Arch prunes
Alexander Chancellor
The Best of JJ John Junor (Sidgwick and Jackson pp. 175, £6.95) 'T have said it before, and I will say it again,' writes Sir John Junor in a phrase which could quite well serve as his epitaph (or as the epitaph, indeed, of most newspaper columnists). But what is it that he is saying? He is saying that this is 'a funny old world' and that this is 'a strange, sad country', observations with which it is difficult to argue.
It is a world peopled by heroes and villains. The heroes are Christians and patriots, those who are brave and loyal to their friends, those who suffer with fortitude and do not fear death. They include, however, some slightly surprising people like Frank Sinatra, Spiro Agnew, and Larry Lamb. The villains are prigs, egalitarians, traitors, homosexuals, trendy clergymen, Asian immigrants, spendthrift councillors, interfering bureaucrats, pompous politicians, Lord Avebury, Marcia Falkender, and David Ennals (an 'arch-prune'). But whatever sort of person a man is, Sir John will forgive him practically anything if he enjoys a light-hearted and adventurous sex life. Peter Sellers, he says admiringly, 'had affairs with some of the loveliest, leggiest fizzers in the world'. On Nelson Rockefeller's untimely death in the arms of his mistress, Sir John asks: 'Isn't it at least a better way to go than dropping off the perch watching "Coronation Street"?' If women are a bit of a joke, children are to be taken extremely seriously. Cruelty to children is the most unforgivable crime in the Junor book; to earn the love of children is the greatest happiness. A funny old columnist.
I do not know whether Sir John is really the old lecher he makes himself out to be or whether his heart bleeds for the weak and the defenceless as copiously as his column does. But, from the reader's point of view, his libertarian and humanitarian qualities form an essential coating to the pill of predictable right-wing opinidn. As it is, Sir John ensures variety by offering us three main types of paragraph — the jocular, the compassionate, and the abusive. They are always neatly constructed in short sentences and end with a moral or punchline, usually (too often) in the form of a question. The jocular ones are normally to do with sex and are imbued with Scottish folklore — he would have us believe (though I do not believe it) that a town in Fife called Auchtermuchty, from which he claims to hail, is a sensualist's paradise peopled with kilted libertines. The compassionate ones are tales of suffering, loyalty, faith and courage, sometimes quite moving. The abusive ones are the best, for they show to greatest advantage Sir John's gift for the startling punchline. He deliberately adopts the tone of the vulgar pub philosopher, but the words he produces are not to be heard in pubs, or indeed anywhere else. They are his own. Who, apart from Sir John, has ever said 'Pass the sick bag Alice' to indicate disgust? Who on earth is Alice? And when he says that someone is 'worth more than all our politicians stuffed together', is this not a most original use of the word 'stuffed'? There is an even odder word in this book — the verb 'to stot'. We have the rain 'stoning off the pavements' in Pitlochry. Does this word exist? I think we should be told.
For a conservative newspaper editor, Sir John is commendably outspoken. He is even quite daring in his comments on the Royal Family. But he is very keen on Mrs Thatcher, who gave him his knighthood last year. CI tell you this. The more I see this lady, the more I like her.') He even asked her to write a Foreword to this collection of his Sunday Express columns, but in its place he has published a facsimile of a letter from her in her own hand declining the invitation on the grounds that she could not possibly do the book justice. 'I could only say that I was a regular reader, I loved its direct incisive style, and its capacity to get to the heart of the matter. And perhaps I could add that the things that "stuck in your gullet" were the things that stuck in mine too!' Pass the sick bag Denis.
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