I am living in rustic seclusion while writing a book. Our only cultural outing of the week was to Newbury cinema to see, transmitted from the National Theatre, Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge, object of rave reviews. We respected the piece but did not enjoy it. Granted, appreciation of all major works of art requires an effort by the viewer, listener, reader. But a pleasure of getting older is to be unafraid of waving the white flag. We resist modern-dress Shakespeare or worse, opera. We will cross continents to avoid the music of Harrison Birtwistle or the art of Damien Hirst. We are ardent Trollopeians, incorrigibly middlebrow.
John Hatt, founder of Eland Books and a life-enhancer to all fortunate enough to know him, sent me the DVDs of BBC TV’s 1960 Face to Face interviews, saying that he had enjoyed them so much he wanted to try them on us. They are compelling. That old rogue Lord Boothby seemed intelligent and curiously appealing. Adam Faith, then 20, handled himself brilliantly, while Simone Signoret was a bore. We marvelled that such a repellent human being as Evelyn Waugh could have written the best English novels of the past century. Gilbert Harding, supposedly a monster, appeared movingly vulnerable. A BBC veteran with whom I discussed the programmes said the only subject for whom John Freeman formed a violent dislike was Martin Luther King.
Lord Hailsham, not seen to much advantage in his Freeman appearance, enthused about shooting. Any modern politician who did the same would be Twitter toast: the only advice David Cameron ever accepted from me, back in 2009, was to put away his gun. I was brought up to regard the sport as part of the warp and woof of the countryside.
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