Racing Post
November 16, 2004, Tuesday
TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
by ALASTAIR DOWN
DAVID ASHFORTH was most kind in last Saturday’s column when reviewing
my recent obituary in The Times, and having now been dead for three
weeks – I hope Martin Clunes did okay when standing in for me on
Channel 4 at Cheltenham – it is only fair to clear up a few points.
You could call this a message from beyond the grave to an old friend,
whose greying locks and penchant for buying his clothes from the
Distressed Gentlefolk’s Association suggest that he may already have
one be-sandalled foot in his own.
David mentioned that I had never referred to the occasion that I lost
an eye fighting at Sidi Barrani and was subsequently awarded the
Military Cross. Well, all I can say was that it was a thoroughly bad
business. No quarter was asked or given in the desert and Rommel’s
Afrika Corps were no pushover, but I would just like to say that in
fact I lost my eye in a separate incident while staying at the famed
Gezira Sporting Club in Cairo.
As for the MC, I never spoke about it but used the thing for many
years as it looked uncannily like the old members’ badge at Ludlow
and over several decades it saved me a packet.
During the war, the Gezira Sporting Club was one of the best in the
world with polo, golf, tennis, squash, swimming pool, bowls, croquet,
cricket and football; although in those days we called it soccer, of
course.
Above all, the Gezira had a very fine racecourse and there was
nothing better after weeks on patrol near Mersa Matruh than to get
back to the club, have a cold beer, a shower and then head off to the
course for lunch and a punt.
Cairo was a ruinously expensive city in the war, but luckily a few of
us had befriended a very astute and rather civilised trainer called
Mustapha Plott, who knew the time of day.
Young Mustapha had an insatiable appetite for Wrens, though he was no
bird watcher, and after we introduced him to a particularly obliging
and well-upholstered one called Joy, who hailed from Leamington Spa –
and could have heated all the waters therein – life was a bowl of
cherries.
The sight of Joy unconfined must have been spectacular and Ahmed
certainly thought so. He marked our card most accurately and in May
’42 we had it off big time at Gezira when he trained the winners of
the six-furlong sprint and mile handicap on the same afternoon.
I backed both and had a greedy double with the result that we made an
absolute killing, and so it was off to The Golden Horn, a very
exclusive establishment run by an ancient and overweight Armenian
lady called Grizelda who, as luck would have it, always seemed to
have at least 20 stunning female cousins staying with her.
IT WAS as I came downstairs next morning that I slipped on an empty
Bollinger bottle, took a shocking tumble and put out my right eye on
a bronze statue of Aphrodite at the base of the stairs. Such is life,
I suppose.
For some years I affected a black eyepatch but eventually, in the
early Fifties, opted for a glass one as it was much more fun to whip
out at dinner parties, in much the same way as Fergie Sutherland used
to take his false leg off at dances. It never failed.
David referred to my chairmanship of BP and discovery of oil in
Alaska, both of which I am rather proud of.
I had gone to Alaska having fallen in love with an Inuit princess,
who I had met when she was serving behind the bar at the George Inn
at Stamford in Lincolnshire.
One day, when dynamiting out a new latrine outside her wooden hut
hundreds of miles north of Anchorage, I pressed the plunger and when
the ice and snow had settled, there was this huge puddle of black
stuff – and the rest is history, profit and Wild Bean Cafes.
You mentioned, in passing, my marriage to Bunny Mellon, who certainly
lived up to her surname and didn’t get her nickname as a result of
having long ears. A marvellous woman and I am proud to have served
under her.
You will be pleased to hear, David, that being up here is very
pleasant. There is no virtual racing or prunes, the two things I
could not abide down on Earth.
All the stewards’ inquiries go your way and nothing gets beaten in a
photo. I have never been happier and have even managed to track down
some of Grizelda’s cousins, who haven’t aged a bit.
Grizelda herself has, sadly, been relegated to the other place. Life
is great. Heavenly, in fact.