5th June 2009 - Clement Freud R.I.P - Brough Scott

One May morning in 2004, after a swim and a breakfast of fresh paw paws, scrambled eggs and warm croissants at the Shangri La Hotel in Singapore , the then 80 year old Clement Freud began to recite. In his white towelling bathrobe and special hotel slippers, there was, of course, no hesitation, interruption or deviation as he completed the whole of the famous Stanley Holloway monologue about Albert and the Lion which begins:

“There’s a place at the seaside called Blackpool,
That’s noted for fresh air and fun
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbotham
Went there with Albert their son......”

The audience was not a huge one; two of us from Racing Post and “Dream Holiday” Betting Shop Manager of the Year Jackie Sweeting and her husband John from Pontefract. But all 68 lines of the story of Albert being taken to Blackpool Zoo and getting swallowed by Wallace the lion because he had poked him with “the stick with the ‘orses ‘ead ‘andle, the finest that Woolworth’s could sell”, were delivered with that unique, slow, soft mixture of teasing challenge and smug accomplishment which has given so much pleasure to so many millions down the years.

The last lines of the poem are Mrs Ramsbotham’s famous response to the Magistrate’s hope that she and Mr Ramsbotham might have other sons:

"And thank you sir kindly” said she
Wot, spend all our lives raisin' children.
To feed ruddy lions? Not me!"

As we all applauded, Clement dipped his head to one side in the mock- modest, “it was nothing” gesture of the infuriatingly clever boy at school. He had lived about seven lives already and here, in the precious shade of the Equatorial morning, there was nothing to do but shake our heads in wonder.

Mind you, one of Clement’s other specialities was to make you grind your teeth in embarrassment. He could, as a phalanx of sacked secretaries and axed trainers can testify, be quite bewilderingly contrary. The delight of listening to him over lunch could be hampered by his skewering some hapless waiter with cold- eyed “what do you think this is” enquiries.

The promised enjoyment of his Racing Post series entitled “Breakfast with the Trainers” was cut short when he castigated the Henry Cecil sausages and tomatoes causing a string of big names to cancel for fear of the same.

But if he had his “warts”, there was a massive bounty in his “all.” No columnist we have ever run has appealed so wide an age group and social mix, and if he could write from the very heart of Parliament, Crockfords or some super luxurious health spa in the Alps, he could also take the reader to the simplest of places. There have been few better things in our paper than Clement’s “unsung heroes” series in which he spent a day each week with the likes of the starter’s flagman, the jockey’s valet, the clerk of the scales and the canteen cook. They were models of detail, observation, humanity and, of course, a wit which knew no bounds.

He was also just about the only man alive who could talk or write amusingly about his betting habit. Others offerings are either boring, self -indulgent paens of self-pity over losing bets which amuse the writer in direct reverse ratio to the reader, or self satisfied bits of gloating over winners which would make Mother Teresa resort to malice. With Clement there was a relish we all could share never better illustrated than the masterpiece published here after a Freud winner at Southwell last October:



“NEWARK Northgate station must be one of the very best railway terminals in Britain. A wondrously courteous, amazingly helpful, impressively uniformed staff abounds - even the man who sweeps the floor of the waiting room was dressed as if Her Majesty was due in on the 18.34.

I wallowed in contentedness, tried to think back to when I last felt as happy, even though there was one element of discomfort about my person. This was caused by an unyielding lump in my left trouser pocket, and yet it was this very lump that made for my euphoria: the consequence of having placed £50 each-way on Last One Standing at 50-1 in the bumper.”

There were no tightly-wrapped, pocket-distending bundles of tenners and twenties on display when Sean Magee and I went to have tea at Clement’s London flat last month but, for the two of us at least, there was a glowing contentment of equal proportions. For, at last, the great man had agreed for us to gather a selection of his racing writings for publication.

He made us tea in the ungimmicky, square tabled kitchen and took us to his study with its clear desk, state of the art PC, cartoons of his innumerable guises, and a photo of him sitting with the then Cassius Clay as well as the inevitable shot of him and Henry the Bloodhound which made the Times front cover yesterday morning.

There were books on every subject under the sun and moon and midnight, but down in the right hand corner there was a long, impeccably stacked row of what looked like school albums in which was collected every article he has ever penned. He talked enthusiastically but business like about how we should proceed but a picture of him in army uniform triggered off a story of his days as a liaison officer at the Nuremberg trials in 1946.

One afternoon he was detailed to escort Mrs Lawrence, wife of Mr Justice Lawrence, chief judge of the court and mother of John Oaksey, back to her hotel through the war ravaged ruins of the city. Freud was a young man in his twenties, Lady Lawrence a lady of some age and considerable distinction just pleased to have some protection in this bleak environment. That clearly did not register with the passing American patrol van which switched on its megaphone and blared out the warning “Beware - VD walks the streets.”



As Clement finished the story he gave that famous triumphant, bearded, jowelly, chuckle. We hoped he would live forever. The words and the laughter will.