Adventures in a Backwater Government Department

Patrick Hickman-Robertson

Description

Patrick was a wayward child who could not speak until he was four and ran away from boarding school. A disappointment to his parents and the despair of his teachers, he lacked the normal abilities that young people acquire as they grow up. After being sacked from his job, Patrick decided to try his fortunes overseas. A timid traveller and always obedient to authority, how did he come to the attention of the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Los Angeles Police Departments South Africa's Bureau of State Security and Rhodesia's BSA Police? And why did he come to be in police custody in Tanganyika and the first white man deported by newly independent Kenya?Back in England, Patrick's CV was no conducive to gainful employment of the kind enjoyed by his peers: encyclopaedia salesman, nomadic field-hand, lavatory cleaner, bear-chaser, baggage-smasher, waitress (yes!), factory labourer, scullion. The BBC offered sanctuary as a clerk, with few prospects of advancement. After five years of entertaining if ill-paid work in an office full of colourful misfits, Patrick fell into the embrace of the Civil Service.A trainee again at the age of 30, could things improve? Things could, but not without a catalogue of mishaps on the way. Patrick's propensity for bright ideas tended towards disaster, including a national crisis when he set in train the events that culminated in Black Wednesday.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• City (Londres)
• Nueva Zelanda
• Canadá
• New Zealand
• Memoir
• City of London
• Canada
• Cité de Londres
• Nouvelle-Zélande

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838597580
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Patrick Hickman-Robertson

The moral right of the authors have been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


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Illustrations by Michael Dorey
* * *
IN TRIBUTE
* * *
2 nd Lieutenant Seaborn Robertson , aged 20, Royal Worcestershire Regiment. Killed on the Somme 18 November 1918. No known grave
2 nd Lieutenant Kenneth Barford , aged 19, Royal Flying Corps. Shot down near Arras by Baron von Richtofen 27 March 1918. No known grave.
Surgeon Gerhard Ehrlich , late of the Charité Hospital, Berlin, died at Gänsestrasse concentration camp, Warsaw, 5 February 1944. No known grave.
Also to the memory of all the other Germans, known and unknown, who stood up and were counted.
Flying Officer Dick Fairweather DFC of Belize, British Honduras, aged 22, RAF Bomber Command. Shot down during the Wesseling Raid over Germany of 21-22 June 1944. Buried at Rheingold War Cemetery.
Also to the memory of all the other Empire volunteers who ensured that Britain never did stand alone.
* * *
For Henry, Chloe and Emilia. May they live in
peace for all their days.
Contents
Introduction
Who’s Who
Misspent Youth
Son of the Suburbs
Shades of the Prison House
Sabrina Fair
Life in London on Five Guineas a Week
Young Man Going West
Kennedy’s Camelot
With the Nomads
Wanted in Two Countries
The Land of the Long White Cloud
Dunedin Days
Windy City
The Lucky Country
Apartheid in Close-up
Bravo Basutoland!
Cape to Cairo
Back to Blighty
BBC to Backwater
Few Openings for Bear-Chasers
The Girl from Genthin
Career Suicide?
Adventures in a Backwater Department
Crises Minor and Major
L’Envoi
Introduction
* * *
‘I’ve had my struggles too …’
* * *
The other day I went to hear Rod Liddle speak to an adoring Spectator audience at a big public hall in London. Rod Liddle is the resident leftie at the otherwise impeccably right-wing Spectator , but cherished by the readership for the scorn he heaps upon politically correct bien pensant posturing metropolitan liberals. One of the reasons for his distaste for this tribe of entitled and self-regarding inheritors of the Earth is that a disproportionate number of them are alumni of public schools. Rod abhors public schools and their products. Probably the only thing he dislikes more than a braying public schoolboy is a public schoolboy who brays ‘I’ve had my struggles too …’ when reminded of his life of ease and privilege. He was cheered to the roof on this topic by his audience, most of them public-school products well accustomed to the ease and privilege that Rod was excoriating.
As one brought up in similar circumstances, including a public school education, I am aware that what follows will fulfil all of Rod’s most pronounced phobias. My only defence is this. It has not been a life of distinction and would not bear scrutiny but for one factor. I am one of those fairly rare people who lack the normal range of skills and talents with which a benevolent God has seen fit to equip most of the middle classes. I do not claim a lack of abilities in order to demonstrate a becoming modesty and win approval for touching self-deprecation – I really do have few of the basic skills that normal people need in order to function and prosper.
There aren’t that many of us, the really useless ones. I have met some people who are fairly inept in a range of activities, but compensate in others. Christopher Fildes, another Spectator columnist, could not ride a bicycle, drive a car, hit a ball, swim, tie knots, change light bulbs or do anything of a practical nature that most people have mastered by the age of ten or so, but would tell jokes to his cat in classical Greek and could pick up the text of any line you read him from Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies and continue reciting it to the end of the chapter. Having failed to make his mark in the ladies’ underwear industry, he found his feet as one of the most highly regarded financial commentators in Britain. But my incapacity was and is of a different order. The story I have to tell is not about how I overcame this abnormality by fortitude and application; rather it is about a lot of luck, combined with a degree of deception and low cunning. That and having my beloved, competent Karla at my side.
* * *
Who’s Who
* * *
Adams, Richard: author of Watership Down and head of the air pollution division at the Department of the Environment, where he displayed a marked reluctance to receive the foreign visitors for whom Patrick was responsible.
Annabelle: ditzy former Peter Arno model in New York whose casual approach to custody of her underwear precipitated Patrick’s ejection from his luxury accommodation in Mayfair.
Archibald, Ezekiel: Seventh Day Adventist and proprietor of Rayson Sheet Metal in Melbourne who imperilled his employees’ lives as he drove them at breakneck speed through suburban streets to reach the factory before sunset marked the beginning of his Sabbath.
Aspin, Special Agent: member of South Africa’s Bureau of State Security (BOSS) who spied on Patrick in Basutoland.
Baden-Powell, Dowager Lady Olave: Chief Guide, encountered by Patrick aboard the Southern Cross out of Perth, WA, who upset a table companion by interrogating him on Australia’s balance of trade.
Bareau, Peter: banker and first Director of Savings appointed from outside government service. Rewrote Patrick’s job description so that he was no longer eligible for his own post.
Bartlett, Geoffrey: under-master at Patrick’s Dotheboys Hall prep school who was a beacon of light in a darkening world. Extolled on Desert Island Discs by his pupil and admirer John Cleese (qv).
Beadle, Jeremy: prankster voted by the Sun as the person most hated by the British public after Saddam Hussein, an assessment of his character not shared by Karla and Patrick.
Bell, Rt Hon Lord Tim: architect of Mrs Thatcher’s Iron Lady persona who recommended Patrick for a post at No 10 that he was too scared to go for.
Benson, Sandra: clerk at National Savings’ Lytham office who was crowned Miss Premium Bond 1972 and taken to London to meet Roger Moore, with life-changing consequences.
Bianchi, Monsieur: sociopathic Banqueting Manager at Melbourne’s Intercontinental Hotel who kept Patrick locked in a cage 14 hours a day.
Binney, Alec: housemaster at Shrewsbury whose only favourable comment on Patrick in five years was that he could conduct an adult conversation at the dinner table (in contrast to his peers).
Blackwood, George ‘The Kansan’ and Jim: brothers from Buffalo, Kansas (pop. 422 and falling) who were Patrick’s friends and mentors at Boston University and Baker University, Kansas, respectively.
Botha, Helena: daughter of Louis Botha, C-in-C of the Transvaal forces in the Boer War and first Prime Minister of South Africa. Gave Patrick a first-hand account of life in a British concentration camp, probably the one built by Hugh Rhind (qv).
Brogger, Frederick H: Hollywood film producer who brought Karla into major motion pictures. Lived at Patrick and Karla’s Wiltshire cottage while on bail awaiting trial for fraud, forgery and perjury.
Brooke MC, Rev Major Hugh: Shrewsbury housemaster with John Peel and Michael Palin under his care and Patrick’s form-master. Probably the only master at Shrewsbury who believed every boy had potential and that it was his job to foster it.
Brown, David: Patrick’s first form-master at Shrewsbury whose well-intentioned initiative resulted in his being branded as ‘the thickest boy in the school’.
Burton, Kenneth: National Savings finance director whose history of NS in WWI, written in retirement, was published by Patrick.
Calamachi, Princess Jean Ann-Marie: Romanian princess who had fled the communist regime with ‘a handful of jewels’, and whose stipulation that no woman might stay overnight at her townhouse in Mayfair proved greatly to the advantage of Patrick and his chums.
Campbell, Dr Killie: scion of a wealthy Durban family who devoted her wealth to building the finest collection of Africana in private hands and establishing her own private museum.
Chamberlain, Jeffrey: master tailor who drove Patrick up the lonely West Coast of New Zealand, regaling him with his WWII adventures when he had been released from a POW camp to travel all over Germany with a minder providing tailoring services to the Wehrmacht.
Charlton, Christopher: amiable and sweet-natured boy at St Peter’s, Weston-super-Mare, who was brainwashed by headmaster Geoffrey Tolson into suborning the schoolboy code of omertà.
Charlton, John Sills ‘Toby’: elderly, louche lothario who occupied the first-floor front at 17 Oakley Street (with Patrick in the third-floor back) and made a pass at a teenage girl who was revealed to be his