'If you are going to stab your mother-in-law during a deadly quarrel, consider stabbing her with Sheffield stainless steel...'
That was, more or less, the theme of my third propaganda radio play for the BBC Arabic Features Unit, promoting the benefits of British industrial products, the first two having urged listeners in the Middle East to beware of Syphilis and Gonorrhea..
I did not think I would be contracted for more but, during 1956-57 I wrote forty of these offerings which proved sufficiently lucrative for me to hire-purchase my first car ( a beautiful sky blue Sunbeam Talbot coupé ) and throw a lavish party to celebrate.
Actually, that’s not quite true. I personally did not throw the lavish party, I was only a part host.
One day, in a pub round the corner from Bush House after the recording of a broadcast, I met a most extrovert character by the name of Jimmy Eilbeck.
Jimmy was a tall, 30 year old lanky energetic man, a head of curly ginger hair, an unruly ginger moustache, spectacles with thick lenses and a strong Liverpool accent. He was a senior editor on the Dailly Mirror, had devised a new publication – The Woman’s Sunday Mirror - which he intended to launch with an exceptionally original party on an island somewhere in the middle of the Thames.
'I’ve got an island in the middle of the Thames,' I said lightly.
And the following Sunday he turned up at Pangbourne and decided that our island would be the ideal location for the star studded night of Fleet Street mayhem he had in mind. The world and his wife would be invited. Money was no object.
The weekend of his preference coincided with the fortnight when Eddy went down to Pau to visit his mother for the first time since his accident. As my mother badly needed a release from the cheerless life she was leading, she happily agreed to be Jimmy Eilbeck’s joint hostess along with Eve and myself and invitations were sent out to a list of impressive names for: A Barbecue on Satan’s Isle. Dress Primitive. No Swimming - the river is 18ft deep, the current deadly, two experienced swimmers have drowned here.
The lawns of Weir Pool by which Satan’s Isle is approached are private property. Any indiscretion should only becommitted in the long grass of the island.
The day of the launch in June fortunately turned out to be one of the driest and warmest of the year. More than three hundred guests arrived causing a fair amount of disruption in the village.
While the invited guests gathered on the island to drink champagne and munch away at a roasted pig or two, local residents took to dinghies and punts to row around and stare at the unexpected celebrities of the time. Censorious news editors and journalists formed the nucleus of the event, fashion models abounded, several stars from stage and screen, Frankie Vaughan a then No 1 pop idol struggled with a 3-piece band to be heard above the water cascading down from the weir.
At the height of the party I noticed that Jimmy Eilbeck himself was not around. I eventually found him in the dining room of the house feverishly typing out an imagined account of the evening for the morning press and phoning in the reports to rival newspapers.
'It would be great if Diana Dors fell into the water right now, could you give her a shove?' he said to me between calls.
I read some of his copy, invented snippets of what he would have really wished: A baroness arriving in a minimal costume of sequined fig leaves, a Hollywood actor in white tuxedo getting stuck up a willow tree while imitating Tarzan. A member of parliament spotted in the bushes with a starlet....
'The majority of people lead terribly dull lives and are crying out for excitement,' he said.. 'The successful press supplies this. Whether things are true or not is of no importance whatsoever.' This ten years before Rupert Murdoch acquired The News of the World.
As dawn broke everyone drifted off home, I went to bed and, later that morning, I found Jimmy on the island sitting at a table working away on the next edition of his new paper.
'Any chance of me writing articles for you?' I asked. I’d shown him my cartoon book and he’d read a couple of my radio scripts
'You’re good at dialogue,' he said, not looking up, 'but that’s not the same as journalism. Stick to plays, get away from Daddy, and if you can’t risk life without a regular income try advertising, they’ll love the way your imagination runs riot with inessentials.'
I seldom saw him after the party, but eventually took his advice.
The success of The Woman’s Sunday Mirror went to Jimmy’s head and, two years later , after getting into uncontrollable debt trying to launch another newspaper, he threw himself in front of an underground train at Stratford East station.
With Diana Dors
Jimmy Eilbeck working at the bottom of the garden
Jimmy Eilbeck
There is nothing like a tiny bit of success to boost one’s confidence.
The tiny bit of success I experienced was the publication of my book of cartoons coupled with my disengagement from Eddy which freed me from the restrictions in my head that held me back from attempting to write more professionally.
One evening when glancing through the pages of the TV Mirror, a rival magazine to the Radio Times that listed independent programmes, I read of a competition for a 30-minute television play they were organizing in conjunction with the Cheltenham Festival of Contemporary Literature.
I unearthed my rejected plays and stories and found an idea that might work as a half hour comedy. Entitled The Man on a Balcony it concerned two unsuccessful actors staying in a hotel at the Cannes Film Festival who go to the ends of the earth to get noticed by the media. It was quite well plotted, I re-worked the dialogue, found a more exciting surprise ending, sent it off to the competition and thought no more about it.
A few weeks later I received a telegram from the TV Mirror informing me that I had won a prize for my entry and, the next day, a letter from the Cheltenham Festival organizers inviting me to the prize giving ceremony the following month. I was amazed.
Eve and I went to Cheltenham for the prize giving and were received at the Town Hall by a Festival hostess who showed us to front row seats in an auditorium packed with serious looking academics.
Six judges walked on to the stage and took their seats at a long table. Three were best selling authors at the time - Robert Henriquez, Eric Linklater, and John Moore, there was also Gilbert Harding, a notable TV personality of the time, and John Fernald the head of RADA ( The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art ).
Prizes were awarded for high literary merit to writers who had entered competitions for works of non-fiction, biographies and novels. This took a good hour with the introduction of each winner followed by their thank you speeches, then I heard my name called out by John Fernald.
'André de Launay ...' he started ( I had used the de because I thought it would impress )....has written a short play with such excellent humour that I think it will be most effective for the teaching of comedy technique to my drama students and certainly deserves a television production.......'
There was a bit more about the apparent brilliance of the comedy followed by applause. I got up on stage, received a cheque, handshakes and pats on the back and returned to my seat, elated and numb.
Eve and I followed everyone to a buffet supper where we hob knobbed with more well known authors, publishers and television people. It was the first time we were mixing with high octane personalities and I expected to feel out of my depth, but some knew of my cartoon book and others had seen Eve in fashion magazines, so I grew a few inches taller and hoped an inner smirk of higher self esteem was not too visible.
In time The Man on a Balcony proved to be a little gem It was published by Samuel French and used as a curtain raiser by many amateur dramatic societies ( still is ), produced at RADA for a number of years to teach up and coming stars how to get laughs from an audience, was the first play to be televised as a colour experiment on a BBC closed circuit, and chosen as the centre piece of The World Our Stage, an entertainment to celebrate the 21st anniversary of BBC Television, starring Bob Monkhoue and Peggy Cummings.
Though I thought about leaving the food business and launching out as a free lance script writer, I sensibly decided to wait for a contact of some kind from a television company or agent before taking such a precarious step and, in time, an offer came from a quite unexpected quarter. I was rung by a radio producer from the BBC Arabic Features Unit who needed someone to turn out quick half hour propaganda plays.
I immediately went to Bush House and was interviewed by the Egyptian gentleman who had rung me. He suggested I submit a trial drama, twenty minutes of dialogue which translated would come out at thirty minutes in Arabic. He had a translator on his staff.
'Any particular subject ?' I asked.
'Oh yes,' he said, 'Venereal Disease.' We need to subtly warn the younger population of the Arab speaking world about the dangers of indulging in indiscriminate intercourse.
The actors on the set of the play "The Man on the balcony"
Bob Monkhoue and Peggy Cummings
The publication of my book of cartoons, innocent and lighthearted as it was, did not bring the abundance of joy I had anticipated to either Simone ( my mother ) nor Eddy. My mother, who was a competent artist when drawing Christmas and birthday cards for the family, appreciated what I had done but, again, had to put up with Eddy who saw the slim volume as another triviality which threatened any serious interest I might have in the merchandising of succulent sausages.
At the office he was unable to hide his irritation with me and, one day, having had enough of this unwarranted melodrama, I decided to take the bull by the horns, put an end to the deceptions that had clouded my life since I was fourteen, and bring the matter of our true relationship out into the open.
I rang my mother to warn her of my intention. She sighed very deeply, agreed that things could not get much worse, admitted that she too had had enough and wished me luck.
I invited Eddy for lunch and chose the Café Royal to add a little piquancy to the forthcoming debacle. We ordered the meal, discussed matters concerning the kitchen staff, the van drivers, the clients that did not pay their bills, then I changed the subject to my sister in France, always a favoured topic. This enabled me to mention that I had always been surprised how different she and I were. She was so much more serious and less fickle than me, I ventured, then added 'I’ve often wondered if she was actually my real sister...blood related...I mean.'
Taken aback, he looked straight at me, remained silent for what seemed an eternity, then grimly launched into an angry little speech which I suspected had been rehearsed and honed many times in his head ready for the day when he would use it.
'I am not your father', he said quite bluntly. 'This tragedy has caused your mother and I very many difficulties, not the least of which has been your attitude towards your responsibilities. You are very much like her and her mother, believing that your own amusement comes before anything else regardless of other people’s feelings. You are, of course, not to blame for your mother's flagrant disloyalty, but I hope that you will understand how hard it has been for me to accept the fact that you are not my son and appreciate all that I have done for you since you were born. I am an honourable man and will continue doing my duty as head of the family. I will not ignore your existence but hope that you will be grateful that I did not throw you out with your mother but took pity on both of you when I learned of her infidelity.'
I was numbed by his rancour.. I had been prepared for a sensible, possibly emotional analysis of the situation both past and present, explanations of why there had been misunderstandings between him and my mother before I was born, whether love had ever played any part in our lives, but rationality was out of the question.
I looked down, speechless for a while, then asked him, with a certain amount of fear and trepidation, if he knew who my real father was.
'That is a subject which you had better discuss with your mother,' he answered, dryly adding, as he pushed his chair back, 'I will leave you to settle the bill since you invited me.'
He gripped his walking stick, displayed the difficulty he had in standing up to remind me, perhaps, that the car crash had added injury to insult, and made his way out of the restaurant.
I sat at the table for a while longer, feeling gutted yet incredibly relieved.
It was over There would be no more lies, no more duplicity. The situation was at last honest between us. Blood might be thicker than water, but water was crystal clear. I was now free of parental authority.
Wrong.
When I got home that evening, Eve was not in a good mood.
'I told Daddy that we were thinking of going to Spain in July for a holiday,' she said, 'and he’s decided that he and Mummy will come too. I don’t think I can put him off the idea.'
Major William Ekin, more fondly called ‘Bill’ by everyone, unexpectedly turned out to be a problem. Though he was a genial Pickwickean character and bon viveur whom one could not possibly dislike, he dominated his daughter.
Whereas I had found the strength to flap my wings, risk crashing to earth but had now flown off to a land of promising adventure, Eve allowed her father to clip her wings and so never quite managed to leave the nest.
Though Doris was only troublesome because she never contradicted her husband, both interfered with our lives on all levels throughout our twenty years of marriage and, sadly, proved to be partly responsible for our eventual divorce.
Eddy, Simone, Doris and Bill
Bill and Simone discussing the marriage of their offspring
Eve and I were married on 27th March 1954 at St James’s Church, Down Street in Mayfair, the reception held at the Naval and Military Club round the corner. It was a wedding with society pretences enjoyed by all and, for me, like jumping from a frying pan of simmering chipolata sausages into a gold plated salver of ornate elegance.
From the moment we returned from a brief honeymoon in Paris my life of live patés, venison pies and sturgeon eggs was eclipsed by the glamour of Eve’s new world which I embraced with fervour.
Up till then I had known little about fashion. I had heard of Balmain, Chanel, Dior and Givenchy, had glanced at their creations in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, but not with that much interest. Now I was thrown in at the deep end. The haute couture names of John Cavanagh, Digby Morton, Hardie Amies, Hartnell and Worth became part of my life, while crêpe de chine, grosgrain, organza, piqué, taffeta and other such words were added to my daily vocabulary.
I was proud to see Eve in the limelight, going to her fashion shows and accompanying her to all the social engagements connected with the new collections. What took place on the catwalk was glamorous, even theatrical, and I loved it all.
We moved into a very pleasant rented apartment off Holland Park Avenue and most evenings were more than content leading the happy domestic life.
Meanwhile, back at the factory I was appointed sales manager which impressed no one but enabled me to escape from the office to the peace and comfort of our clients’ cocktail lounges where I sat in great comfort with pen and notepad to write short stories or playlets but, in fact, mostly doodled while waiting for inspiration. I drew countless pictures of Eve modelling extravagant clothes and ludicrous hats, which amused her enough to suggest I should develop the sketches into cartoons and try to get them published.
I bought a block of cartridge paper, a special pen and Indian ink and started on the idea in earnest. The result was a series of 12 humorous drawings which I titled I Married a Model, depicting the ups and downs of our lives. I sent these to the editor of She Magazine whom I had sat next to at a fashion show, she published them all in one edition under ther fun name Droo, they impressed a director of Macdonalds the publishers who was himself married to a model, and he commissioned a book of 60 illustrations to be aimed at the Christmas present market.
The thin volume was launched in October1957 with a fair amount of razzle dazzle. Various newspapers and magazines featured photos of Eve and I posing as in the cartoons, and a film producer bought an option of the film rights.
At long last I perceived a light of creative success at the end of the grimy factory tunnel.
I have been married twice.
The first time I was twenty three and she was twenty two.
The second time I was forty five and she was seventeen, or so she said.
On both occasions I fell desperately in love and got married for fear of heartbreak if I lost them..
My first wife was English, aloof, elegant, languorous, and impossible to impress.
My second wife was none of these - but more about her later.
I met Eve Ekin, daughter of Major William and Mrs Doris Ekin at her 21st birthday party in December 1952. This private affair, held at the family’s Bayswater house, proved to be a rather pretentious gathering with more elderly people than young. The music was provided by an ancient 78 rpm gramophone which could hardly be heard above the chatter of the guests, the buffet was laid out in a narrow hallway and the bar was set up in the kitchen. This would have been fine if the women had not been in long evening dresses and the men in black tie which demanded far grander surroundings.
I noticed Eve sitting alone in a corner of the drawing room watching whatever was going on. There was something exceptional about her. She was tall, very slim with dark short cut hair, slightly oriental hazel eyes and an air of acceptable superiority. She gave me the impression of being bored rather than shy, so I asked her for a dance. The number, as it turned out, was aptly Noel Coward singing ‘Some Day I’ll Find You.’
Eve was so thin that when I held her, my arm curled right round her waist. I liked that as my preference was never for the more voluptuous. I asked her if she was enjoying herself.
'Not much,' she said, 'My father organized all this. Most of these people are his friends. I don’t know half of them. I don’t even know who you are.'
The outcome of this first encounter was the discovery, over coffees and lunches during the next few days, that we both wanted to get away from parental authority but were trapped because neither of us had sufficient income to escape to wherever we thought we might be happier.
To this end Eve had got herself a job as receptionist in a fashion house starting in the New Year. I, on the other hand, found my happy-go-lucky way of life curtailed by Eddy who, with the aid of two walking sticks, returned to the food factory and reclaimed his office and secretary.
Since his absence, profits had gone up, everyone had managed without him and when he discovered that I had simplified all communications and paperwork, I became more of a thorn in his side than ever. So he sent me to Strasbourg for a month to study the art of stuffing unfortunate geese with overdoses of maize to fatten them for Foie Gras.
My sudden, imposed separation from Eve was cruel indeed and, when she saw me off on the continental train at Victoria Station, our forlorn, tearful adieus were potent enough to make any passer-by weep with sympathy.
I was lodged by our luxury paté suppliers in a picturesque house in the centre of Strasbourg. It was January, it snowed, my surroundings reminded me of Brueghel paintings and the garret I was allocated boasted a magnificent roll-top desk which demanded to be written on. So I wrote, and wrote, countless poems and romantic letters to Eve and received countless poems and romantic letters from her by return.
In one letter she excitedly informed me that, after her first week at the London fashion house, one of the couturiers had insisted she should model his creations as she had the perfect figure and elegance to do so. She was sent to a top hairdresser, taught how to make up, given lessons on how to walk up and down the rostrum, and now I would not be coming home to a mere receptionist but a mannequin working for Digby Morton, one of the five leading British fashion designers.
I returned to London in March and was met by Eve at Victoria Station on the very same platform where I had kissed her goodbye a month or so before, she had then been wearing a beige raincoat, sensible brown shoes, her hair not that tidy, her face pale with little make up.
As I stepped off the train I caught sight of a quite radiant vision. A tall auburn haired girl in a black tailored coat, peacock blue silk scarf round her neck, matching gloves, matching stiletto heeled shoes, matching furled umbrella, wide eyes highlighted by a touch of mascara, a hint of lipstick, standing, by chance I think, in a shaft of bright sunlight which was piercing the railway dust from way up above her. If I had not already fallen in love with her I would have found it hard to pretend that she did not affect all my sensibilities. I stood rooted for a moment, dropped my suitcase, moved forwards to hug her, hesitated in case she was a mirage, and straight away asked her to marry me.
'Why not ?' she said, 'but you’ll have to ask Daddy for my hand first in time honoured manner to keep him happy as Mummy, I’m afraid, will insist of a white wedding, and he’ll have to foot the bill.'
Eve Ekin 1952
In February 1952, King George VI died at Sandringham and anyone who was anyone and everyone who wanted to be someone went into mourning.
I feared for a moment that this would thwart all my efforts to become a Deb’s Delight, but once I had paid my respects to the deceased monarch at Westminster Abbey with members of Phoebe’s family (who insisted on introducing me to their friends as André de Launay a probable descendant of the Marquis de Launay, governor of the Bastille decapitated in 1795) my social life took off at a great pace.
As an ‘item’, Phoebe and I were invited to various house parties in stately homes, attended point-to-points for which I bought a flat-cap and shooting stick, danced Scottish reels at the Royal Caledonian Ball and later in the year at Queen Charlotte’s Ball and the Pineapple Ball. We went to the Derby and Ascot in June, ate strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, peaches and cream at the Henley Regatta, and raspberries and cream at the Goodwood races. All in all I had a wonderful time until Phoebe, with trembling lower lip, told me she thought she was pregnant.
‘I’ve missed a month,’ she said, ‘and that’s never happened before. I'm not telling Mummy because she'll insist on me having an abortion and I don't want that.' This suggested to me that marriage was the alternative.
For the next few days I went into a blue funk trying to imagine what it would be like married to Phoebe, how Eddy would react to another little bastard in the family, how it would completely curtail my freedom and tie me down for ever to the food business as I would have to become a dependable provider.
The real truth then made its wily way from my heart via various nervous channels to my little brain. I was no longer in love with Phoebe. She was great fun, we got on terribly well, but I did not want to live with her as man and wife. The guilt of not having done anything sensible for some time was beginning to weigh on me and on occasions I had longed for a little time to myself to read or go to see the plays and films which were not ‘de rigeur’ in her world.
She then rang me.
‘It’s alright. False alarm. I’m not pregnant. I was just late,' she said, then added, 'You can enjoy life again now.
'I’ve never seen anyone so petrified.’
We had dinner together that night and both knew that the relationship was over. She was a little more down to earth than I. 'I had a good time converting you into a snob, and I love your Frenchness, but always knew it wouldn’t last. I don’t think you respect the world I come from enough to be one of us.'
'Not OCD?' I suggested.
'Oh, you’re OCD now, but not the sort that would ever be in awe of an MFH.'
I hadn’t learned everything. I raised an eyebrow.
'Master of Fox Hounds,' she explained.
Phoebe married the son of a Baronet six months later and I married another debutante a year or so after that.
Self at Point-to-point
Phoebe and friend at the Pineapple Ball
In January 1952 the fun and games at Weir Pool came to an end when Eddy after two operations and two plaster casts, returned from France and the house was turned into a one-patient nursing home. Bedridden and propped up by countless pillows, he made life a misery for everyone, so I moved out and into the back room of a mews flat in Kensington owned by a friend who needed a lodger’s rent. This young man was very well connected socially and introduced me to the London debutante scene immediately.
At a wedding reception I became smitten by one of the pretty bridesmaids who seemed to regard me as something rather comical. 'Is it true that you’re French and import caviare?' she asked intrigued. 'Yes,' I replied.
'How exciting! Mummy used to buy little pots of it from Fortnums but can’t afford it anymore.'
'We supply Fortnums,' I informed her, 'Play your cards right and you can get a huge discount.'
'That’s awfully cheeky' she giggled, 'but rather sweet.'
Her name was Phoebe and I invited her to tea at that fashionable emporium the next day.
Fortnum & Mason’s was not one of the places I frequented. I never felt too comfortable among the customers, specially the bowler hatted, drain pipe trousered Guards officers with their debutante girl friends who behaved as though they owned the place.
Phoebe was sitting at a table in the tea room waiting for me. I had brought her a pink ribboned 2oz pot of caviare and placed it in front of her.
'Goodness!' she exclaimed, 'How super! Does this mean that I now have to play my cards right?'
'Hopefully,' I said, 'but not here.'
Over scones, Devonshire cream and raspberry jam, I learned a good deal about her. She had been presented at Court the previous year, had done the season, did not have a boyfriend, her parents were divorced, she lived with her mother near Windsor, had two brothers, the older one worked in the City, the younger was still at Eton.
She questioned me at length about my background then looked at me sincerely with wide open eyes and said, 'I don’t know why, but I do like you though you’re quite wrong for me.'
'Why am I wrong for you?' I managed.
'Mummy would never approve.' She screwed up her nose as though facing an unsolvable problem and sighed deeply, 'I’m afraid she wouldn’t consider you OCD.' I had no idea what she was talking about.
'Our Class Dear,' she explained, then, without pausing for breath, 'It’s all terribly stupid I know, but it matters terribly to her. She spent a fortune on my coming out so that I could meet the right person for the future because we’re not very well off and she lives in the 19th century and I won’t be twenty one and free to do as I wish for another two years.'
She put her hand on mine and squeezed it gently. 'I’m terribly sorry. I’ve been very rude, but I want to be honest because I know I could become really fond of you.'
Despite this major setback, she met me secretly for lunch several times in places where it was unlikely she would be seen in my company by anyone who knew her family.
Because of my apparent inferior upbringing, a more permanent relationship was out of the question unless I made a study of her mother’s absurd social conventions, learned the essential etiquette and could prove to be reasonably presentable. . .
I suggested she should teach me her rules of conduct so that when she deemed me ready she would not be ashamed of me, and she jumped at the idea.
'It’ll be easy peasy,' she said, 'because even if you make mistakes you are French so can be excused. What Mummy would never forgive you for, however, is putting milk in your tea cup before pouring the tea, as you did at Fortnums. An MIF is unforgivable.’
'MIF?' I queried.
'Milk In First. It’s just not done.'
From then on, she played Professor Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle and even got her older brother to join in my edification for good measure.
'You must never say ‘pardon,’ she told me on my first day of serious instruction. ‘I know it’s a French word, but it’s wrong. When you need to apologize you should say ‘I beg your pardon’, and if you haven’t understood something you should ask ‘What?' It sounds rude and abrupt and nannies don’t like it, but anything else is wrong.
On another day we had lunch with her brother Nigel in the ladies annex of his club in Pall Mall which in itself was unnerving.
'You should never ask for a ‘Sweet’ or ‘Dessert’. ‘Pudding’ is the only word you can use for anything from ice cream to spotted dick, and you’ll get keel hauled if you utter the word 'serviette' instead of 'napkin.'
'Jerry' or 'Pot' for chamber pot if there isn’t a convenient lavatory,' Phoebe put in, 'and never ever use the word
'toilet.'
They both shuddered at the mention of the word.
Nigel gave me his tailor’s address. 'He’ll know what you should wear, and don’t pay him for months, he won’t expect it. And buy yourself a curly brimmed bowler from Locks of St James’s, a colourful waistcoat, and walk with a furled umbrella but don’t open it unless there’s a really serious downpour.
My conversion took a few weeks, put me in debt with tailor and hatter and, when Phoebe decided I was ready, I bravely accompanied her to Fortnum’s again to meet ‘Mummy’, a jolly, plump, carefree woman who downed a couple of gins in preference to tea and found me so acceptable that she allowed her daughter to come and stay at Weir Pool the following weekend.
Drew aged 20 in West London. 1950
