Why we will all miss Clement Freud
The Daily Telegraph, 25th April 2009
With the death of Sir Clement Freud last week, English sport has lost one of its most original and distinctive voices. When England had a goalkeeper called Hodgkinson, who was five foot seven, Clement wrote in his Observer report, ‘Unlike the female giraffe Hodgkinson had trouble with the high balls’.
Clement did so many things in his richly varied life – celebrity chef, MP, raconteur, restauranteur, radio personality – that his sportswriting is sometimes overlooked. But who else, in his first sports article for the Observer, would have had the nerve to submit this? ‘Portsmouth, to the approval of 24,516 supporters, won this not very interesting game by the only goal, scored according to the man sitting in front of me by Dickinson after 37 minutes though the old boy on my left who was watching through binoculars said it was Stainsforth after 36.’
I first met Clement at a cricket dinner with John Woodcock. ‘Would you like to go greyhound racing?’ he asked me. I meant to say no but it came out as yes. A few days later we were tootling round the north circular looking for Walthamstow dog track.
Not wanting to seem unprepared, I’d done my research about how to win at the dogs. An Australian friend suggested I bet consistently on whichever dog was drawn in trap eight (something to do with the angles). I explained this to Clement, who smiled broadly and introduced me to his friends at Walthamstow saying, ‘This fellow has an excellent betting strategy – he’s going to bet on trap eight every time.’ Buoyed by praise, I settled down to my betting slip. Sadly, unlike in Australia where there are eight traps, there are only six in England.
Bored of sitting in the enclosure, Clement suggested a trip to the track-side bookies. He relished the rough and tumble of street-level punting, surveying the scene, waiting for the right price. ‘Yes, Sir Clement,’ the bookie said loudly as he accepted his bet just before the start of the race. Clement won, as he usually did in my experience.
I blame Clement for my becoming a greyhound owner. He did warn me – ‘owning a greyhound is the most expensive way of getting into a dog-track for free’ – but clearly not firmly enough. Catunda Angel, which I shared with some Middlesex team-mates, certainly wouldn’t have attracted Clement’s interest as a punter.
Next he took me to the opening day of Royal Ascot, laying on a day of exceptional indulgence. I lost on every race; Clement did rather better. We ended up at Aspinalls for a final throw of the dice and Dover Sole Colbert, which Clement had told me how to cook in the car from Ascot and instructed me to order at Aspinalls. He was right again.
Those evenings gave me an insight into his extraordinary life, with its rare social range and almost limitless interests – from Walthamstow to Mayfair, dogs and horses, gourmet food and fine wine, and conversation richer than either.
But there was an urgent tone to an invitation to dinner a few weeks ago. I think he sensed he was nearing the end. Alongside salmon and absurdly good wine, he took some delight in presenting us with a vegetable I’d never heard of – salsify. The evening was as broad as his life, with guests aged from twenty-four to eight-four, in professions ranging from theatre to newspapers, sport to education.
The return fixture was planned for my favourite restaurant, a new place called Hereford Road in Notting Hill. I smugly anticipated the chance, finally, to introduce Clement to something he didn’t know.
‘That wouldn’t be at number 3, Hereford Road wouldn’t it?’ It was his old restaurant. He’d bought it in the 1950s as the Green Parrot Tea Shop, and turned it into La Boite, at the vanguard of a new industry – selling real coffee made with Gaggia espresso machines. I was inviting him to his old manor. I should have known better than to think I could out-gourmet Clement Freud.
The last email exchange with Clement summed up what I will miss most – a wit that you couldn’t see coming. First came the set-up, in which said how he was glad that Sigmund (Clement’s grandfather, of course) had made an appearance in my last book. I wrote back, rather seriously, about Freud and what he taught us about the psychology of sport.
‘AND YOU WOULDN’T HAVE WANTED A BETTER MAN IN THE GULLY’, came Clement’s reply.
‘Knew you wouldn’t get it,’ he laughed when I saw him next. ‘How do we know that Sigmund would have fielded in the gully? Because he needed to be there to catch all the slips.’
But sport could bring out Clement’s serious side, too. He was deeply saddened that his beloved game of cricket should have raced into thoughtless commercialism. ‘People who exploit sport, treat contests with ignominy, ignore the majesty and the very meaning of the game in order to line their pockets, deserve contempt.’
Those words carry all the more weight written by a bon viveur rather than a prig. It was Clement’s raffish streak that helped him to see that sport needs propriety too. As ever, Clement Freud was one step ahead of the game.