Ephraim Hardcastle
PINK Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s stepson Charlie, who was abandoned by his father Heathcote Williams, has found closure after discovering an explanatory letter written by his dad before his death in 2017. In his memoir Featherhood, Charlie laments that the ‘despairing’ missive wasn’t addressed to him or his mother Polly Samson but to former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. ‘For whatever reason, Heathcote offered Hughes what he never managed to give me – a hint of honesty and a sketch of an explanation,’ writes Charlie, adding: ‘For all the absurdity of someone confessing their suicidal thoughts to Hughes – a man many accuse of having driven two of the women in his own life to suicide – that letter brought something like release.’
SHOULDN’T Finnish conductor and Rule Britannia dissenter Dalia Stasevska complain about her own national anthem, called Maamme, before whingeing about the Proms? ‘Our land, our land, our Fatherland!’ it begins. ‘However fate may cast our lot/A land, a fatherland, we’ve got/Will there a thing on Earth appear/More worthy to hold dear?’ Shouldn’t PC-ness, like charity, begin at home?
SAM Neill, locked down on his Australian farm, is in mourning for his friend Charlie Pickering. ‘I am very sad right now,’ he posts. ‘Charlie was an affectionate, friendly little creature.’ Charlie was Sam’s pet duck. The Jurassic Park star, pictured with Charlie, is consoled by chums including Michael Fassbender the rooster and Helena Bonham Carter the cow.
NO love is lost between veteran BBC foreign correspondents John Simpson and Martin Bell with the latter calling Simpson a ‘look-at-me journalist’ for marching into Kabul in 2001 dressed in a burka. Bell, whose memoir War And Peacekeeping appears in October, adds: ‘The worst thing ever said to me was in Glasgow when a man came up to shake my hand, saying “Good to see you, Mr Simpson”.’
APROPOS of Desmond Guinness: When his first wife Mariga was alone at Leixlip Castle during his numerous lecture trips abroad she was pestered sexually by Oswald Mosley – then married to Desmond’s mother Diana. Mariga would summon her writer friend Ulick O’Connor from Dublin, phoning: ‘Ulick – Mosebags is pouncing.’
DELIGHTFULLY daft Sinead O’Connor urges pandemic precautions, declaring: ‘Can I please ask that selfishly unmasked crowds standing shoulder-to-shoulder protesting and ignoring Covid protective restrictions not use my music as if to suggest I support you in any way. I do not.’ Nothing compares to you, Sinead.
CARRY On actress Joan Sims, obliged to relieve herself in a polystyrene cup in her Pinewood caravan, was disturbed by costar Kenneth Williams who quipped theatrically: ‘No tea for me, thank you.’