Bogol (2)

Episode 2 (of 6)

Now that so many years have passed, the matter no longer of public interest and more to the point, now that Sir Reginald has passed away peacefully on his yacht moored in the harbour (note not the marina) at Monaco, I feel it appropriate to give my side of the story. I wouldn’t want to do the old buffer down – in the end he did see me alright, even if my reputation took a bit of a terminal.

You will recall that my name was plastered liberally across the front pages for days before that little difficulty that the foreign secretary had got into during a trip to France became rather news-worthy. Then the interest of the press became sporadic. A year later Sir Reginald retired with what I believe was a handsome ‘go away and keep your mouth shut’ financial settlement. He immediately bought a yacht and based it in Monaco. I couldn’t help wondering at the time whether the Tides Review was part of a larger plan to install himself comfortably in The Med – and whether acting more stupid than you actually are might not be a rather clever approach to life! Anyway there was more press intrusion in my life at that point but then it dwindled away to almost nothing.

Occasionally someone at a dinner party might say ‘Aren’t you that chap who wrote that report reviewing whether the tide came in and out somewhere in Scotland?’ Sometimes I would simply deny it, other times I would hint at dark machinations within the civil service, but always conclude ‘sorry old chap can’t discuss …. You understand ….’ – and normally they did – but it does give a chap the pip when halfway through a most delicious dessert course a chap (another chap obviously), hauls to windward and lets fly with a well-directed ranging shot.

I am not stupid, well not entirely, and I am not grasping (though that camper van did sterling work over many years) and I am not ‘A DISGRACE’ nor ‘A PUBLIC SECTOR SCOUNDREL’. It’s true that I may have made some poor judgments and been a bit naïve and I was certainly ill advised and pressured …….  But you will have to make your own minds up!

I did try once more to wriggle out of it. After receiving the paperwork I harassed Faisly Smidgin, Sir Reginald’s PA, into him accepting a phone call from me. I suspect you could predict how well it went.

‘Bogol! What the hell do you want … you‘ve got the paperwork, an advance on the fee and a whacking great expense account.’

‘Well Sir Reginald,’ I spluttered, ‘having …. having read the brief really wearily .. I mean carefully … I realise that I don’t have the scientific backgammon .. no background for the task.’

‘Rubbish Bogol and stop gabbling, it is most unappealing! You will have had that lesson at school where the geography master  explains with one of those revolving things , balls for planets and whatnot how the sun and the moon er ….. um … well do whatever they do to make the tides come in and go out. That’s all you need to know.’

‘But I didn’t under ……’

‘Anyway you can’t back out now I’ve accepted my £50 winnings from Tuppy Smallwood.’

‘Tuppy Smallwood?’

‘Bogol! I’ve told you before don’t keep repeating what I say’.

‘Sorry Sir Reginald.’

‘I should think so … now where was I?’

‘Tuppy Smallwood.’

‘Thank you, yes Tuppy Smallwood….. he bet me £50 that I couldn’t find someone to write The Tides Report. I said I knew the very man – and I did.

‘But this is public money we’re talking about.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you complete chump, I saw him extract the spondula from his trouser pocket , note by painful note with my own eyes.’

‘No I meant paying for a worthless report.’

‘Oh that’s nothing round here these days …… it’s the new bloke, he’s a blighter, ruined my golf handicap.’

‘Oh come on Sir Reginald you can’t blame the PM for your golf handicap.’

‘I bloody well can! He’s abolished afternoons.’

‘Abolished afternoons?’ I have to say I was a bit taken aback by this assertion. I know our new leader can as good as walk on the liquid stuff and all that, but abolish afternoons? I mean I hadn’t noticed anything – perhaps in no longer having the structure of gainful employment it had slipped me by ………’

‘Bogol!’

‘Sorry … um … how do abolished afternoons fit into all this?’ I realised that three years away from the cut and thrust of departmental politics had left me …… well it had left me …..

‘Have to work bally afternoons now, too much work, most of it nonsense like this damn tide thing! Can’t get my five rounds a week in  ….. so goodbye to a respectable handicap. Anyway you had better get a move on, we need that report for the end of next month.’

‘That’s not what it says in the contract.’

‘I know, I know, but the Boss has got wind of it ……. Wants it all put to bed before the local MP gets to stick her oar in. What’s her name?  Gloria Somebody-Somebody …… no, it’s Gladys ….. Gladys, Gladys … Somebiddy – Somebiddy, wait … it’ll come to me  ……..Somebiddy – Smythe that’s it! Gladys Somebiddy – Smythe. Marginal constituency and all that. Got to go.’

Again I was left holding a disconnected phone.

I know what you are all thinking – that this was just a load of tosh and that I should have returned the papers with the contract not signed ……… but I didn’t. I still had that public sector bunker mentality of loyalty to the department and a commitment to helping out to muddle through – to keep the bastards (in this case the press and the politicians) from forcing the door……………………………

So I bought a converted Bedford CA Dormobile  van (1600cc petrol engine with a column change 3 speed gear box and a pop up roof) which had a bed, stove and other domestic essentials and had a friend make a small collapsible desk on which my portable Olivetti typewriter could sit. I read a couple of books about how tides work but in the end resorted to getting a couple of mates (a mathematician and a physicist) to show me, with the aid of pint glasses, how the gravitational pulls of the Sun and Moon interact to move water back and fore across the planet and determine the size of the tides.

And then, with the deadline looming, I was off to start my fieldwork.