Poor Michael Jackson. His last words were: ‘Take me to the children’s ward.’ But it was nice of the jockeys in Santa Anita to wear a black mourning band in honour of a man who rode more three-year-old winners than anyone. Mind you, I thought the great Paul Johnson was the best when I happened to tell him over the telephone of Jackson’s untimely death: ‘Was he a member of the Beatles?’ Er, well no, dear Paul, but he was in the same undignified business.
It has been said that you only ever meet the world once, in childhood. All the rest is memory. Jackson, I suppose, wished to remain a child, although from what I’ve read, his childhood was ghastly. (I never saw him perform and found him so repellent I avoided looking at his picture.)
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