis Simpson,” do a thousand things at once. This must tumultuous childhood, trailing after her
PREVIOUS SPREAD: JACK ROBINSON/GETTY IMAGES, JEFF RIEDEL/CONTOUR BY
GETTY IMAGES. THIS SPREAD: JACK ROBINSON/GETTY IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES
the American divorcee for whom Edward be why we are meeting not in person but mother around Europe, looked after by
would forsake the crown, leave Britain over a video link, Cooper coming to me a nurse and a grandma who was obsessed
and make way for Harry’s great- live from his home while his two sons with Napoleon until, after a dramatic
grandfather, George VI. are having their afternoon nap. custody battle, she was placed instead
Usually, in his professional life – and he He lives in an old fire station, he says with an aunt. Newspapers named her
is relentlessly professional – Cooper has when he pops onto my screen. I ask if it “the poor little rich girl”.
kept that sort of thing to himself. It is only has a pole. It had three when he bought At 17, she dropped out of school and
quite recently, as his mother neared the it, with hatches for each one on every went to join her mother in Hollywood.
end of her life and as Cooper himself floor, he says. “I cut it down to one pole,” She married a mobster, then a conductor
became a father for the first time in his he says. “Thinking, how many poles does 42 years her senior and then the film
fifties, with the aid of a surrogate, that he one actually need?” director Sidney Lumet. She had affairs
began to talk about the dynasty and his At this point, I realise I am not with Errol Flynn, Gene Kelly, Marlon
immediate family. recording. He waits patiently and then Brando and Frank Sinatra. She was an
Cooper’s father, Wyatt, died when repeats everything he has just said about actress, a writer and a painter, a friend
he was ten. When he was 21, his older fire poles, as if it were the top two minutes of Truman Capote and the model, by
brother, Carter, took his own life by of his show. “Now that I have kids, I’ve some accounts, for Holly Golightly in
jumping from the balcony of his mother’s put a metal grate over the holes around Breakfast at Tiffany’s. All this was before
house in front of her. When Cooper’s the pole,” he says. “So to slide down, she even met Cooper’s father. And,

Wyatt Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt at
home with their sons, Long Island, 1972
to earn to live and support my mum
and my nanny, May, whom I really
cared about.”
May McLinden hailed from a village
near Glasgow. “May, in many ways,
was my mother and was the most
important…” He pauses. “Was right up
there with my mum and dad in terms
of importance in my life.”
She was the one who taught him
“not to sit around, to make decisions
and to make things happen”. And, “After
my dad died, she was the person I could
depend on more than anyone,” he says
on his podcast. “My mum was hurt by
the closeness of my relationship with
May and one day she fired her without
any warning. I came home and May
was packing her things, trying not to
cry in front of me… There was nothing
she or I could do.”
Wondering how to make enough
money to take care of everyone, Cooper
discovered, at the age of 12, a way to start
earning. “There are a lot of things you
can’t do as a child, but child modelling you
His mother had affairs with Frank Sinatra, can,” he says. “Every day, when school was
done, I’d use the payphone in school and
Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando and Errol Flynn call the modelling agency for whatever the
auditions were that day and I would go
along. They were called go-sees. And
“She kept everything,” Cooper says. “There of him shaking hands with Chaplin, who yeah, I would book jobs. I was a steady
are boxes.” was dressed rather plainly by comparison, model for Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.”
Four years after her death, he is still in a dark coat and fedora. He would go to Ralph Lauren’s office
going through them. He found notes from “I was terribly disappointed,” Cooper as a fittings model, standing in front of the
Marilyn Monroe and Joan Didion and a says. “My parents had shown me a lot designer and his brother, Jerry. “We’d be
postcard from Truman Capote, sent from of his old films in advance of this and standing there, me and three other kids
Fort Riley in Kansas. “He’s writing In Cold I expected the guy in the bowler hat with who were various sizes and they would
Blood and he’s talking about this novel the cane, and he was of course an elderly be looking at the clothes from the new
that he’s working on and how it’s going,” man who looked nothing like what season on us… The whole thing was
he says. He found a file marked “FS”, for I imagined Charlie Chaplin to be.” just surreal.”
Frank Sinatra, full of telegrams. “I’m on Mixed up with his mother’s stuff were At 15, “I was propositioned by a
my way, darling,” said one sent from San the clothes, letters and plays of Cooper’s photographer and really disturbed by
Francisco airport on January 14, 1955. father, Wyatt. Her marriage to him – they it,” he says. So he quit and found a job
“I miss you and wish you were sharing wed in 1963 – was the happiest of her life. as a waiter at a high-society restaurant
the seat with me. Will cable along the Wyatt was besotted with his two boys. frequented by his mother.
way. Stay well. It’s a bright new shiny “I see myself in my two sons,” he wrote of I ask why he thought it fell to him to
day. Love, the fella on the white horse.” Carter and Anderson in his book Families: make money and keep the family afloat.
Another, from 1959, says, “I think of you A Memoir and a Celebration, published in What about his older brother, Carter?
more than I should. Much love, Francis.” 1975. “In their youth, their promise, their “To my great sadness, my brother and
Cooper says, “My life seems incredibly possibilities, my stake in immortality is I never spoke about this,” Cooper says.
dull by comparison.” invested.” In December 1977, at the age “I think I had a practical bent that my
He recently came across a box of of 50, he suffered a heart attack. He died brother did not. And I mean, I wish I had
Christmas cards. “You would think, OK, in January the next year while undergoing been more mature. Had I not been 12 or
I can just toss these out,” he says. “But open-heart surgery. 13 years old, I should have… talked about
as you start to go through them it’s like, “My dad’s death, when I was ten, it [to him]. But obviously, when you’re a
Charlie and Oona Chaplin’s Christmas was the signal event in my early life and kid, you can only do so much.”
card, with a family photo.” Oona Chaplin completely changed who I was,” Cooper Cooper was 21 and in Washington DC
was one of his mother’s closest friends. says. “After he died, very quickly I knew when his mother called. “Carter jumped
In 1972, when Chaplin returned to the we’re not on a great trajectory here.” off the balcony,” she said. She had tried
United States for the first time in 20 years His mother lived in some style and to stop him. “It was extraordinarily
to receive an Academy Award, Cooper’s he thought it would ruin them. He shocking and disturbing to me,” he says.
parents threw a party for him at their remembers hearing her talking on the “And the fact that he killed himself in
townhouse on the Upper East Side. phone, saying, “I’ll always be able to make front of my mum… It obviously then made
Cooper would have been nearly five money.” He says, “That was when I knew me incredibly concerned about her and
at the time and he chose to wear, for the we were f***ed.” her survivability and her happiness, and
occasion, a bullfighter costume that one He would lie in bed at night, unable it did sort of propel me.”
of his mother’s aunts had sent him from to sleep, “doing calculations in my head “Survivability” had been one of his
Mallorca. A photographer took a picture about how much I thought I would need obsessions in his teens. He had done

wilderness survival courses. But after He wanted to “have this intentional 10 months after his mother died, he
Carter’s death, “I became really focused conversation with her”, he says. “I have so announced on his CNN show the arrival
on questions of survival and why some many unanswered questions about my dad of his son, Wyatt, named after his father.
people survive and others don’t,” he says. and my brother, and not to have that with It was the height of the pandemic in New
“And the idea of why two people growing my mum is really a great blessing.” York. “I think my voice cracked at some
up in the same house with the same Talking about his parents and sibling point,” he says. “I don’t know that I’d even
influences and were very similar would… on a podcast proved helpful too, he says. said the words, ‘I’m a dad,’ until then.”
If that happened to him, why wouldn’t “You hear about people who get a deal He had felt ready to become a father
it happen to me?” for a podcast for millions of dollars,” he when he hit 40 but “I was convinced
He decided, eventually, to pursue says. “This is not one of those things. I would die at 50,” he says. “My dad
these questions by travelling to a war I’m not paid extra for this. This was just died at 50, and his dad died at 50.” Both
zone. “I’d always been interested in wars something I started doing on my own, succumbed to heart conditions. “I was like,
and military history and Africa,” he says. recording myself while going through ‘Well, if I die at 50, which I’m pretty sure
And so, while working as a fact checker at my mum’s stuff, because that’s how I’m going to, that means the kids will be
a TV channel that made programmes for I sort of deal with things. I do it as a 10 when I die.’ Which was the age I was
schools, “I came up with this idea: I’ll just correspondent. I was just trying to make when my dad died.” When he hit 51,
go to places that are really dangerous and sense of it in my head.” “I was like, ‘Oh!’ ” he says. “And I talked
I’ll learn about survival and try to shoot In one of the most affecting episodes to my doctor and he said, ‘You’re an idiot.
some stories and maybe it’ll lead to he talks about May McLinden. In You’re going to be fine. You’ve been taking
something. Even if it doesn’t, I will learn adulthood he took her on trips to Los statins… Medicine has changed a lot.’ ”
a lot about how people survive. Angeles and Rome, but by the time he was In February last year he had a second
“I don’t think it was a death wish or able to buy her a house, she had begun child, Sebastian. He and Maisani are no
adrenaline-seeking, because I was terrified. to suffer from dementia, he says. On the longer a couple, but they still live together
I was in Somalia by myself and in in the old fire station and co-parent
Sarajevo. I had no real organisational the kids.
back-up or support. I got arrested in Gloria offered to “Yeah,” Cooper says. “There should
Iran and there was no one to call.” be a sitcom.”
He and two producers were shuttled be his surrogate. ‘That Recently he took the children to a
between police stations until, “I think they smoothie place and the server said to
realised we hadn’t done anything really is the craziest, most them, “ ‘Oh, out with your grandad?’ ” he
wrong and we were released and then had
to leave the country.”
Oedipal weird thing’ says. “Of course, the server was, like, 19,
so everybody looks like Grandad, I guess.
It must have been hard for his mother, At least, that’s how I was able to sleep
to have lost one son while the other phone from Scotland, she would tell him that night.”
embarked on these adventures. Cooper she was taking care of a child. Once, He still looks in pretty good shape.
says he was glad that the educational struggling to reach her, he called a local He does not like to waste a second
channel he was working for was only minister who rang back to say May thinking about something as mundane
shown in schools. had been found wandering the streets, as the food he eats so for weeks and
After he started at CNN, in 2001, clutching a small ceramic dog. sometimes months at a time, he would
she could see what he was up to. He “It turned out that was the child she eat the same chicken burrito or the same
remembers calling her from Cairo during had been telling me about,” he says on the chicken sandwich for lunch. Now that
the 2011 Egyptian revolution and trying podcast. “The dog was a present I’d given he has children, he has hired his mum’s
to assure her that, “I might just hang out her for her birthday when I was maybe old cook to come in one day a week and
by the pool today.” Of course, he did not. 12 years old. ‘There’s one more thing,’ prepare a week of meals for the kids. “I’m
That day he was attacked by a mob in the minister told me. ‘The dog she was basically just eating whatever they have
Tahrir Square. “I got punched around a holding, the one she thought was a child. left over,” he says. “So I’m eating a greater
bit,” he says. “I did think they were going She thought it was you.’ ” variety of things. I’m much healthier.”
to kill us.” He kept on videotaping during Cooper flew to Scotland and, with her He recently resumed weightlifting and
the attack, “because I could get a piece sister, helped get May a place in a nursing jogging. “But I’m doing it now more for
out of it if they didn’t kill us or, even if home. When she died, in 2014, “Her death health”, he says. “As opposed to just trying
they did kill us, at least somebody else didn’t make headlines,” he says. “The to get dates.”
could get a piece out of it,” he says. world kept spinning, but for me on that He is not dating at the moment, nor
“There’d be this tape.” They escaped and day, it stopped.” is he sure how he would go on a date if
that night, “right before I went live, I had May is who he thinks about most of asked. “I mean, it would probably be at
to call [my mother] and be like, ‘Hey, so all now while parenting his sons, he says. night, so I wouldn’t be taking time away
I didn’t stay at the pool. I went to Tahrir Becoming a father was also something from my kids, but I’m exhausted at night,”
Square and this stuff happened and you’re his mother had urged him to do before he says. “I never used to wake up before
going to see a video of it and it looks bad, she died. She even offered to serve as a 10am. I wake up now at 6am and get the
but we’re fine.’ ” surrogate for Cooper and his partner at kids’ milk and porridge ready. I want to
His mother “was really amazing the time, Benjamin Maisani. “I was like, be there and I want to wake them up and
about it”, he says. “I think she was clearly ‘Mum, that is the craziest, most Oedipal there’s nothing better.” n
very lonely and in all sorts of financial weird thing. Please! Even for you, Mum,
problems, and she never would say to that’s f***ed up,’ ” he says. She was 85 at Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American
me, ‘Don’t do this.’ ” the time. “We would have been on the Fortune by Anderson Cooper (Harper, £25)
In the last years of her life he made cover of the New York Post for the next is published on September 28. To order a
a documentary with her, partly based on 18 years. Are you kidding me?” he says. copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020
the idea that she was the last member of Instead, Cooper found a surrogate, 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on orders
his family and, “I don’t want there to be a married woman with kids of her own, over £25. Special discount available for
anything left unsaid between us.” who was not 85, and in April 2020, Times+ members

YOU CAN TAKE A GIRL
OUT OF THE CITY...
How fashion blogger Emma Paton moved from Hackney to Suffolk
and transformed a dated country house into a cool family home
REPORT Kay Prestney PHOTOGRAPHS Brent Darby
Home!
Emma Paton, 42, in the entrance hall, with

a pink chandelier by Pure White Lines and
vintage chaise longue from The Boule-in.
Opposite: the exterior of the house
From top: the kitchen features
pendant lights by Original BTC
and Sofiture cabinets; the sitting
room, with a sofa by West Elm and
coffee table by Pure White Lines
or city girl Emma Paton, leaving
F
behind the bright lights of
Hackney for the sleepy streets of
a Suffolk village was a huge leap
of faith. “It didn’t help when, six
months after we moved, the
pandemic hit and isolation took
on a whole new level,” she says,
smiling. Having renovated their
Victorian house in London,
Paton, 42, and her husband, Liam, 44, a
music and sound designer/composer, were
looking for a lifestyle change with their
two young children, Finn and Violet.
“We imagined we would spend months
searching for the right property, but this
was the only house we viewed. Its grand
entrance and sweeping staircase won us
over immediately,” Paton says, a fashion
blogger and influencer with 53,000
followers on Instagram. Once part of a
farm, the original timber-framed house
dates back to the 14th century, with the
impressive Georgian façade added in 1799. found lots of quirky vintage French pieces alongside them. There was also a large
Overlooking the market square in the for their home) was another draw. derelict barn at the end of the garden,
village of Bildeston, conveniently placed Although daunted by the condition of which we knew could be perfect for Liam’s
between the local shop and two pubs, the house, which needed replumbing, new music studio and working from home. We
the house fitted the couple’s instruction electrics and extensive window restoration were nervous about it being a money pit,
to the estate agent that buying a pint of work, the couple had a vision and took but all the stress, hard work and living in a
milk or beer needed to be something they the plunge. “We saw the massive potential building site has been worth it,” Paton says.
could do on foot. The village social life to create a for ever family home – the Working with local architect Andrew
with its annual music festival and brocante top floor in the attic was ideal for a kids’ Hughes, they turned the old kitchen into
fairs at the Boule-in (where Paton has storey and we could see the space evolving a stylish utility room and successfully

Home!
The bathroom is painted in Farrow &
Ball’s Cinder Rose. Right: the dining
room with Wishbone chairs by Dunelm
and a table from Modern Antiques
The larch-clad Scandi-style

extension is framed by box plants

Home!
A guest bedroom with vintage side The kitchen features
table by Teeny Tiny Emporium and chairs by Hans J
Pooky lamp. Below: the Georgian Wegner and a dining
façade and Astrid the cockapoo table from Heal’s
gained planning permission to add a In her day job as a fashion content

modern larch-clad extension. This now creator, Paton shares ideas for layering
houses a new kitchen and dining area clothes. Applying similar principles to
overlooking the beautiful rear garden. her home, she has added textured rugs
Suffolk garden designers Freear & to restored wooden floorboards, styled up
Fitch were brought in to transform vintage coffee and side tables, and even
the overgrown, neglected space into a accessorised walls with pieces from her
landscaped contemporary country garden. wardrobe. “Some items are too beautiful to
Paton used her skills gained from hide away and become a fun talking point
a career in fashion buying and sought when I put them on display,” she says.
inspiration from her bountiful wardrobe, The family love to spend days on the
so her eye for colour and pattern is beach at Walberswick and Southwold with
evident throughout her home. Carefully their cockapoo, Astrid, and to explore the
chosen Farrow & Ball colours – calming local rivers on their paddleboards. But
Light Blue in the main living room, a moving to the country meant the couple
pretty pink and green combination of have had to seek out a new social life.
Potted Shrimp and Olive in the kitchen “We have been lucky enough to
and the striking pop of Sudbury Yellow meet lots of creatives with young families
alongside Inchyra Blue in the dining and have definitely found our tribe.
room – form a playful palette. We regularly go out for dinner – favourite
Paton describes her style as “eclectic spots include Lark and Pea Porridge
and colourful, with a side of Scandi”, in Bury St Edmunds and Memsaab in
a recipe that brings modern cool to Lavenham – but also enjoy hosting at
their historic home. Works by a favourite home now that we finally have a decorated
Suffolk artist, Anna Mac, add primary dining room that isn’t covered in building
pops of interest alongside statement pieces dust. Our village has a great pub, the King’s
like the striking pink chandelier from Head, where there is often a party going
Pure White Lines that makes a dramatic on,” Paton says. “Saturday nights there is
centrepiece in the entrance hall. Timeless even a DJ on the decks so we don’t miss
Scandinavian classics, such as the Hans London nightlife as much as we feared.” n
J Wegner chairs in the kitchen, are joined
by accessories from Paton’s go-to local @emmapaton___, @emmapatonhome,
Nordic interiors shop, Vanil in Woodbridge. emmapatonblog.com

Pout!
HOW TO GET SHINY, FRIZZ-FREE HAIR:
15 PRODUCTS THAT REALLY WORK
Split ends, breakage, dandruff... Here’s how to fix them all. By Nadine Baggott
I
t’s a cliché, but a
bad hair day really
can dampen your
mood. I have
high-maintenance
hair myself and these
are my tried-and-tested
problem-solvers for all
kinds of hair horrors.
1
DANDRUFF
Head and Shoulders Bare
Soothing Anti Dandruff
Shampoo (£6.66; boots.com)
Confession time: I have
dandruff and have never got
on with Head & Shoulders
– until they reformulated to
include piroctone olamine as
the active antifungal (yes, dandruff is
caused by an overgrowth of scalp fungus
to which some of us are overly sensitive).
Now I can use this twice a week, even
after colouring my hair. I have not seen
a single flake in six months.
2
SPLIT ENDS
Virtue Split End Serum
(£40; spacenk.com)
Nothing – I repeat, nothing
– will miraculously seal your
split ends permanently, but you
can temporarily stick them back
together with this superlight serum that
also happens to contain human hair The Princess of Wales
(alpha) keratin to fill in any gaps and
prevent further breakage over time.
A great non-sticky mist adds just enough oomph
3
FINE FLAT HAIR
Sam McKnight Cool Girl when sprayed into the roots for va-va-voom volume
Superlift Volumising
Spray (£26; sammcknight.com)
4 5
A great non-sticky volumising FLYAWAYS HEAT DAMAGE
mist to use on towel-dried Static Jam Seriously Good TreSemmé Heat Defence
hair pre blow-dry. It adds just Styler (£19; staticjam.com) (£5.99; superdrug.com
enough oomph when sprayed This is a hair serum that and boots.com)
into the roots, and here’s a multitasks, but its main job is to I’m about to bust a huge beauty
top tip from Sam: blow-dry prevent flyaway and static hair. myth: heat protection products
GETTY IMAGES
against the direction of root growth Perfect for this time of year, don’t actually protect your hair
for maximum Nineties-supermodel when wool jumpers and scarves from heat. I mean, would you
va-va-voom volume. are on the horizon. spray some on your finger and

Pout!
9
then clamp it between your straighteners? BREAKAGE within, but only minoxidil is clinically
So, first turn your gadget down to no Epres Bond proven to help prolong the growing phase
more than 180C, and second use a “heat Repair Treatment of hair. I also recommend getting a blood
protect” conditioning spray to at least seal (£46; epresbeauty.co.uk) test to see if you are missing any essential
emollients into your hair as you style. This The very latest in hair-growth nutrients in your diet and
is a brilliant budget option – expensive bond-building technology. to check your hormone levels, because
heat protectants are no better, I promise. I like it because it works you only notice hair loss when about
and because it has an 20 per cent has gone, so act fast.
6
OILY SCALP extra-fine mist applicator,
13
Ouai Detox Shampoo which is so much better than LIMP LOCKS
(from £12; theouai.co.uk clunky nozzle bottles and hit-and-miss Living Proof PHD Full
and spacenk.com) sprays. Put it on dry hair and leave Dry Volume & Texture
Have you noticed how hard it is it in for a minimum of ten minutes Spray (From £16; livingproof.co.uk)
to find shampoo for oily scalps before shampooing. I have tried every dry shampoo
these days? This is one of the and volume spray out there, and
10
best for post-workout sweaty FRIZZIES this is in a class of its own. Sprays
scalps and anyone who wants to remove Color Wow Extra in cool to the touch but dries
styling products from their hair, so Strength Dream Coat in seconds as you massage it in
it’s also ideal for guys who use a lot (£15; spacenk.com) and voilà – lots of volume, the
of wax or pomade. This silicone primer is the best appearance of fuller hair and not
on the market. It is formulated a bit of stickiness or powdery residue.
7
BRASSY COLOUR to seal hair off from humidity,
14
Kérastase Blond meaning your blow-dry and style stay put SCALY SCALP
Absolu Masque for longer. What’s more, it lasts for around The Inkey List Glycolic
Ultra-Violet Treatment three shampoos. Just add to mid-lengths Acid Exfoliating Scalp Scrub
(£38.93; lookfantastic.co.uk) and ends for top results. Be warned: a (£13.99; uk.theinkeylist.com)
My blonde hair is prone to looking brassy, little goes a long way. We all exfoliate our faces, so
so I have tried every purple mask iteration why not our scalps? This glycolic
11
around and this one is superstrong. Apply DRY, CRUNCHY HAIR lotion is applied pre shampoo
to towel-dried hair and leave in for five Philip Kingsley Bond – just to your scalp – for ten
minutes, then rinse. It really does the Builder Lipid Shield Oil minutes, then washed away. It
job, but make sure you also rinse down (£27; cultbeauty.co.uk) helps to remove dry, flaky and
your shower afterwards. If your damaged hair crunches even oily scalp build-up quickly
like a bag of crisps, you need a and easily. Use once a week
8
DULLNESS hair oil in your routine. Some are if you’re prone to the problem.
L’Oréal Elvive Hydra Hyaluronic gloopy and make strands limp
15
Acid 8 Second Wonder Water and greasy, but others are miracle workers TANGLED HAIR
(£11.99; boots.com) – and this is one of them. Five drops in Manta hair brush
This clever “lamellar water” is applied freshly washed hair pre blow-dry leaves (£30; mantahair.com)
after shampooing by dribbling it smooth, shiny, silky and soft but never When my hair was falling
through damp hair (a lot of people weighed down. out and thinning post-Covid, this
would like it to come in a spray was the only detangling brush I could
12
so you can decant it). Wait HAIR LOSS use that didn’t tear at my fragile mane.
for eight seconds, then rinse Regaine Minoxidil It’s gentle yet manages to glide though
out – strands are coated with Extra Strength Scalp all hair types including coily, curly
light waxes and oils, adding Foam (£50; boots.com) and thick. n
instant shine. Seeing is You can wish that rosemary
believing, but this technology oil works or that some Find @nadinebaggott on YouTube
was developed by Kérastase, miracle biotin supplement and Instagram where she answers your
so you know it’s good. will feed your hair from beauty questions
FAB FIVE: MASCARAS
GLOSSIER, £18 BENEFIT, £25.50 REVOLUTION, £4.99 MAYBELLINE, £11.99 CLINIQUE, £21
Won’t smudge and easy to From the top mascara The best budget For length and lift on Superfine and ideal
remove. Perfect for sensitive brand – it’s clump-proof va-va-voom option on the stubborn straight lashes for lower inner and outer
eyes (uk.glossier.com) (benefitcosmetics.com) market (boots.com) (lookfantastic.com) lashes (clinique.co.uk)

Eating out
Tony Turnbull
‘It’s the kind of pitch-
perfect meal you
might have in Italy
and lament you’ll
never find back here’
pretty much live there, like Laura and
Glebe House/Millbrook Inn, Devon Rob). “Oh, the chicken pie,” she said, eyes
almost rolling back in her head. “The flaky
pastry, the way they crisp up the chicken
skin and run it through the filling. It’s the
aura and Rob are the only friends best pie I’ve ever had.” I tried not to take
L
I’ve made in a lift; they are also it personally. I mean, I know for a fact
the only couple I know whose that I’ve made her chicken pie on more
house has been regularly used than one occasion.
as a porno set. Before they owned So during a late August Saturday-to-
it, I hasten to add. I don’t want Saturday break in the South Hams, we
you to get the wrong impression broke the journey to meet for lunch, when
about them: they are friendly, but Glebe House does a set three courses
not that friendly. for £35, a slightly pared back version
More germanely to this column, they of the no-choice £60 dinner that runs
also know their food, Laura being the Thursday to Saturday. It’s a nicely relaxed,
most instinctive of home cooks and Rob family-friendly affair, with tables scattered
being a world-class bon viveur. So when throughout the ground floor of the old
they raved about Glebe House, a mile or Georgian vicarage, and the food has
two from their home, I knew they’d be the same unforced air – the kind of
on the money, and as it turned out, not meal that is arresting in its simplicity
too much of it either. and confidence, rather than its look-at-
Set on a hill in Southleigh with me trickery.
uninterrupted views of green, rolling We ate in the porch – more of a
Devonshireness, it was the childhood sun-filled orangery, really – and after
home of Hugo Guest, who gave up a a round of gougères topped with wild
career in insurance to train as a chef garlic “capers” (technically their seed
before returning three years ago with his pods preserved in salt) and slices of
wife and young family to create a kind peach wrapped in home-cured ham,
of English agriturismo, a restaurant with they brought family-style plates of grilled
rooms set on a 15-acre smallholding, mackerel caught that morning not five
where they grow their own vegetables, miles away, served with a perfectly
cure their own meat and make their acidulated tomato and onion salad, and
own bread. fresh curd cheese beneath a meadow of
Laura kept banging on especially about herbs and wild flowers to be scooped on to
JONNY STOREY
the casual kitchen suppers that Hugo the excellent bread. “It’s the porridge oats
and his head chef, Sam Lomas, made for we use in the dough that keeps it moist,”
house guests (and, I think, for those who Hugo confided as he brought a bonus

jeroboams of Château Peyrassol rosê for
£220, so we clearly weren’t quite out of
sight and out of mind.
Menu prices were ambitious without
being scary, which is the way I like them:
starters £9-£14, mains £17-£28, and it’s
clear the chef likes a lick of flame and
curl of smoke, as is the modern way, but
without going full Hipster 2.0. There’s
smoked bone marrow and smoked
potatoes, plus pork chops and entrecôte
from the “wildfire grill”, but also plenty
for the less gung-ho.
Moules au vert was a huge bowl of
steamed mussels, the liquor perked up
with a slick of herby chimichurri and just
the right tickle of chilli, and my carpaccio
of beef with a caper and lemon dressing
and kombu-cured egg yolk was glorious,
a delicate Italian-Japanese riff on tartare
Glebe House
for the less bloody-minded. Prawn cocktail
had also been thoughtfully elevated,
with celery adding crunch and dark
plate of cured meats from the evening at South Pool creek within 20 minutes of crab meat adding depth to the marie rose
menu (the special treatment was for leaving the house. Except when I got to sauce. Shame the chill of the fridge muted
Laura and Rob, not me), the pick of them the boathouse, it turned out the boat was its flavour.
unexpectedly being the smoked ox heart. parked on something called a swinging For mains there was a great smoky
Then it was bowls of pappardelle mooring and I was told I had to row out portobello mushroom kiev but the popular
with deeply flavoured lamb ragu and, in a “pram” to collect it. Clearly some kind order was fish of day, a monster whole
to finish, a brown butter cake that came of nautical game of It’s a Knockout. But, plaice, bronzed from the wood grill and
on like an English madeleine, its chewy, of course, silly me, just as a Zodiac isn’t a drenched in brown butter. The diced
toffee’d exterior and soft sponge centre Zodiac, a pram isn’t a pram but rather a pickled cucumber added a welcome bit of
a toothsome foil to the grilled apricot and shallow boat that tips over as soon as you zip and showed a kitchen that knows how
crème fraîche. look at it and has an uncanny knack for to get the most from its summer veg.
It was the kind of pitch-perfect meal going backwards when you are rowing Special mention also for the sides, each
you might have in Italy and lament that against the tide. It took the best part given just as much love and attention.
you’d never find anything of its like back of the morning to reach the launch and Cabbage (seared hispi, obviously) came
home. Except now we have. then the rest of day to row back to ask with a moreish scattering of smoked
Unlike Glebe House, we’ve been going someone to show me how to start the hazelnuts and chilli, the smoked new
to the Millbrook Inn in South Pool, across engine. Damn it, and Simon always made potatoes with pickled runner beans and
the estuary from Salcombe, for years. We it look so easy. ginger yoghurt, and grilled dwarf beans
always rented a place nearby, where at low So what with one thing and another, with pickled lemon and toasted almonds.
tide stepping stones lead across the water everyone was pretty hungry and thirsty After all that lot there was no question
to a brutal uphill walk before a gentle by the time we reached the Millbrook, but of pudding. We were at risk of sinking on
descent into this, the prettiest village in goodness, I’d willingly row Mary Poppins the way back as it was, without taking on
the South Hams, complete with water and the whole Banks family in a fleet of any more ballast. n
splash, beautifully tended gardens and, Silver Crosses to enjoy that dinner again.
in its midst, a cosy, white-washed, slate- The pub is under relatively new ownership Glebe House
roofed 15th-century pub. and it’s on song like never before. Southleigh, Colyton, Devon
Sadly, the house was off the market Things got off to a great start when (01404 871276; glebehousedevon.co.uk)
this year for building work, so we stayed I went to the bar to order a lime soda, Score 9
further down the tidal road, towards East and the guy took a fresh lime, squeezed Price £35 without drinks.
Portlemouth. No stepping stone roulette it into a glass, then dissolved sugar in a
for us (get the tides wrong and you could splash of boiling water, and topped it all Millbrook Inn
end up with a very soggy bottom). We did, up with ice and soda. The previous day South Pool, Kingsbridge,
however, have compensation in that our at the Ferry Inn, I’d been charged £4 Devon (01548 531581;
friend Simon, a Salcombe regular, had for a half-pint made with regular cordial. millbrookinnsouthpool.co.uk)
offered us use of his Zodiac for the week How much was this going to cost me? Score 8
– as in small inflatable launch rather than “Ninety pence,” he said. “We’re not in Price About £40 a head without drinks.
Fifties classic car, I was pleased to clarify Salcombe here, you know.” Although,
– so in theory we could be mooring up chalked up outside they were offering Giles Coren returns next week

Beta male
Robert Crampton
My wife’s phone I thought it might be helpful to describe
four of my recent cock-ups/fails/idiocies,
Another stunned silence.
“Oh my God,” says Kerry, shocked.
pings. She says it’s call them what you will, in the hope of
discerning a pattern. Relatively late in the
day it may be, but perhaps I don’t need to
“He thinks it’s the SAME five ingredients
for ALL the recipes in the book.”
“Didn’t you think,” Rachel asks,
RingGo. ‘Who’s be condemned to repeat these errors for
the rest of my life.
“that it’d be a bit limited, doing a whole
cookbook about what you can make from
this Ringo, then?’ First example: I’m in east Yorkshire,
driving with Kerry, my sister-in-law, and
the same five things?”
“Well, er, I thought maybe a stew. And
I ask, jealously Rachel, my daughter. We’re in Kerry’s
splendid crew cab pickup truck, the
some sort of pie. Without, um, pastry, like
a sandwich without bread. And maybe,”
women up front, talking about cars. I’m in I finish lamely, “an, um, chicken and broccoli
the back wondering what I can contribute. omelette? With onions? But no tomatoes.”
“I love those roof tents you can get for “That’s not a whole book though, is it?”
a Mini,” says Rachel. says Kerry. “More of a pamphlet.”
“My friend’s got one,” says Kerry. “Oh, I don’t know,” I babble. “Jamie’s
For a while, they extol the virtues of a very inventive bloke, isn’t he? Whack it
roof tents on Minis. in the old oven! Pukka! Malarkey!”
“Don’t people ever,” I ask, taking “Don’t try to wriggle out of it,” says
advantage of a gap in the conversation, Rachel. “And that sounds like a pretty
“dent the roof?” minging omelette.”
There follows what can only be The next weekend, me sprawled once
described as a stunned silence. more in the back of a car, our own Mini
A silence broken by my daughter. “You this time, on the way to Kent, Rachel again
thought a roof tent on your car meant you riding shotgun, her mother rather than her
just climbed on the roof of your car?” she aunt now at the wheel, the posh seats are
asks. “Didn’t you think that would be a bit discussing a family friend’s repositioning
uncomfortable? Wouldn’t you worry about of a mirror in her house.
sliding off down the windscreen in the “Aileen’s put it on the floor in the hall,
middle of the night? How did you think where it fits a lot better,” my wife reports.
the tent was attached to the car?” “That’s a good idea,” agrees Rachel.
“Well, I suppose I imagined there were, “Won’t it get trodden on?” I ask.
y’know, guy ropes strung down the sides Yep, you guessed it: stunned silence.
of the car and pegged into the ground. This one lasts a fair while.
With maybe a pole in the middle to Smart as they both are, it takes Nicola
hold the roof up, perhaps with a plastic and Rachel a moment to process what the
bung on the end to stop it scratching utter, utter fool in the back seat means by,
your paintwork. And yeah, I did think “Won’t it get trodden on?” Because yes,
you might slide off. Which I reckoned is propping the mirror on the floor, leaning
perhaps why you don’t see many of them. at an angle against the wall, which is what
Tents stuck on the tops of cars, I mean…” Aileen has done, might indeed make it
“Oh dear me, Bob,” says Kerry. “You more vulnerable to breakages. But no,
buy a rack, with extensions. The tent pops that can’t be what he means, not if he
up and there’s a little ladder. It’s a kit.” said “trodden on”. It can only mean that
“Ah, I see. That’s clever.” he thinks the mirror’s new location “on
“You thought,” says Rachel, not letting the floor” of Aileen’s hall is not vertical,
it drop, “that you erected a marquee, an or even diagonal, but horizontal.
awning, a teepee, around your car and Briefly, that is precisely what I had
then just laid down on the actual roof?” thought. I had imagined Aileen was
“Inasmuch as I’d thought about car (idiotically, to my mind) trialling the
tents at all, that was pretty much it, yeah.” concept of mirror-as-doormat.
Five minutes later they’ve moved on A few hours later, Nicola and Rachel
to Jamie Oliver’s latest book of recipes, return after shopping in Deal. Nicola’s
the theme being each one requires only phone pings. “Oh, who’s that?” I ask.
five ingredients. “That’s such a great “It’s only RingGo,” she replies.
idea,” I pipe up. “Which five does Jamie “Oh yeah, and who’s this Ringo, then?”
choose? I guess you’ve got to have olive I ask, jealousy instantly clouding my tone.
DAN KENNEDY
oil, onion and tomatoes, so that’s three. “A parking app,” says Rachel. n
Which other two would you have? I’d have
chicken and broccoli. Or maybe eggs.” [email protected]
© Times Media Limited, 2023. Published and licensed by Times Media Limited, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF (020 7782 5000). Printed by Walstead Bicester Ltd, Oxfordshire. Not to be sold separately.

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23.09.

FAB FIVE: TINNED FISH

CHOSEN BY MONIQUE RIVALLAND

The Times Magazine 5

The Times Magazine 7

The Times Magazine 9

people there had a lot of anger issues. I thought, “Oh

INTERVIEW Georgina Roberts

10 The Times Magazine

The Omnes x Naomie Harris

The Times Magazine 11

The Times Magazine 17

The Times Magazine 19

20 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 25

Edmondson with his parents and sister, Hilary, in 1958

“Thank you, sir,” Edmondson would

The Times Magazine 27

The Times Magazine 29

In real life, the creator of James Bond,

34 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 35

38 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 39

CHEESE-STUFFED JACKET POTATO WITH GREEN SAUCE SPICY GARLIC PASTA

40 The Times Magazine

Eva Green and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale

‘We had the image of rather a nasty, selfish, cruel man’

The Times Magazine 43

The Times Magazine 45

Krishnan Guru-Murthy, 53, with

50 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 51

The TV presenter and war reporter Anderson Cooper

54 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 55

The Times Magazine 57

Emma Paton, 42, in the entrance hall, with

or city girl Emma Paton, leaving

The Times Magazine 60

The larch-clad Scandi-style

The Times Magazine 61

gained planning permission to add a In her day job as a fashion content

The Times Magazine 63

The Times Magazine 65

FAB FIVE: MASCARAS

The Times Magazine 67

68 The Times Magazine

The Times Magazine 69

74 The Times Magazine

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