Sir Donald Wolfit brought Shakespeare to the people – and breakfast in bed to Captain Peacock
When I was a little boy, living in London in the 1950s, my enchanted place was the London Underground. As a family, we travelled everywhere by Tube – and always in a smoking carriage. My father’s two preferred brands were Olivier, named after the actor, and Craven A. The packaging for both was very classy. From the age of six, I took the Tube to school every day on my own. It was only two stops from our mansion flat at Earl’s Court to the French Lycée at South Kensington and, it turns out, in the early days I wasn’t as alone as I thought. Not long before she died, aged 96, my mother confessed to me that she followed me to school at a discreet distance, travelling in the next-door carriage to mine to keep an eye on me. When I was 12, we moved to a different mansion...
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