‘Blimey! Pause it. Pause it and go back.’
‘Hang-on, this is clearly an event, I’ll switch to the tv screen and go back to the beginning, we can then pay proper attention, it is almost the full two hours, see?’
It was the week before Christmas, and the Don Wooley Podcast with the ex-prime minister was snatching the nation’s attention away from traditional media and their reverence for the late Queen. Which of course was fine for The Beacon - we were watching it on their channel having been prompted by verbatim transcripts in the paper - but their rivals and the BBC were floundering.
The aftershock promised to be considerable, grabbing the attention of the millions of us determined to listen, but in our case also watch, in our own time via social media. The podcast format seemed to have come of age, but in an incongruous set-up. There were Buffy and the Don, lounging in grand country house surroundings but talking like, well I imagine a couple of Aussie lager louts would, in some outback bar. The uninhibited atmosphere of the podcast, conducive to intimate confessions. The first of these ‘finished’ programmes surprised from the off, simply by its frankness about government affairs, an openness we British aren’t use to. Within a couple of minutes, the Don was interrupting Buffy’s flow with a query as to whether he was breaking the Official Secrets Act by talking in such a way.
‘Oh, don’t be such a big girl’s blouse Don!’
‘And that as well Buffy, some might say such language is sexist, if not misogynistic?’
‘It’s a joke, made by chaps against other chaps, nothing to do with the girls at all!’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure I understand it, where does it come from?’
‘Part of the great music hall tradition.’
‘But neither of us are old enough to remember!’
‘Misspent youth. I was one of the first generation to have a portable tv in my room at school, and at university come to that. Northern comics, drew a lot on their idols from the variety theatre.’
‘But what does it mean?’
‘Well, it’s the timeless image isn’t it! British working-class women chatting over the yard wall, or in the back lane as they hung out the washing, fussing and flustered, ample bosomed, grown fat on a diet of bread and dripping, shocked by the inconsequential behaviour of their neighbours.’
‘Making a fuss about nothing you mean?’
‘Absolutely. Cross talk and banter, the stuff of tv chat to this day.’
‘Yes. So, to bring it all back, the Official Secrets Act, is nothing?’
‘No, no, no, of course not. But my point is Don, so much of my tenure in Downing Street has been pawed over by the newspapers, parliamentary committees, even the Supreme Court, leaked emails, security footage, much of what we have to say to each other clearly has a precedent and is already in the public domain, or so the girlie-swot lawyers tell me!’
‘And how do you justify that one?’
‘One what?’
‘Girlie-swot.’
‘Oh! You want more definitions and derivations. Well now. You see again, its boys ripping the piss out of the other boys. I blame the teachers. Around about the end of the seventies, early eighties, there became available for the first time, mass stats on what happens to exam results when kids are taught in single sex classes or entire schools. As we all now know, not only do both sexes do better when not distracted, but girls out-performed boys. Right? So, in the years that followed our teachers were forever trying to motivate us to do better by ribbing us about how well the girls did. So, any lad who kept his head down, did everything the teacher asked of him...’
‘Was a girlie-swot.’
‘Precisely.’
‘And educational attainment through hard work is a bad thing?’
‘No, no. Its the going mad about exams. Specialising far too early. Not realising what school is really about.’
‘You mean things like, critical thinking and creativity?’
‘No Don! That may well be what schools, ought, or should be about, what they’re really about is learning what authority is, learning to conform to social norms, living by a timetable, learning how to be a future employee, how to spend your time working for somebody else.’
‘And you approve of that?’
‘Well its alright for most people, probably what they need, but not for the likes of us, aye Don? The measure of a chap, is can he escape all that? Do his own thing, cut his own path through life. But you’ve got to know the rules before you can break them, develop a touch of class, of style. Chaps who are focused on outcomes, don’t mind much how they get there, will do whatever it takes. Be your own man, that’s the thing. Of course, once in a while you get a girlie-swot who does come good, given enough time, boys like our A.A.’
‘A.A?’
‘Oh! Of course, you wouldn’t know, the chap you know as Tony, owner of this place.’
‘Part owner, along with the Earl.’
‘He always has aspired to be part of the landed gentry.’
Charlie grabbed the remote and pressed pause, saying: ‘That’s a good place to leave it for now, we’ve got Bob for tea, and I’ve got prep to do.’
‘Well thanks a lot! Stopping it just as my name is about to be dragged through the mud.’
‘I wonder how the club will react?’
‘Well, I imagine there will be a few stony-faced types who will be wittering about the constitutional implications and suchlike, but most will just find it hilarious!’
‘And how will Rory and Prudence react?’
‘They won’t like it. They’re going to find Buffy even more difficult to defend. Still, we won’t have long to wait, Buffy has been called in as a late substitute for Uncle, as speech-giver at the club Christmas lunch.’
‘Is his lordship unwell, sir.’
‘No, I don’t think so, just losing his taste for drunken revelries.’
As soon as we were sat around the kitchen table, staring at the pot, waiting for it to stew a little, the good Captain started in. Such romantic idealism was surprising in an older person, he’d clearly been captivated by the prospect of making their new prospective house, a home. It wasn’t long before I felt the need to put my foot down.
‘The bottom-line Bob, is the Trust retains the freehold permanently, we like The Grange, will pay for the upkeep of the structure and any interior work that brings it back closer to the original, but all that costs! We shall no longer donate to the charity; we’ll as likely as not be your landlord initially. Charlie will no longer participate as a Trust representative but as a private individual, whatever she donates will come from her own savings. The area for negotiation is the level of rent, followed later by the possible cost of a lease. Remember, the move itself is going to cost you, you also don’t know if the move will bring you more or less donations. There is the question of how much you personally wish to commit, versus the benefit of holding off till after your time when Charlie will have considerable discretion over negotiating a long lease if both sides are still happy.’
The temperature seemed to have been falling as I made my pitch, almost as if a draft had caused the pantry door to slowly open.
‘The answer Robert old boy, is to give the real, current, accounts to Charlie to show to the Trust’s accountant, Lawrence Brinkley of Brinkley Associates.’ The voice came from Kenneth, silhouetted in the doorway, for all the world like the ghost of Duncan.
‘My God! Kenneth Murchison, I thought you were dead!’ Cried the captain.
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