2 1GT Tuesday September 15 2020 | the times

times

I hold a

very long

grudge

By way of extending

an olive branch to

continue the healing of

their feud about

something or other,

Taylor Swift has sent

Katy Perry a blanket

for her new baby.

That’s nice. It got

me thinking that

maybe I too should let

bygones be bygones

regarding the

numerous vendettas,

slurs and slights I have

conscientiously been

nursing these past 50

years. Which yeah,

takes me all the way

back to 1970.

But that’s the point:

Swift and Perry are

lightweights. To be

considered a serious,

grown-up feud, the

beef must go back to

childhood. Or the

14th century, if you’re

from the Balkans.

Sadly, in terms of

making up, the falling

out has also to be

acknowledged by both

parties — in this case,

me plus a whole cast

of ex-classmates,

teachers, employers,

ex-girlfriends and so

on. And the truth is, the

vast majority of these

numerous other halves

in my lifelong disputes

are not aware that they

are locked in a

decades-long blood-

grudge. Many — surly

shop assistants,

aggressive motorists,

the cricket coach who

laughed at my fielding

in 1974 — are not even

aware of my existence.

If only my many

enemies knew they

were at war, I’d be

happy to call a truce.

T

o paraphrase Frank

Sinatra, when I was 48,

that was a very bad

year. A new survey

agrees with me,

concluding that, across

different countries

and socio-economic

groups, you reach rock-bottom in

terms of your mental health when you

hit the big four dozen. It’s not a slow

graceful descent from the sunlit

uplands of 32, either. Not a gentle

decline you might arrest

with good luck and

effort. It’s more a

precipitous plummet off

a cliff edge: doing fine

one year, full-blown

midlife crisis the next.

That pretty much

describes my

experience.

At 47, in the halcyon

summer of 2011, I

was doing OK. The

children were young

teenagers, still under

the impression that

their dad was, if no

longer the superhero

of five years earlier,

certainly a wholly

admirable human

being. My wife,

although perhaps further down the

track towards a more, er, nuanced

assessment, still rated me fairly highly.

Physically, that summer, I did not

feel any less capable than I had at 37

or 27. I still had plenty of youthful

energy and was free of any serious

illness or injury. My drinking, while

immoderate, was still social rather

than secretive. My parents were in

decent health. Relations with my

mother, not always easy, were as good

as they had been in quite a while.

A year later, the clock having ticked

over to 48, all was changed. My dad

had died suddenly, casting my

widowed mother into a four-and-a-

half-year depression from which she

never emerged. His death hit me badly

too, prompting a dread of my own

mortality I’d never before felt. Rather

than seeking to delay the inevitable as

Hull was

no Habitat

for Conran

So farewell then,

Terence Conran.

My wife was a great

admirer, not least

because when Habitat

finally opened in Hull

in 1981, she scored a

prized Saturday job in

the new store.

The gig was well paid,

and best of all, natural

fibres enjoying luxury

status in Hull in 1981,

she was issued with a

denim skirt and a

cotton sweatshirt by

way of a uniform. Also,

pre barcodes, they had

a sexy stock-control

system involving

something called a PLU

number that had to be

entered into the till for

each item. Discovering

that PLU stood for

“price look-up” barely

lessened the thrill.

Unfortunately, there

weren’t any customers,

the high watermark of

Habitat chic having

been reached a few

years earlier without

in truth ever lapping at

shores that far north

and east. After six

months, the shop

became an end-of-line

clearance outlet for the

the chain. Not long

after, it closed and

became an Argos,

which then also closed.

Last time I looked,

three weeks ago,

what had once, briefly,

been Hull Habitat

was empty. Verging

on derelict.

long as possible, I chose instead to

hasten it along by embracing the

blurred and slurred view of life you

get from inside — or rather, once

you’ve got on the outside of — a

bottle of vodka. Rather than “I’m

gonna die, but let’s delay it as long as

possible,” I opted for “I’m gonna die —

let’s get drunk.”

Poor decision. The loss of physical

ability and form that this lifestyle

exacerbated would have happened

anyway, although not nearly as

quickly. The gradual loss of

respect from my wife and, in time,

as they discerned the changes in

my mood and behaviour, from my

children — was entirely my own

doing. I was depressed, I drank, I

got more depressed, I self-isolated

(to use a current phrase in a different

context), I drank more, I alienated

my nearest and dearest. Rinse and

repeat. And 48 was the start of it.

It wasn’t preordained. It was my

shockingly wrong response to the

fact that shit happens in life.

The good news, the research says,

is that by the time you get into your

late sixties — IF you get into your late

sixties — you’re right as rain again.

Great! Still, at 56, over the worst

(touch lots of wood), but not out of

those woods quite yet; at least that’s

something to look forward to.

Robert Crampton

Happiness dips at 48? It

was the year my life took

a turn for the worse

Fat cigars for

In an exclusive extract from her diary,

MP’s wife Sasha Swire describes how the

PM’s inner circle split over Brexit — and

recalls an intimate dinner with Boris

2016 February 29

A

ndrew Feldman has his

50th birthday celebrations

somewhere in the City of

London. It all goes wrong

when Sarah [Gove] and

Sam [Cameron], fur flying, have

a set-to at the party, with everyone

watching and listening in. When the

wives get nasty, you know the men

have a problem.

March 6

An overnight stay at Dorneywood

with the Osbornes. Hugo and I mildly

depressed by the frosty atmosphere

between Frances and George. They

barely talk to each other these days.

He, as usual, holds court. The

referendum is not really talked about

but when he says they are renovating

Dorneywood I say: “What’s the point?

You’ll be out of here in two months.”

“Well, then I’ll have done it up for

Andrea Leadsom. So lucky her.”

June 27

Referendum night. By 5am, it’s all

over. I wake H to tell him we have

lost, and that we need to get back to

London to prop up Dave. While we are

on the train Dave gives his resignation

speech. Sam is in tears (later she tells

me that she didn’t think she could go

out there without drinking a large

negroni. When they walked back

inside, Dave apparently recoiled from

her gin-sodden breath.)

H texts Dave and says we are

around if he wants cheering up. He

texts back and asks us to get down to

Dean with two fat Cohibas and plenty

of booze.

Dave is not there when we arrive,

but Sam is. She is devastated — not by

Dave’s departure, but by the “stupid”

decision the country has made. She

tells me she is sick with worry, and

doesn’t know whether to carry on

with her business. I tell her it’s going

to be OK. Secretly, I’m mildly excited

about Brexit.

When Dave arrives, he makes a

lethal negroni before we progress to

endless bottles of wine, whisky and

brandy. Over dinner, he is

incandescent with anger, which is

almost wholly directed against

Michael. As for Boris, he says that

this whole episode was to do with

his leadership ambitions and that he

despised his lack of ideology, which

is a tad ironic. David tells us that

even when he switched sides, Boris

was telling him via texts that Brexit

“would be crushed like the toad

beneath the harrow” and that he

(David) would survive.

He concedes, when pushed, that

he’d go for Boris over Michael who, he

says, is too extreme. We agree that he

has always been disingenuous.

After dinner, Sam conks out on the

sofa; a whole set of children sit on her,

but she does not wake up. Dave and H

are now chomping on cigars.

We all laugh raucously when Dave

tells us that when Ruth Davidson was

asked whether she would appear on

a Remain panel along with Angela

Eagle, she said: “You can’t have two

shovel-faced lesbians on together!”

August 26

Back from a stay with David and

Samantha in Polzeath. Dave is still

cross but not sure how he is going

to maintain it when Sam will be

seeing Sarah at the school gates in

September. D says he is still waking

up at 6am.

He tells us a nice tale of showing

Old Ma May around the flat at No 10

when he was living there. Every room,

she gives her Medusa stare. Not for

her Sam’s Elle Deco style. Until she

enters Sam’s dressing room (and let me

tell you, it was large!) and she sees her

racks of shoes. Suddenly sunshine

enters her soul.

I think I’m going to like it here. Just

one question... we won’t have to pay the

bedroom tax, will we?

September 27

H has drink with Dave. He says

afterwards that Dave is only half OK,

that he has become lazy. The memoirs

are not going swimmingly; he seems

bored by the process and so is

speaking into a microphone, which

converts it into text. He is not

interested in literary embellishment.

Meanwhile, Samantha has been busy

designing new interiors; apparently,

she has bought so much marble for

the renovation of their old house in

Notting Hill “that the heel of Italy

has fallen off the map”.

2017 February 2

At the big Brexit trigger vote, one

GO turned up to give his views.

Afterwards, he sits next to H on the

green benches, who tells him about

a dinner he is arranging for Dave,

where he is going to present him

with a series of paintings of prime

ministerial locations — Downing

Street, Chequers etc. GO is put out:

why, he asks, is he not getting a set

of paintings as well, of Dorneywood

and the Treasury? His reaction is

telling. He has always put himself on

the same platform as Dave, never one

step below.

February 28

To Dave and Sam for a curry supper

at their recently renovated house in

Notting Hill. Her business is taking off

and Dave is making loads of money,

and has no interest in taking on a big

public job like Nato. Lots more time to

chillax, put on weight and play the golf

courses of the southern states of

America, including Mar-a-Lago, where

he was stunned by the narcissistic

displays of the president.

Dave is being billed as “one of the

most prominent global influencers of

the early twenty-first century” by the

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