I’m not a betting man but my brilliant ruse left me in the black
I learnt something quite important at Royal Ascot this year. A gentleman does not wear his top hat at a jaunty angle, however roguish and amusing he may think it makes him look. He wears it straight up or not at all.
I am grateful to the lady who taught me this. A noted Irish owner and breeder, she did it with a smile and a twinkle, shortly after I had won ten pounds off her.
I had been explaining to her that I wouldn’t be able to back her horse in the next race because, knowing next to nothing about racing, I have a rule that I only ever back horses ridden by Ryan Moore, the champion jockey who has never let me down.
‘I bet you can’t make Ryan smile,’ said the lady.
Ryan Moore is a genius in the saddle, though he has a reputation for being a touch taciturn and straight-faced off it. But he smiled for me and I won the bet – see the picture. Enjoy the picture. It’s the last time you’ll see me wearing my hat like that.
Happily, I had got my hat straight by the time I chanced to meet the King at Royal Ascot. I complimented him on his pink waistcoat. He told me he was relieved to see I wasn’t wearing a knitted one.
I told him I was backing his horse, Purple Rainbow, in the fifth race. ‘Good luck,’ he said.
In the event, His Majesty’s horse (ridden by Warren Fentiman) didn’t quite come last. (To be fair, Ryan Moore did not do too well in that race, either. You can’t win ’em all.)
Next on my perambulations at Royal Ascot, I encountered the actor Nigel Havers (interviewed on page 79) – now 73, but still looking a young 53, and still as effortlessly charming as he is annoyingly handsome.
The charm isn’t a pose. That’s simply how he is. I imagine he is like it even when he is alone.
I hate brushing my teeth in the morning because I catch sight of my face in the bathroom mirror. It makes for a grim and depressing start to the day.
I reckon Nigel gets a lovely boost every time he sees himself in the mirror in the morning. ‘Good morning, old bean, good to see you.’
Gerald Harper, the Nigel Havers of his day, has just died, aged 96.
I got to know him when he was at the height of his fame, in the early 1970s, starring in a TV series called Hadleigh. He played a silky smooth, lady-killing, caddish country squire to near perfection, and an audience of 17 million tuned in to watch the series every week for seven years.
In 1974, I produced him on stage in a revival of a 1950s West End hit, The Little Hut. Robert Morley and David Tomlinson had starred in the original.
I had James Villiers and Gerald Harper in their roles, with the matchless and adorable Geraldine McEwan as the leading lady. We opened at the New Theatre in Oxford – and, unfortunately, on the opening night Gerald lost his nerve.
Half an hour before the curtain was due to rise, Gerald sat whimpering in his dressing room, telling me it was all too much for him. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t up to it. He couldn’t go on.
I did my best to bolster him, telling him how wonderful he was, how the audience would warm to him because his personality was so warm etc – to no avail.
And then, 15 minutes before curtain- up, my assistant director and friend Noel Davis (also an actor) came into Gerald’s dressing room and took command of the situation. Noel told Gerald to pull himself together.
As Gerald went on whimpering, Noel slapped him sharply across the face. ‘If you don’t go out there and give the performance of a lifetime, you’ll never work again.’
Gerald went out – and did his best. He was fine. He simply was not in the same league as Geraldine McEwan and James Villiers. Nor Nigel Havers, for that matter.
But he had charm – and staying power. The last time I saw him, not that long ago, he was playing an elderly judge in a touring production of an Agatha Christie murder mystery. He looked as elegant as ever.
Because I have never had the looks of a Havers or a Harper, I regard my bathroom mirror as my enemy, not my friend.
That’s why I tend not to have the lights full-on when I am brushing my teeth. And that’s why the other night I squeezed Voltarol instead of toothpaste onto my toothbrush.
I know I must be getting older. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Gyles Brandreth’s Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear, a biography of A A Milne and Winnie-the-Pooh, is out in September
