Alan Whicker - Journey of a Lifetime

He was also something of a celebrity, particularly among Americans. This was a new experience for me—“celebrity” was a different status which could prove a hindrance for other working press men who were not being asked for their autographs. Randolph, however, never objected to holding the stage.

“I can never win,” he told me. “If I achieve anything they all say it’s only because of Father, and when I do something badly they say, ‘ What a tragedy for the old man.’”

He was said to drink a couple of bottles of whisky a day, though I never ran into that. He had lost six attempts to enter Parliament, though he held an uncontested wartime seat in 1940-45. A biographer wrote, “Aside from his heroically dismal manners, gambling, arrogance, vicious temper, indiscretions and aggression, he was generous, patriotic, extravagant and amazingly courageous.” Michael Foot, a political opponent, said, “I belong to the most exclusive club in London: ‘The Friends of Randolph Churchill’.”

He and I planned to take a few days off during this return journey—from battle fatigue, you understand. First we went ashore in Hong Kong, where I bought an export Humber Hawk for eventual delivery at home, thus avoiding a waiting list of several years in the UK market, such were the idiocies of international financial controls.

Here we ran into the Churchill groupies again, chasing the son of the most famous man in the world. It was my first experience of autograph hunters and fans, for which we did not have much time. In Korea it had been a full-time job, and the target was merely to stay alive. Little did I know how life would change.

In Bangkok nobody knew who I was, of course, except that I was travelling with the noisy Englishman who was drinking. We were invited to dinner with the ambassador, which was not noisy at all, but I had the opportunity of observing Randolph on the social rampage. There’s no doubt that, much as I liked him, after a few drinks he could become a responsibility. Excellent and amusing company, he was always in a state of suspended eruption. Other guests had to speak carefully in case he exploded. The nearest to a compliment you could get was to say that he was as rude to ambassadors as he was to waiters; he made no nice social distinction.

One evening Randolph and I filled in an hour of happy irresponsibility pedicab-racing like gladiators through some deserted streets. It sounds most improbable today, when Bangkok shows us only fumes and endless jams.

This was the time when we called in the brilliant Noël Coward; his “Mad dogs and Englishmen” started all the uncertainty. We could never be quite sure about these sharp lyrics: What did they do in Bangkok at 12 o’clock? Did they “foam at the mouth and run” or possibly, as in Hong Kong, “fire off a noonday gun”? I’ve seen that gun. We celebrated “the inmate who’s in late”, and gave up. It was a relief to be singing about a war, instead of trying not to be killed by one…

Bangkok was a very suitable place to relax and watch some blue movies in a palatial House of Pleasure, appreciating the skill of a Thai cameraman which was delicate, even in gross situations.

I returned to London by way of New Delhi and Istanbul, and went on to cover the riots and revolution in Cairo and the Canal Zone. Randolph resumed editing his father’s biography. It was business as usual.

My dictionary merely said, “An oppressive hot southerly or south-easterly wind, blowing in Egypt in the spring”. That didn’t sound too bad, yet it did have curious effects. For days the sun shone through low, hot sand clouds and the world was a hideous bright yellow, as though seen through a pair of cheap sunglasses. Gritty sand got into food, air and bed, tempers frayed, nerves stretched—it was the suicide season and it was not passing unnoticed for I had spent eight months in the Canal Zone, and noticed my occasional twitch and mutter.

“Shouldn’t worry about it, old chap,” I told the shaving mirror one morning, after listening to some aimless chatter. “A lot of people talk to themselves.”

As a foreign correspondent I was used to waking up in a different bed or a different country, but eight months in Egypt was a sentence devoutly to be avoided. We were all growing restless. “I’d prescribe a short swan journey,” said James, soothingly. He was our conducting officer, appointed by the War Office to look after correspondents. “Try Cyprus—it’s our only escape hatch.” It seemed a wise weekend move.

A brisk transport captain offered me a berth on a troopship: “You’ll be in Famagusta in twenty-four hours. You can have three days of wine and women and be back by Monday.” He gave me what the army somewhat disdainfully called “an indulgence passage”.

I threw a toothbrush into my typewriter, thanked James for the thought and sped up the Canal Road for Port Said, past the morning convoy of liners, oil tankers and merchantmen heading east. I was having an expeditionary pink gin in Navy House, enjoying the well-ordered peace of the RN, when a 10,000-ton American Liberty ship called, typically, Joseph E. Brown rammed the jetty with a fearful crash and nearly came upstairs.

Crunching through huge concrete slabs, the bows of the misguided Joe narrowly missed the stern of our cruiser Cleopatra. In keeping with traditional naval fun I urged my hosts to signal their Lords of the Admiralty: “ Cleopatra raped!” They would not buy it. The captain gave a thin smile; I could tell he was thinking: “Look, Whicker— we do the jokes.”

Inside the docks I hunted for the Empire Sovereign. “That’s it,” said a sentry. Nothing in sight except small harbour craft. “There,” he said, pointing at the kind of boat which takes trippers from Richmond up to Kingston. “No, no,” I said patiently, “I’m looking for a troopship, ocean-going. Probably around 15,000 tons, promenade decks, restaurants, staterooms…” At that moment the words on the tiny stern came into focus: Empire Sovereign. “Oh,” I said weakly, “that’s it, is it?”

Some troops were being handed lifebelts and ushered below decks and a few Cypriot workers were already being seasick. I was allocated a cabin the size of a medium wardrobe, with eight bunks. Eight! Two passengers were already established; the others, wiser, must have gone by air. Even with three, it was jammed.

When our little craft began to shudder we stumbled up on deck. A fusspot of a tug, only slightly smaller, nudged and chivvied us into mid-stream and we glided towards the Mediterranean, past the Simon Artz store, past the sky-high KLM sign and the broad beach, and those posh passengers travelling port-out-starboard-home.

Deck loudspeakers blared music and people waved from other ships. It was pure Golden Eagle. I felt we were bravely sailing to Margate, watching out for the Luftwaffe.

As we left the shelter of the harbour wall something odd began to happen. The Med, as far as the eye could tell, was a millpond. Ignoring this, the Empire Sovereign forced herself through the water with a peculiar corkscrew motion—none of that straight up-and-down style ships have known and used for centuries. Passengers began to notice, and retreat below.

The troop commander, a pleasant CSM, came round with anti-seasick pills. “I’m never sick,” I said, waving them away. We spiralled into another treacherous swoop. “Well,” I said, clinging on, “practically never.” He then delivered the clincher: “It’s 249 miles.”

We gathered silently in the miniature saloon: a sprinkling of army officers on swans of varying legitimacy, a middle-aged man with little brown hair and a lot of peroxide wig, a thin subaltern freshly married to a young army nurse. She, pale and about to be ill, disappeared morosely to spend her honeymoon night in the Ladies’ Cabin (Gentlemen’s, with chintz) and the groom mooched off down the companionway, kicking things.