which bit any hand that tried to feed it, sent our friend Ruby Bernstein dashing to the nearest hospital for a precautionary rabies injection, while wondering whether husband Albert—who had bravely sucked the tiny wound—should have similar treatment.
There was not much local sympathy, though I did warn that the dog might suffer an attack of Rubies.
Fanny rarely enjoyed a smooth path. Writing a dreadful review of a long-established St Helier restaurant was hurtful. Jumping queues in the splendid fish market did not go down well, nor did complaining loudly at the butchers when waiting in the queue was the wife of the Housing Chairman. What started as little ripples of irritation became waves of discontent among island politicians: “We’ve had one Norah Docker, we don’t need another.”
It became obvious that Fanny did not much care for established restaurants, she liked to earn credit for discovering some hidden gem at the end of the jetty no one knew about. Fortunately this also extended to private cooks, as in Valerie’s case entertaining was a new experience and each meal a hit-and-miss adventure. After that first dinner she was generous in her praise and managed to eat everything, only pausing as she left to offer a bain-marie. So far so good.
The Cradocks had been generous and hospitable when I was working in Fleet Street, so upon their arrival in Jersey I tried to ease their passage by arranging a lunch to introduce them to the great and good of the island. Fanny arrived dressed from head to toe in forest green, a veiled green bowler topping her orange make-up—a cross between Boadicea and Robin Hood. Her requested drink was predictably odd—Martini and sweet sparkling lemonade. This improbable mixture caused grinding of teeth and delay at the bar, and held up my distribution of conventional champagne.
After a short while she offered to help in the kitchen. To discourage such good intentions we fed her first. Suddenly out of nowhere came a deafening crash…and there lay Fanny, flat out on the parquet like a green turtle. No movement, blood everywhere.
We hauled her upstairs and propped her up on a bed—hat and veil only slightly askew. A tentative search for injuries revealed nothing. Later it transpired she had gashed herself with her enormous rings. We went to warn Johnnie, who was sitting in his wheelchair by the dining-room fire, talking to admirers. We were worried the bloody incident might disturb him.
“Oh,” said Johnnie, noticeably undisturbed, “she’s done that again, has she?” He went on smoking his pipe. It was not my planned introduction to the Housing Committee.
They considered buying a pretty granite cottage a few hundred yards from us. We shivered a little, cautiously. In a way it was a shame. “Given a choice,” I said, “I’d rather keep a few parishes between us.”
This plan, like most of Fanny’s good intentions, did not go well. A pity. There should always be room for the outrageous and the eccentric—though preferably not living next door. Eventually they settled in Guernsey, creating waves and mutterings of discontent. She was always high-handed and difficult, leaving chaos behind her and so much unpopularity that a local bookshop refused to stock her novels.
Causing a minor car crash at a crossroads, she blamed everyone else. Confronted by photographic evidence, she smiled dismissively: “Just shows the camera can lie.”
We watched from the sidelines as her star dwindled. She shot herself in the foot on an Esther Rantzen programme, sneering at some poor housewife’s attempt to cook a banquet. She was crucified by unkind editing—though what could you expect? In a few moments she was transformed from likeable monster to cruel bully, and her television career was over. She was probably the first fatal victim of a reality show.
We saw her a few months after Johnnie’s death. Forlorn and broken, she was spending Christmas in a small Jersey hotel, doubtless one of those interesting little discoveries we had managed to avoid. She came to us for lunch and Valerie gave her a bulging Christmas stocking, full of delicious and caring goodies, but it hardly registered. The fire had gone out of her life.
Johnnie, hen-pecked and dominated all those years, had been her secret strength. Without him she let life go, and withered away. “Nothing separates us, except rugby and the lavatory,” she had said, but now she was just a shell. Her old pugnacious fury had evaporated.
Our sacred monsters are different now: more beautiful, less genuine, more confident, less intelligent. They are created by PR and by management, not driven ambition. We know more about them but there are fewer layers to explore and no surprises. Everyone needs to test his courage against a Fanny Cradock, that furious pink stripe in a grey world.
From a distance the contrast between life in California and life in Florida seems minimal—but close up these two golden states are a world apart. California, for all its self-conscious introspection, is a place to work; Florida is a place to retire, a sprawling mass of tidy housing and safe compounds, playgrounds for the like-minded old. Hard to imagine the far-out Wagners, Kurt and Kathy, a couple who had embraced every Seventies fad from Est to roller-skating, settling for life among golfers, bridge players and yoga.
Back in the Seventies Kurt would talk about an ageless society, a time when there would be no such thing as old age—as if the surgeon’s knife could be the answer to all ills. These communities for the Sprightly Old do not quite match his prophecy, but their gated estates with gyms, pools and libraries are safe, warm and welcoming. In a country where youth is all, Florida provides an all-enveloping lifestyle for a group who would be invisible in many other states. Here, grey power has real power and the financial clout to back it up. Yes, bright sunlit winters do invigorate.
Aldous Huxley called Los Angeles the City of Dreadful Joy…However, he never found it so dreadful that he was tempted to return to the damp discomfort of Britain. For Anita Loos, actress and screenwriter who wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, there was just no there…there.
For many journalists on the outside looking in, there was a sense of superiority, a thin-lipped disapproval of the Californian way of life that seems too easy, too relaxed, too open. Something rotten at the core, surely?
Old films show how our perception of America—particularly California—has changed. Now we all want a slice of that eternal sunshine, those excellent wines, the right to choose illusion before reality. In Beverly Hills, if it’s not adequately beautiful, you change it. This could be a house—or a chin. That state of mind slid stealthily into our own world, so if the amount of happiness in your life is inadequate, go out and buy some more.
In LA, ageing without cosmetic surgery is now hardly an option. I suppose there may be women on those brilliant shopping avenues around Rodeo Drive who are indifferent to their wrinkles, but they have to be tourists, or foreigners.
Californian priorities used to be the pool, the second car—and after that, well, there’s always something to remove, or tighten. Now it’s unlikely that the pool and those cars would be on offer without the perfecting knife.
Before the Seventies, cosmetic surgery was a dark secret, a frivolous, guilty indulgence to be hidden from all but your closest friends. Names would be whispered and shared between those in the know, like that once-upon-a-time passing around of the numbers of surgeons willing to perform an abortion.
Many women would travel from the other side of the world for treatment by the famous Dr Pittanguy of Brazil, or an exotic Frenchman with a surgery in Tahiti. In London there was a man well known for experimental penis enlargement, an enthusiasm which for some reason never caught on…
