Duffus

The war had ended. My services as a pilot were no longer of importance and, in the shockingly cold winder of 1947, through lack of heat and food, I had contacted TB. So instead of being demobilised when my service time was up, I was invalided out of the RAF. As a medical student later I was struck down by the same affliction. 

I had little money and no prospects.

I took a room in the less salubrious area near Victoria Station, where, having left it for two council rooms, fellow pilots came to see me, only to be told: "he's gone". They presumed that I had died of TB (there was no cure at that time). Miraculously for them (and I suppose for me, too), I re-appeared alive years later on television, doing a Gardener's World programme for the BBC.

I obtained the two very small council rooms, possibly because of my poor health or war record. The one (living) room looked out over the railway lines of Victoria station, the window of which was never opened because of smoke from engines parked beneath and the noise of steam jets punctuating the air day and night. I even added to the existing pollution of soot and smog by heating this room, by the only means  available then, from a coal-burning fireplace. But I am a cook, and could happily feed myself and friends for a week or so with several recipes using a cheap pig's head. The rooms became known as my "Murky Chambers". Fortunately, my grandfather, who had been knighted, left a wife who was not averse to flaunting her title. Through her, I suppose, my name was added to a social register - or something of that order.

Rich parents, with often plain daughters, were keen to give parties and balls for their coming-out, debutante offspring. For these occasions there was a need for young men of "breeding" to be part of the scene.

Johnny Coates (later of Yellow Submarine fame), being a relation of Lord Rank, was also on the same register. We became "party" friends. Many an invitation came our way. All we needed was a dinner jacket.

Because of my menial abode I was quite unable to return this welcome hospitality. I could offer cheap Algerian red wine aplenty, but a pig's head, though delicious, was hardly adequate fare. And the murky chambers were far too small.

The one invitation that we enjoyed especially, came from the debonair Duffus of Dalclaverhouse.

It so happened that to make these parties more fun, I would sometimes adopt the name of Sir George ffortescue-Williamson, Could Duffus, with his splendid name, be doing the same?

Duffus lived in Knightsbridge where he presided over his generous hospitality.  We liked him. Later I learned that he was deeply in debt, borrowing on the strength of his name and the prospect of a great inheritance that never materialised. Which was a shame. And he really did own his grand, Scottish name - unlike my own: Sir George....

So I thank Duffus very much. And if he still lives (most of that generation "have gone") I wish him well.