Ephraim Hardcastle
SIR Lenny Henry says he had doubts about accepting his knighthood in 2015 because of the British Empire’s historic links to the slave trade. Speaking in a BBC documentary to be screened next week, the comedian, 59, says: ‘The honour was a decision I wrestled with. Working on a plantation was back-breaking. From the moment my ancestors and millions like them landed on Caribbean soil, their average life expectancy was just nine years. From the moment I arrived, I felt a slight foreboding in my stomach, as you are pretty much walking into history here.’ Happily Sir Lenworth – to give him his proper name – managed to put these wholly creditable misgivings aside.
WITH Prince William’s private secretary Miguel Head to be succeeded by Simon Case from Brexit Secretary David Davis’s department, the households of the Queen as well as Princes Philip, Charles, William, Harry, Edward and Princess Anne are all headed by men. Only Prince Andrew has a woman in charge. As has the Duchess of Cambridge, shielding William from feminist critics.
IMPULSIVE movie star Russell Crowe, 53, pictured with his wife of 15 years Danielle Spencer, 48, is auctioning some possessions at Sotheby’s next month to pay for their divorce. Talking up the historic significance of one of the items – his ‘limited edition’ Vacheron Constantin watch – he recalls: ‘I wore it to court in New York when I got into a little bit of trouble in 2005.’ After pleading guilty to throwing a telephone into the face of a hotel desk clerk, he paid more than £60,000 in damages – an event most of us might prefer to forget.
WITH Jeremy Corbyn embroiled in an anti-Semitism row, Labour’s former deputy leader Harriet Harman must hope she’s lived down an unfortunate slip of her own. Bizarrely Ms Harman – now seeking to become Speaker – told broadcaster Andrew Neil a particularly vile anti-Semitic joke on a live TV show, purportedly to highlight inappropriate humour. Neil later complained: ‘What was wrong was: 1) Even to tell that so-called joke on live TV. 2) Claim I would like the joke. Appalling on both counts.’
PARTICIPATING in an anti-gun violence march in New York, Sir Paul McCartney says: ‘One of my best friends (John Lennon) was killed... right around here.’ He hasn’t always had such a sympathetic attitude towards Lennon, previously admitting: ‘The lingering thing was, OK, well now John’s the martyr, a JFK… I started to get frustrated because people started to say, “Well, he was the Beatles.” Post-Beatles, he did great work, but he also did a lot of not-great work.’
COURTIERS wonder how best Prince Charles might mark his 70th birthday in November. Should he give the kind of speech his mother gave, while heir presumptive, on the occasion of her 21st birthday in 1947? With some adjustments, he could repeat and enlarge upon her ringing declaration: ‘I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.’