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The People’s Edward
Sickened by the media tributes to the late Sir Edward Heath, which bear little resemblance to the man I knew and loved.
Not a word about his fondness for the pogo-stick, for instance.
Time and again I called unexpectedly at his beautiful home in Salisbury to find him bouncing wildly from room to room, knocking over the furniture, ornaments and housekeeper, grinning and whooping and singing scurrilous ditties about the alleged private habits of Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller (1905-80).
For a man in his late eighties weighing 62 stone, whose doctors had warned him that showing courtesy to anyone could be fatal, his vitality was astounding.
In his seventies, forced to give up ocean racing, he turned instead to pedal-driven interplanetary travel, and was able to boast he had insulted waiters on no fewer than eighty planets.
He had an especial liking for the Daleks, who always rolled out the red carpet for him, or said they would have done if they’d had hands and been able to bend.
How he loved discoursing on ‘my favourite asteroids’ to anyone who couldn’t climb out of the window and escape.
Another great enthusiasm was collecting nude photographs of the Dalai Lama. Ted finished up with a matchless collection of two, both somewhat blurred and labelled ‘EVIDENCE of Mrs Skelton’s INFIDELITY – Do Not Remove’.
He enjoyed flinging sandbags at repair men and health visitors and liked nothing better than an ‘Eat A Yard Of Suet’ contest.
His proudest moment came when, pulling out his old service revolver and holding it to Rostropovich’s head, he forced the world-famous cellist to play the theme from Please Sir! on an infected kazoo.
No, we shall not see his like again, though Charles Clarke is coming along nicely.
ANONYMOUS said…
Welcome back Toastie! I for one have missed your eloquent, inspired rantings.
VICUS SCURRA said…
Nice to have you back, old bean, another in the series of "I wish I'd thought of that"
PETER said…
What they said.
I think you're mixing up Heath with Sir Patrick Moore who's (technically) still alive, although you'd never think it.
TOASTY replied…
Thanks guys. Sorry my absence was quite so elongated.
My father at one time had the curious idea that Patrick Moore was the author of Old Moore’s Almanac. I remember him roaring: ‘What does HE know? WHAT does HE know??’
True story.
As you see, my life was bound to end in disaster. Or ‘blogging’ as we call it these days.
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