of a Lifetime—a look at the fun, shock and jubilation of half a century spent getting to know interesting people living unusual lives around the world.
The first long-cut of any television film is exciting, the second alarming—for you see and hear where you went wrong. To make the first cut the Editor and Director will have removed the humour, to make room. Jokes are always the first to go. Editors suspect that they take us away from the storyline, or hold up the action. Unfortunately they also take with them much of the elusive flavour we were chasing—our attitude towards the rest of the world.
Then, gradually, later versions of Whicker’s World emerge from the cutting rooms and into my study. Everything slowly comes together, from the first interview to the last frame, which is when we start to believe we’ve caught something special on the screen, whether it’s a person, a place or a moment in time. Once we’ve unlocked the flavour and texture of some people and places, Whicker’s World goes on turning.
Norfolk Island was just such a place, where I first caught islanditis. This pursued me around the world to such an extent that I left a desirable home in the heart of London and went to live on a tiny island in the Atlantic where I knew no one. I had been travelling all my life and was then living happily in a Nash terrace in Regent’s Park, and before that on Richmond Green.
The first different reaction I noticed about Norfolk Island was that whenever two cars passed the drivers always waved to each other. At first I thought my driver had a lot of friends and relations, but then I realized that in an isolated isle of 2,000 people he would surely know every driver, even if he had just missed the last one while those sheep were passing.
Norfolk, a reminder of Switzerland with sea, is about as far as you can go in the South Pacific. It floats in tremendous seas somewhere off Australia and New Zealand—a paradise where nothing bites and nothing stings, where they feed the pigs on passion fruit and the sheep on wild peaches.
The descendants of the Bounty mutineers came to Norfolk when they outgrew Pitcairn. Its towering pines and little mountains stand amid seascapes of deep blue ocean and white water—unknown places fit for eagles and angels.
A contained space where people felt they belonged was comforting for anyone enjoying islanditis, but for the big lifestyle picture I did not want to lose contact with my roots or do without relevant newspapers and television, so some thirty-six years ago I reluctantly gave away the South Pacific and Regent’s Park and settled in Jersey, the major Channel Island where motorists don’t wave much.
Now when I wake in the morning I look towards France across fourteen miles of magnificent seas—sometimes as still and lovely as a turquoise mirror, other days Wagnerian and threatening. Looking along that Normandy coast towards Cherbourg very little has changed, though just out of sight there’s Flammanville and evidence of French determination to rely upon nuclear reactors. A worrisome coastline.
Former Jersey resident Victor Hugo called the Channel Islands “little specks of France fallen into the sea and gobbled up by the English”. I’ve never regretted surrendering to this uncommon situation, although the £8 air fare to London that greeted us thirty-six years ago is now about £100, and counting.
In my island paradise, into which 100,000 residents are now squeezing themselves, I am living happily ever after. It’s a joy to know I shall spend the rest of my days in this tranquil therapeutic island where spring comes a little early, summer seems endless and autumn hangs around.
My last book written here was Whicker’s War, a look at the conflict in Italy in which the men who fought there seemed anxious to keep it private, as is the way of soldiers. This book, as you now know, has been an examination of the highs and lows of my first fifty years of television life, played out in public.
Some kindly folk have already asked me for another collection of memories, but between you and me I’m not sure I’m good for another half-century—not even with the help of my wonderful Valerie…but who knows? It’s always possible we might meet again in another Whicker’s World!
1 THERE’S BEEN A CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT
Flying home from Australia is never a happy undertaking; I’ve tried it every which way—thirty hours non-stop, or peeling off for a night in Singapore or Bangkok, Hong Kong or LA. However you approach it, you face a long haul, rattling with pills. Jet lag always wins.
I’d recommend travel on Christmas Day. Planes are empty, service is great—the stewards have no one else to talk to. Champagne and Anton Mosimann’s best puddings seem to taste even better at 32,000 feet—but this time, flying from Haiti, I had been invited to break the journey in Los Angeles and spend the holiday with Cubby Broccoli, granddaddy of James Bond, and his wife Dana—who took an instant dislike to Fagin, as played by Ron Moody.
We had a Californian Christmas: bright sunshine, extravagant presents, interesting company. One day we flew to Las Vegas with that splendid old actor Bruce Cabot—a relative of Cubby’s—who had been the lead in King Kong. Not much to do with snow and reindeer, but he fitted in beautifully—and the monkey was great.
The day before we left for London, there was a party at the home of Harold Robbins; I’d made a Whicker’s World around him a few months earlier. Harold could behave very much like a character in one of his novels, but I found him oddly likeable. He could be boorish and boastful—which seems to happen to bestsellers—but then in a complex blend he was courteous and charming in a rather old-fashioned way. He was married at the time to Grace, a darkly attractive woman who seemed able to cope with his erratic lifestyle.
While writing in New York he liked to stay at the Elysée Hotel, a quiet place off Madison Avenue favoured by Tennessee Williams and other authors. We left the Plaza to join him and quickly slipped into the Robbins routine, meeting his stable of available ladies in the evening and drinking good Californian burgundy served at precisely 64 degrees.
“Guess what she does?” he demanded, after introducing a leggy blonde in hot pants. I had a pretty good idea what she might do, but suggested instead a model, an actress, beauty consultant, hair designer, nail technician…“No,” he cried, triumphantly. “She’s a store detective.”
Her in-store career came to an abrupt end when Harold’s publishers conveniently noticed that his latest novel was way behind schedule. She was dispatched to a Spanish holiday on a one-way ticket.
I had been pleased with our programme around Harold, I’m the World’s Best Writer—There’s Nothing More to Say. It had a good story—Hell’s Kitchen to Côte d’Azur yachts, by way of one portable typewriter. Interesting locations and an articulate subject who, it later transpired, had a slight problem separating fact from passing fantasy.
Harold’s editor Simon was a splendid, articulate man and I was anxious that he should be included in our programme. I broached the subject during a jolly lunch with them both, but to my surprise he refused point blank: “Didn’t you notice how he started breaking up all those table matches while you were talking to me?” Simon was not about to risk upsetting his golden goose for a few minutes’ exposure on Whicker’s World.
Sitting around the Robbins’s Beverly Hills pool on that bright December afternoon were old friends from London and the Côte d’Azur, Leslie and Evie Bricusse. Leslie was responsible for some of the great standards of the Sixties and Seventies, often with Anthony Newley. If you hear something familiar, plaintive and lyrical, it’s usually Leslie asking “What kind of fool am I?”
