Goodnight, Henry

[caddyman]

So farewell then, Sir Clement Freud, who has died aged 84.

I must admit to being surprised that he wasn't older! The first time I remember Clement was advertising dog food on telly with his pooch, Henry, when I was a kid. It was memorable largely because the two looked so much alike. He looks young (as well he might, the ads being 40-odd years old), in my memory he looked rather older, but then I was only a kid:


.

Broadcaster, columnist, gourmand and former Liberal MP, Sir Clement Freud was born ion Berlin in April 1924, the grandson of Sigmund and younger brother of Lucien. His granddaughter is 'TV personality' Emma. During his time as a Member of Parliament, he visited China with a delegation of other MPs, including Winston S. Churchill, a grandson of the wartime leader of the same name. When Churchill was given the best room in the hotel, on account of his lineage, Freud (in a reference to his own famous forebear) declared it was the first time in his life that he had been "out-grandfathered"

The BBC obituary is here.


1924-2009

Freud was a horse racing enthusiast, and was a columnist for the Racing Post newspaper. In his column in the paper, issue of 23 August 2006, he wrote about his election to Parliament in a by-election: "Politically, I was an anti-Conservative unable to join a Labour party hell-bent on nationalising everything that moved, so when a by-election occurred in East Anglia, where I lived and live, I stood as a Liberal and was fortunate in getting in. Ladbrokes quoted me at 33-1 in this three-horse contest, so Ladbrokes paid for me to have rather more secretarial and research staff than other MPs, which helped to keep me in for five parliaments."

Comments

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

I remember you and I would take the fellow's name in vain. On cold days we would announce to each other, "It's a bit Clement today," as opposed to inclement, because froid is the French for cold. In retrospect, I am rather befuddled by the topsy-turvy wordplay way our minds worked, and heaven help me, mine still does...

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Having read in Philip Norman's book what was regarded as witty when uttered, written or drawn by Lennon, I'd say that we were ahead of the game.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Well, that was just a cult of personality, wasn't it, with everyone believing what they wanted to believe. I finished reading the book yesterday, and loved every page.

No matter what other music comes along and grabs my attention, the opening notes of the Beatles' first two albums still have that magical power to instantly transport me to a faraway, simpler, innocent age. Also, it's just such great music, and never mind everything else.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I've still got something like a chapter and a bit to go, I think. I'm just up to the end of the 'Lost Weekend' after the attempt to record with Phil Spector, but before he recorded 'Rock n Roll' by himself. That takes it up to about late 1974, before the house husband phase.

I'm enjoying it very much. It manages to be quite honest about the bad side of his personality when it needs to, without being unnecessarily nasty. To be honest, he comes across like many a confused, normal bloke with too much money, time and fame on his hands and not enough people strong enough to guide him when he needed it.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Yes, and my disappointment that Norman doesn't vilify Yoko is tempered by the evidence that she was good for JL and he was fed up with being in the Beatles long before she arrived and told him he was better than a performing flea. I knew that anyway, but I have traditionally seen her as The Woman That Broke Up The Beatles, and every interfering drummer's girlfriend/singer's wife during band rehearsals in my own musical life has been a Yoko. C'est la vie, or something.