Bill Cotton - Double Bill (Text Only)

I was eventually called up, and joined the Royal Sussex Regiment in late 1946 when the world was comparatively peaceful. On the basis that I preferred to ride than walk – especially with full equipment on my back – I was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps as a transport officer.

The only truly terrifying thing that happened to me during my military service was my encounter with the legendary Regimental Sergeant-Major Brittain on the parade ground at Mons Barracks, Aldershot. He was a fearsome sight and had a voice that could shatter glass at half a mile. One exchange with him when I was dozy on parade still lingers in my memory.

RSM: ‘Are you a spiritualist, sir?’

Me: ‘No, sir.’

RSM: ‘Well, you’ve got your head on an ethereal plane, your body in the West End, and your feet are just about in Aldershot. Put him in the guard room.’

Long after I left the army, I met the RSM again. I was producing a record show for television and a girl singer known as Billie Anthony had a new record out called ‘Fall in for Love’, on which Brittain, long since retired from the army, appeared at the beginning of the song bellowing the command, ‘Fall in for love!’ So we booked Billie Anthony and also Mr Brittain to perform the song live in the studio. When Britten arrived I went up to him and said, ‘I have waited a long time to say this, sir. Stand there and don’t move till I tell you.’

The only time I fired a shot and hit a live target was not during my army career but shortly afterwards. We were staying at Sandbanks for Christmas, and there was quite a big house party that included the composer and impresario Noel Gay. We used to go sailing every day, and on this occasion I took with me a four-ten shotgun to shoot shag, the voracious green cormorant. Fifty yards off our port bow, a beautiful swan gave us a disdainful glance and then lazily spread its wings to take off. Jokingly, I said, ‘I’ll ginger him up,’ and fired quite casually into the air in the general direction of the bird. To my horror, this freak shot killed the swan outright. My father said, ‘That’s illegal. All swans belong to the Queen. You could go to gaol for that.’ Someone else suggested that ‘we’d better suppress the evidence’, so we pulled the body into the boat and cruised around until dusk fell. Then we went ashore and marched in single file up to the house, the swan over Dad’s back while the rest of us chanted the Seven Dwarfs’ ‘Heigh-ho’ song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

We found Noel Gay dozing on a settee in the sitting-room. ‘Look, Noel,’ someone shouted, ‘a Christmas goose.’ Noel opened one eye. ‘I never eat goose,’ he confided and went back to sleep. Just so he wouldn’t feel left out of the fun, we decided to stow the swan in the boot of his car, until Christmas night, when we all dressed in dinner jackets and boarded a dinghy to bury the swan at sea. The corpse was tied to a trawler drag and heaved overboard. We underestimated its weight: all that happened was the swan’s neck went under and its bottom bobbed up. I doubt whoever found it with an iron bar round its neck would think it had died a natural death.

Dad was at his most exuberant on holiday at Sandbanks, when laughter, joking and frenzied activity surrounded him. Next door to our house was the Royal Motor Yacht Club whose Commodore was an ex-naval officer called Bersey, a splendid man but a stickler for protocol. Every morning at eight o’clock a saluting gun would be fired and a Blue Ensign run to the masthead. It so happened that in the garage of his Sandbanks house Dad kept a whole load of old stage-props, including the Soviet flag, the Hammer and Sickle, which had been used for a stage song called ‘Comrades’. This was in the early days of the Cold War when the former camaraderie between Russia and the West had evaporated.

One morning the steward came out of the club house, checked his watch, fired the saluting gun, tied the furled Ensign to the halyard and looked up to see the Hammer and Sickle already flying proudly from the masthead. He dashed inside and brought out the apoplectic Commodore in his dressing-gown. The local constabulary was called in just in case the Russians were planning an invasion of the Bournemouth area and had landed an advance raiding party. About a year later, the Commodore came up to my father who was drinking in the Club verandah. ‘Don’t think I don’t know who put that Russian flag up,’ he spluttered.

I was demobbed in the latter part of 1948. I had a place at Clare College, Cambridge but I didn’t fancy taking it up; the world of academia wasn’t for me. So I became slightly unfocused and, having nothing better to do, went on tour with Dad, protesting all the time that I really must set about getting a career. He couldn’t see the problem. He’d say, ‘You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?’ and point out that we enjoyed each other’s company; he was doing very well financially and I was very useful to him. That was debatable. I had two main tasks: one was to act as his chauffeur; the other to reconnoitre every town the band was visiting to find out which cinemas might be showing cowboy Western films in the afternoons.

I went to enormous trouble to locate these local flea pits where Dad would sit down assuring me we were in for a treat. Before the opening titles had finished running, his head would drop onto his chest and he’d snore his way through the entire film. Having woken up, he’d take off in search of a cup of tea, murmuring appreciation of a film he’d never seen. That happened again and again.

During this period, my father took a week off which happened to coincide with the British Grand Prix for Formula One racing cars. He suggested we drive up to Silverstone to watch the practice laps for the great event. Since pre-war days, he had been a member of the prestigious British Racing Drivers’ Club, so he knew most of the personalities in the motor racing game. He also displayed proudly on his radiator the Brooklands 120 mph badge commemorating the occasion he clocked a lap at 123.89 mph in an MG and became one of a very select group.

We waved goodbye to my mother who fondly imagined that Dad was going to the Grand Prix as an interested spectator. When we arrived at Silverstone, Dad sought out Wilkie Wilkinson who used to prepare his racing cars before the war and had joined forces with a couple of wealthy up and coming drivers to form an ERA (English Racing Automobile) team. It soon became clear that Dad had arranged beforehand to drive one of Wilkie’s cars.

I was dumbfounded. Dad was forty-nine years of age and suffered from high blood pressure. I watched in amazement as he got his crash hat and visor out of the boot of our car, put them on, and drove off round the circuit. He clocked up a respectable if not spectacular lap time and on returning to the pits said that since there were still four days of practice before the big race he’d plenty of time to sharpen up. On the drive back home he said nonchalantly, ‘Best not to tell your mother about this, she’ll only worry.’

And so this charade went on throughout the rest of the week. Each morning at breakfast he’d spin some yarn about his plans for the day and Mother would nod, apparently understandingly – until Saturday, the day of the race, when she cut short Dad’s fanciful musings. She said, ‘I don’t mind you not telling me you’re driving in a motor race today, it’s the insinuation that I can’t read that upsets me. The story’s in every newspaper, including the fact that I’m not supposed to know about it. So off you go and if you kill yourself I’ll never talk to you again. And don’t come home stinking of petrol as you’ve done every day this week.’

In the actual race he did remarkably well. He was due to take the car over at the halfway point when it stopped to refuel. Just before the car arrived at the pit, the petrol bowser drew up and through some fault starting spewing fuel under pressure all over the place. Dad was crouched on the pit counter ready to jump into the car as soon as it arrived and so got a face-wash of high-octane petrol. His goggles were soaked and he obviously couldn’t see clearly. I begged him not to get into the car, but he said, ‘If you think I’m missing this, you’re out of your mind,’ and off he went. He started slowly but the wind soon blew away the petrol film on his goggles and he finished the race a creditable fourth. Some of the legendary pre-war drivers, George Easton, John Cobb and Earl Howe, came up to congratulate him and they all agreed that he’d taught the youngsters a thing or two and shown there was still life in old dogs. However, the strain had obviously taken its toll on him and on the way home he confided in me regretfully that he was hanging up his helmet and goggles. His part-time career as a racing driver was over.