Wit, MP, cook, epicure, habitué of the turf, TV personality and, inevitably,
as the fiercely competitive backbone of Just a Minute. These are just a few
of the terms in which Sir Clement Freud, who has died aged 84, is being so
fondly eulogised today. And he was a brilliant journalist too. Fortunately,
for The Times, it was with us that Freud enjoyed one of his most enduring
professional relationships. From the early 1980s until his final piece last
year - in which he asserted that he would be leaving all his money to his
grandchildren - Freud filed more than 500 articles for The Times that
represent some of his finest work.
Here we have tried to present the best of it, including excerpts from Freud on
Friday, the column in which he covered sports events, and Gut Feelings, in
which he interviewed other notables over a convivial restaurant meal and
then chucked in a recipe for good measure. Nowhere before or since has one
column covered so many bases.
There were also diaries, one-off features and the odd book review. Charles
Wilson, Editor of The Times from 1980 to 1985, who first brought Freud to
this paper, says: “He was a brilliant writer, analytical where necessary,
yet always with this overlying humour.” Wilson was more than Freud's first
editor at The Times. They were firm friends too, who met during a meeting at
Haydock in the 1970s and went on to co-own several racehorses. “I must have
laughed more in his company than with any other person I have known in my
life,” he recalls.
Freud was something of a pioneer, as Sir Peter Stothard, Editor of The Times
from 1992 to 2002, says. “He was a celebrity writer in an age when
celebrities, particularly at The Times, were rather frowned upon.
“To understand Clement you have to imagine a totally different world of
politics and newspapers, in which the Liberals were interesting, where there
were no celebrity columnists, very little wit and humour and very few people
who wrote about what it was like to go to a sports event, or to go to a
restaurant. That was why he was so important, and valuable, and why he rated
himself very highly - as editors of The Times did, too.”
Freud was also pretty intolerant of any sub-editor or executive who
contemplated tweaking that copy. As Sir Peter says: “He really cared about
the words.”
He took care to cultivate his editors, too. Keith Blackmore (then Deputy
Sports Editor of The Times, now Deputy Editor) who handled Freud on Friday,
recalls being liberally lunched at a Marco Pierre White restaurant in the
1990s. White joined them, wine was drunk, and afterwards Freud insisted on
taking Blackmore, by cab, for a flutter at the nearest betting shop. Freud
hailed the taxi, which dropped them off at a Ladbrokes - 40 yards down the
road.
It was only a few days ago that Wilson received his invitation to Freud's 85th
birthday party, a supper for 15 that had been planned for next Friday.It
read: “This is to remind you of the time, date and location - although it
may be wise to keep an eye on the obituary column.”
Paying tribute to Alan Coren after his death two years ago, Freud wrote: “I
think he will do well in Heaven, or wherever it is that talented
communicators go after giving such pleasure to so many during their time on
Earth.” An opinion that could apply equally to its author.
Analyse these ... the best of Freud
A high old time
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Three young acquaintances of mine did the peaks in 23 hours the other day.
“You should try it,” said one, “you and your new knees.” For the record, I
am 82 and was indeed fitted with titanium and plastic knees six months ago.
When propositioned recently by a woman to “come upstairs and make love”, I
had to explain that it was one or the other. But decided that I too could be
a record climber: the fastest old man to mount Notting Hill, Primrose Hill
and Parliament Hill in a day...
From my Ordnance Survey maps I gleaned that the ascents were long rather than
steep, requiring changes of socks rather than crampons. I was impressed by
the advice to start the day with a bowl of porridge and I was apprehensive
about chatting with fellow walkers descending from the top, quizzing them on
the conditions underfoot.
It is customary to plant at the summit a flag, signed and dated to say “I was
here”. I purchased three flags and poles and gave serious thought to the
inscription on the message, a message which I felt should end with “God save
the Queen”.
I consulted the Met Office. They said they expected a lot of weather - it is
summer - so I set off, leaving a note for my wife on the kitchen table (note
on table, wife in bed) saying “I may be some little time.”
Cold Comfort from Melodius Celery
Afterthoughts, December 19, 1994
It is part of Sod's law that now we have all-weather race tracks, indoor
athletic arenas and covered football stadiums with underpitch heating,
December afternoons come in at 14C.
It was, of course, not ever thus and quite especially was it not in 1967. The
freeze caused everything that had been arranged to be postponed.
In the sports room of the old Daily Herald building, we played poker, waited
for the thaw and, one afternoon, feeling like Captain Oates on Scott's
ill-fated expedition, I told them I would not be long and went to Park Royal.
The dog track was covered with a thin layer of straw and the crowd usually
about 1,200, boosted to twice that number by the lack of alternatives,
huddled in the bars and restaurants.
There were tables at which you could eat beef sandwiches for 3s 6d. The tote
was weakish but Park Royal with a good proportion of winning favourites was
not only a fair track; when the wind was in the right direction, it brought
the uplifting smell of hops from the Guinness factory across the road.
I see from my notes that I placed money on Melodious Celery, whose performance
failed to match the beauty of her name. And I had coffee with a racing
manager who told me that dogs from traps one, two and six narrowly
outperformed the mid-trap runners and, if I did forecasts involving the
three favoured draws, I would show a slight profit over the season.
As “a slight profit” was not what I had in mind, I backed a dog led up by a
kennel maid with a huge bust. He came fifth. That system is a good way of
showing a slight loss.
Spaghetti-like figure with a Rye sense of humour
January 2, 1993
The [Casa Conti] has half a dozen tables and 25 dishes from which to choose, a
bad sign. But when my guest arrived, punctually, quietly, limping a bit, he
explained that this was the only place around where they turn off the piped
music when he arrives.
The waiter beamed. He and Spike Milligan conversed in advanced phrase-book
Italian. I believe I caught “I would like a room facing the sea...” There
were certainly lots of “benes”. The menu, uniquely, lists the 38
tapes of its music centre so that you could have, say, spaghetti con vongole
with number 36 the 1812 Overture. There is also a wine list.
Milligan ordered melone followed by minestrone. Did he want Parmesan cheese
with his minestra? No. He is seriously thin and, as he ate less than half
his soup, no pudding and only sipped at a small glass of Orvieto, our
luncheon did nothing to make him less so.
He was born in India in 1918; father was regimental sergeant major in the
Royal Artillery. In 1932, the government of the day reduced the strength of
the British Army by 10 per cent. Father was forced to retire, and the
Milligans travelled to England and took up residence in an attic in Catford,
southeast London. What did they eat?
“Straightforward British meals: ox heart, cod's roe, pigs' trotters, faggots,
suet puddings; nothing was favourite. I went to Brownhill Road Boys' School,
learnt to masturbate; teacher stood over us while we did it.” The occupants
of the other tables at Casa Conti, who had been listening raptly to our
conversation, now made rhubarb-rhubarb noises like a well-rehearsed rabble.
“It seemed like that,” Milligan said. The noise subsided.
His star dish
May 3, 1986
As “trolley” is a word they do not use in nice restaurants, Ninety Park Lane
has a caravanne des desserts, and if you think that sounds pretentious or
theatrical, you must observe Martin Chadwick, the driver of the caravan who
has a smooth line in patter as he trundles his tall round vehicle between
the tables. “A cream of sweet chestnut and liqueurs with a hint of praline
set in a crisp pastry shell and flecked with candied meringue. I can tell
you in confidence that this is the restaurant manager's preferred dessert,”
he says. David Frost, who eats no puddings, calls upon Martin to do his act
just for the joy of it, and the restaurant manager (he who eats the
alcoholic mont blanc) passes by now and then and murmurs “rein it in
Martin”. In his defence, the five-foot vehicle, topped by a shiny alcoholic
summer pudding, deserves enthusiasm.
Navigate the dinner-party minefield
October 17, 1996
There are in food and wine a few marriages made in heaven: walnuts and vintage
port spring to mind; ripe white peaches with champagne...so brilliant that
Italians liquidise the fruit, add it to the wine and call it a Bellini.
There are combinations of food and drink which are strictly for the home:
braised oxtail which deserves strong ale to quaff rather than sip; Irish
stew with which nothing is as right as a nice hot cup of strong Indian tea.
You cannot have that in restaurants, not even with the mark-up on tea at
1,000 per cent. When it comes to profit, restaurants need high volume and
even a big gain on a 10p commodity is only just enough to pay for the one in
24 teaspoons nicked by customers.
On the whole, any wine goes with any food, especially if the conversation is
buzzing, but avoid obvious pitfalls: red wine with shellfish; acidic salads
when you are drinking soft smooth red wines.
Watercress does funny things to your palate - makes it very hard to appreciate
good wine, does a plate of watercress salad. So, look on the bright side, if
the wine you have bought is iffy, bring on watercress.
Some questions of interpretation
April 14, 2007
In my youth “Freud” was not a household name in Britain. At prep school I was
once called to the headmaster's study to be beaten for talking during class,
told to take off my trousers “and your pants, you stupid little boy”, lay
across the man's knee as he fondled my bum with his gnarled hand, whereafter
he said: “I am not going to smack you because your grandfather would
disapprove.” When people ask whether being related to a famous man is a help
or a hindrance, I think of that.
I was called up in l942. I was sent a third-class rail ticket to Glasgow, and
stood in the corridor of a packed train for six hours, chatting to another
18-year-old also bound for Maryhill Barracks. On arrival we were told to
wait until our names were called.
After a while the sergeant called “Frood”. Too tired to argue, I came to
attention and shuffled towards the designated location when the man called
“Jung”. I gripped [my new friend] by the shoulder and said: “This is the
most amazing coincidence: my name is Freud and Freud and Jung, I mean, what
an extraordinary thing.” He said: “My name is Young.”
[My grandfather Sigmund] hated the US; he was unwell and [on one] occasion
when the demands of the Freud bladder caused him to ask Jung to walk very
close to him while he urinated down his trouser leg. Nicer men would have
kept quiet about this. Jung did not qualify under the “nice man”
appellation. Jung used his position to denigrate his teacher whenever he
could. They fell out big time.
My father, an architect and the youngest Freud son, [once] took me to Vienna
to meet him. I was delighted. I had pillow fights with Paula, the Freud
maid, sat dutifully at meals and was taken for a walk by my grandfather, me
holding one hand, the leash of his alsatian dog in the other. On that walk
we came across a man having an epileptic fit. The man's hat had fallen from
his head and,as he twitched and salivated, people placed money into the hat
as a token of sympathy. We walked away, grandfather, the dog and I. Why did
you not give him any money, I asked. Grandfather looked at me and said: “He
did not do it well enough.”
In 1978 I was on a parliamentary delegation to Japan and returned via China
during the Cultural Revolution, a choice also made by young Winston
Churchill, then the Conservative MP for Stretford. On my final day I was
debriefed by the Minister for Information who asked if there was anything at
all I would like to ask. I said: “Yes. Everything you do, you do with
extreme care and precision. When I ask questions that your government does
not like, my driver calls for me five minutes later than arranged. When I
ask if there are any blind or handicapped children in China, I get cabbage
soup for dinner.
“Now I am in your country with a colleague, than whom I am older, have been in
parliament longer, have held higher positions in our respective political
parties: we are both staying at the Peking Palace Hotel and his suite is
bigger than mine. Why?”
The Minister, very embarrassed, finally said: “It is because Mr Churchill had
a famous grandfather.” It is the only time that I have been
out-grandfathered.
The night that words failed The Greatest; Afterthoughts
November 28, 1994
When the recording angel draws a thin line beneath my achievements during the
1960s, he will say “and then what?” In the 1970s, I shall reply, I was
briefly boxing correspondent for the Financial Times and the editor said I
could witness the [Muhammad] Ali contest against [Joe] Frazier. In this,
“The Greatest”, for the first time since his epic bout against Mr Liston,
started as underdog.
Madison Gardens ringside seats looked as if they had been filled by a berserk
talent coordinator for a prime-time talk show: politicians, astronauts and
hoodlums crushed against movie moguls and media tycoons. Sinatra's
bodyguards had a brief hoe-down with Burt Lancaster's minders. Ella
Fitzgerald waved to Truman Capote, who giggled.
Frazier was dressed in an emerald green dressing- gown embroidered with his
name and that of his five children in ever-diminishing type to make it look
like an optician's wallchart. Both men danced around their corners exuding
adrenalin ... until Ali executed a fandango that took him Frazier-wards for
a quick push and short sharp goading word before dancing away, gloating
hugely. It was the action of an archetypal bully and though Ali outweighed
his opponent by only 10lb, he looked twice his size,
At the bell, Frazier moved forwards, Ali back. Frazier threw punches, Ali held
out his long left arm and narrowed his eyes. Frazier swung and connected.
Ali danced and goaded and countered. By the eleventh round, only a knockout
by the Louisiana Lip could have realised his prediction that “boxing experts
will be shocked to see how easy I beat Frazier”.
Ali won round 14 but he no longer floated like a butterfly, stung no harder
than a midge, shuffled in the manner of a proud, bewildered ox soaking up
punches with the crowd now shouting “good old Smokey Joe”.
In his corner, they wept as their man slumped to his seat, no longer the
prettiest, nor the greatest, nor even champion again, and at length one of
his management team came to us in the ringside press seats and explained
that “Mr Ali regrets he is unable to talk tonight; in fact, he may have
broken his jaw.”
Diary
August 8, 1988
My distinguished Aunt Anna had a house on the west coast of Cork and always
spoke with affection of the simple, straightforward decency of the local
people. She was in Skibereen for her 70th birthday and received hundreds of
telegrams of goodwill from all parts of the world where psycho-analysis
rules OK.
The messages were telephoned through to the postmistress, who inscribed them
on greetings forms and hired a boy to deliver them hourly to the Freud
house. During the afternoon she received one which read: “The rapists of
Philadelphia send good wishes and best regards.” Over which my elderly
maiden aunt puzzled greatly. When she called on the postmistress the next
day she asked if they might send off for verification. The postmistress said
that she, too, had been shocked by the words and checked them, and they had
been right. Therapists is not a word in common usage around those parts.
You can have my wine but not my money
February 2, 2008
In October 1950 I left everything to my wife, told her so at dinner; she was
too well brought up to ask questions. In fact, “everything” then was under
£100, my paternal grandfather's silk night-shirts, which my grandmother had
given me as a 21st birthday present, and some extremely heavy, leather
luggage nicked from a German factory that my regiment had “liberated” a week
or two before VE Day.
Last week, 58 years, five children and 16 grandchildren later, my first wife
(we remain together, I call her “my first wife” to keep her on her toes)
asked whether I had made a will. Not for a while, I admitted, and determined
to do it all over again.
Things have changed, the way they do. I lost Sigmund's night-shirts and the
heavy leather luggage, but have quite a lot of wine, the odd painting, a
letter from Margaret Thatcher and a picture of me with Muhammad Ali. I took
my children around our flat in turns. They all wanted all the wine, my
wife's desk, my collection of cookery books and the same picture, so that
will be no trouble.
I shall leave no money to my rich children but have them think well of me by
setting up a trust for their children. Between three and ten £50 notes to be
sent to them on their birthdays between ages 11 and 17, and then a proper
lump sum for comforts on their gap year. I told my accountant, who shook his
head. “Governments are suspicious of trusts” was his verdict. It would cost
a lot to set up, difficult to administer, liable to taxation.
So while I remain alive, my time will be principally devoted to collecting new
banknotes (nothing celebratory about receiving used currency), stamp
licking, envelope sealing and missing due birth dates because of holidays or
visits to undertakers. It made me understand why some people leave all their
money to the Battersea Dogs' Home.
Diary
August 22, 1988
I have been given a Magic Kenkoh. It is a blue plastic cylinder with pimples;
you grip it in the palm of your hand and it turns red. “Colour change,”
states the instruction leaflet, “means you are sound and healthy today”. I
have been sound and healthy every day since I have had it and am
particularly taken with the promise that “it may prevent hands and feet from getting
older”. All I shall now have to worry about are my face and body.
There is a chart that shows pressure points of the hand “to let the blood
circulate in good balance”. You can either press the round metal part at the
top of Kenkoh against the gall bladder, liver, heart or sexual organ or roll
the pimples across it, which might be hazardous as eye, kidney and stomach
pressure points are within an inch of each other on the palm. One
disappointing addendum: “Over 86F, apt to change colour by itself.” In a hot
climate you could be sound, healthy and dead.
It was raining on Thursday afternoon when two girls came up to me in the
drizzle of the forecourt of a motorway service station and asked if I had a
donor card. I said not, and told them in reply to their question that I
shall be pleased for any functioning part of my body to be used to help
mankind. They asked for my name and date of birth and said sign here. “Is
that it?” Yes. There must be a more scientific way of leaving your body to
science.
There will be a funeral for Sir Clement Freud at St Bride's Church, Fleet
Street, on Friday April 24 at midday to which family, friends and colleagues
are invited.
