Low life
Bryce McNab
Jeffrey Bernard
Yet another Indian has bitten the cintinst. Bryce McNab, who died last week, of the more charming and delightful fixta' and fittings of this city — oS bo particular — and it is doubly sad that should have decided to simply lay hinls;e; down to die. He gave up. What alternat he had is equally depressing to panda. Ilia was knocking 70 and had been desPeran lonely since the death of Netta A arc idingtO. with whom he had lived for manY YeP:i; Unluckily for us he left unwritten that h°"c, he ought to have written. That the 11:8 news. The good news is to have known halci, at all. Latterly, his forays into Soho ha f become fewer — lack of money and world weariness — but when he did take nPf his position at a table in the Swiss AT verili° an evening he could still sparkle. AettlallY' he twinkled like a small, friendly lighta a rather battered raincoat, and was 3 sTrad$ Bryce invariably wore a trilby all 1, man with eyebrows that pointed uPv1"1.;e1 giving him a Pan-like, Puck-like, rat devilish appearance. He spoke irr i itatrl ? quietly but nearly all his words were d catching. His humour was dry, ironic tahrlat self-deprecating. He once told roe .fc, several years ago he was taken to court ce . non-payment of National Insurance non-payment The sum he owed was consioera. ica and the judge not at all amused. 'Mr I", hbeavtteenr,.t Nab,' he said, 'you're old enough to k?.°_"..
Thboiusghist any stampsnr, vou paused and then he asked Bryce, `,-• asItlamgpsbefhoarvyioeur
ars.,:ioveu
think you need a psychiatrist?"No, ,said Bryce, 'I think I need a philatelist.' Of course a gigantic titter circulated the court. I know hardly anything about his origins save that he came from a middle-class family and became a journalist quite early ,°_11. He was a rugby football fanatic, boxing puff and for some time he wrote a sports his but I don't know where. He knew nis onions. In a fish and chip shop once he returned his parcel of takeaway grub to the woman behind the counter demanding that she re-wrap the fish in a new newspaper. 'It_ is new,' she said indignantly. 'No, madam. If ,Yuu look at the stop press here you'll see Llanelli 14 Swansea 6 and Llanelli haven't beaten Swansea by eight points since 1949.' When I first met Bryce some 25 years ago, he was reading books for MGM, one hell of a drudge of a job involving writing a Precis of the book and then advising them Whether or not to turn it into a film. We used to drink in Chelsea and Bryce could occasionally get a little too aggressive for his Own good when in his cups. One man, the sight of whom sickened Bryce, got an earful °Ile eight that culminated in Bryce shouting across the bar to him that he was an unmentionable word. The man threatened to duff _ I.; it up Bryce at closing time and as that rne approached Bryce looked around mesperately for an avenue of escape. He hit In it in the dying moments. In the corner of uie bar there sat a blind man with a white stick. Bryce approached him and insisted to the `N reluctant chap that he escort him home. o he told me, 'can possibly hit you When you're escorting the infirm.' I think Bryce had a bit of money only °,nee, and sweet it was too. The Daily .,,x,Press printed a piece saying that Richard 1 ',‘Idington's widow was living with a penni, 4e_ss, drunken journalist. That cost them 13,000 and it's fairly safe to assume that erhYee Spent a pretty penny of it in the elsea pubs smiling at the thought thlit the Oress had certainly been right on one 13°, int and would shortly be correct about tne other. ir Personally, I was amused by his slightly c°11, ic summing up of me. We were in the .._°"°11Y Room Club one day discussing a t,noatter the words of which I must moderate this journal. I was explaining to him that far rather be thought a 'fool' than a shit. couldn't help themselves I said, w_hereas being a shit was an intentional eeupation. 'Ah yes, Jeff,' he said, 'but then You did like to take things easy.' k_lt s not without significance that I don't iln°w of one single person who disliked tyce. In fact he was liked, even loved, by a 'e met, cross-section of society than any man met, In some ways he must have had a Ptretty grim life it being a perpetual struggle oL some f, sort, firstly financial and then with business of loneliness. There was no !eit pity though. If there is a heaven then I ° _PrPose that Bryce is there being quietly g...t.asive and viewing the population there h some cynicism. He might, at last, have ['let that philatelist.
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