Welsh wizard
Reginald Bevins
I understand that my tireless friend, Harold Macmillan, is currently writing a series of essays on famous men he has known and admired, including Lloyd George and possibly Harold himself. The late A. J. Sylvester recently wrote about the Welsh Wizard; very well too. I should like to add a word or two. If you wait you will see what I am coming to.
As we approach what is politically known as the 'dog days' or the 'silly season', I ask myself the question, "Do we not take ourselves too. seriously: may it not be that the English sickness is a sort of morbidity, inspired by the BBC, with more and more people depressing themselves about death and disasters?" I have a sneaking feeling that it might be salutary and might even help the balance of payments if we laughed at ourselves, instead of moaning (no doubt with cause) about the bastards who state they will cut off the gas or the phone if we fail to pay up within a few days of the postmark (not that there is ever any postmark on an envelope from a nationalised industry) and about those who owe us money and of course those bloody computers that have not been properly fed.
I think so.
Life is full of paradoxes. I am myself accidentprone. I am always scarred somewhere or other. I am physically awkward. That is why at one time I became an expert in accident prevention, able to cut accident rates both in factories and on the roads.
I suppose it is for the same reason that men with dicky hearts become our leading heart specialists until it gets the better of them and why men who cough blood specialise in TB.
When I say that I am physically difficult, I mean it in the same sense that Mr Sylvester did of L.G. The former put up with the latter for about twenty years and one of his gifts was to escort the great man's mistress into the back garden of No.10 before his wife could get through the front door.
L.G. is without question underestimated. The poor boy from Manchester and North Wales constantly outwitted his friend Winston, much as they loved each other. Of course L. G. was kicked out in the end, but that is the fate of all politicians.
I recall writing to L.G. when I was about twelve and he was at the height of his glory suggesting, with all the impudence of youth, how he ought to settle a rail strike. He clearly thought I was an adult (which I was 'not) and politically sagacious (which I was) since he replied to me, signing his reply in his own large hand and took my advice, which turned out to be right.
The late Mr Sylvester knew his master inside Out. In the early part of this century working men wore clogs, or, if like, say, the Hailshams, they were rich, they wore laced boots. When L.G. got into the money he always got his bootlaces mixed up and used to shout like hell for Sylvester to help him out. Leaving the Cabinet Room or any other room he always turned the d6or knob the wrong way and went on doing so, finally giving the door the boot like an American cop.
I feel an affinity with L.G. in more ways than one. I never met him myself, though I knew Megan who had a lot of her father in her, especially in the eyes. Macmillan used to say to me that L.G. could charm a bird off a tree which was no doubt true of all sorts of birds. Harold, on the other hand, never seemed to understand birds, which caused his downfall.
Though a Welsh nonconformist the man who won the Great War was partial to Irish whiskey and to women. How far he contributed to the alleged population explosion no one will ever know and anyway that's a personal matter.
L.G. was always in trouble one way and another. So am I. I don't kick doors more than most men. But I am odd. I have several watches, some of which go off and on and some not at all. My wife says this is due to the eleetricity in my system, but this is not so, since they go their own sweet way even when not on my wrist. I am hopeless with alarm clocks. When my wife is trying to water the lawn I always turn off the cold water tap and cannot understand her expression when the jet or whatever they call it suddenly stops. If I touch wood I always get a splinter. I have fallen off ladders so often that I avoid them like the plague. I spray air fresheners into my own eyes which makes them tingle. If I sit on a deck chair it always collapses, leaving me on the hard patio with a bruised disc.
I always go down one-way streets the wrong way and cop cars start hooting at me. The last time was in Rhyl which happens to be in North Wales where the Welsh Wizard first discovered the opposite sex.
Reginald Bevtns was Postmaster General in the governments of Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home.
Previous page
