Major General Fred Stanton has regaled us with another extract from his book, "Let's Talk About Me!"
He's left it for a week or two to see how the book sells and it isn't, frankly. Stanton told the Bandstand, "The book is not doing as well as I would have hoped. Maybe it's down to snobbery on my part, the fact that I live with my cello-playing wife in a beautiful part of the Cotswolds whilst still having the little pad in Kingston-upon-Thames where we stay for our London gigs."
"Maybe in the days of the credit crunch and working class foreigners springing up everywhere I misjudged my obvious gloating! Now I aim to set the record straight with this tale of the most humble time in my life, still included in my book, Let's Talk About Me! priced anything from £19.99 in bookshops to £1.99 at petrol stations!"
"I was walking home one night through the back streets of London with my wife, a fine cello player. We had crossed Knightsbridge quite successfully and turned off into one of the lesser known areas. As we stumbled along the pavement a tramp came into view. My wife said, 'Kick him in the face and move on'.
"I remembered my roots, for I was brought up within a very middle class family not far from a working class pit area where dirty, ill-educated children played for the local colliery band. It would be some years before selfless determination saw me finally conduct this riff-raff at a proper contest. But that is for Chapter 15!"
"Anyway, as we passed this tramp I noticed he was whistling the theme from Grimaldi's first symphony. The motifs were clear and resonant in the cold London air".
"I did a quick about turn more suited to the parade ground, in so doing leaving my fine, cello-playing wife suddenly without escort. She looked suitably shocked and gazed at me across that few yards that had now become a chasm in London's dirty old streets."
"I said to the tramp 'You know Grimaldi?' He said, 'I am Sir Norbert Horbinger. I conducted the finest performance of Grimaldi the Albert Hall has ever seen!'
"Anyway, I gave him 10p for a cup of tea. And, sometimes, just sometimes, my fine, cello-playing wife and I pop Grimaldi on the stereo, look out of our London flat and watch Horbinger begging in the street. Then we sit down and she pours me a glass of claret whilst I light a cigar and think, that night on the cold, dark streets of London, I really gave something back!"
