Biography Of Peter Cook Read online

  As well as having to endure the disciplinary attentions of Dexter and his sort, Peter found that his pretty features attracted a different kind of unwelcome attention from some of the older boys. Asked later by Michael Parkinson what his chief memory of Radley was, he replied: ‘Trying to avoid buggery. I’ve always wanted to look up one old acquaintance of mine – and I won’t mention his name, he’ll know perfectly well who he is, the dirty sod. I was a young, quite pretty boy, I was number three in the charts, and he was a prefect, and he came into my cubicle. I was reading a magazine, and he sat on the bed and put his hand up the back of my pyjamas and started stroking my back. And he said, “Do you mind that, Cook?” And I said “Yes . . .”. In fact I didn’t mind at all, but I felt I ought to say yes, because my master had had me in at the beginning of term and had said, “As a young boy, Cook, you will discover that there are a lot of other boys at this school. And sometimes . . . the older boys . . . do things to the younger boys. And if anybody, er, er . . . you probably know what I mean.” And I didn’t really know what he meant.’4 Asked later by Playboy magazine how he had lost his virginity at the school, he retorted ‘At what end?’

  Sarah Cook, meanwhile, was on her way to prep school in Blandford Forum, an experience which, coming after the joys of growing up in Gibraltar, mirrored the miseries of Peter’s lifestyle. She found herself pitched into a dark dormitory full of unfamiliar sobbing girls, one of whom used to hug her knees and rock back and forth like a psychiatric inmate. She wrote to her parents, ‘I can’t find a friend now. Nobody will play with me, and it is jolly lonely. Nobody seems to want to play with me.’ Peter had been separated and alone for a lot longer, and so was much better trained than this. His emotions stayed firmly battened down, as was the Radley way. He did miss Sarah though, and wrote to tell her that he had found a mole and put it in a cardboard box.

  Peter had learned at St Bede’s the value of keeping your head down and not being a cry baby, and in due course he began to flourish as he had done there. His school fellows remember his early years as entirely unremarkable. He was a scrupulously obedient military cadet. He was quietly respectful and diligent in class. He did not act in plays. He was not much good at sport, but he bravely did his best. In fact he absolutely detested rugby: ‘I was forced to play it. For some reason I was placed at full back. I spent the whole time avoiding the ball. Often they’d forget what to do and actually come at me. In my rush to get away from the ball once, I fell on it. I was then hacked to bits by the forwards’ feet and got a spurious reputation for courage. Had it not been for breaking a shin-bone I might have been forced to play for the Sixth XV.’5 In such a sports-mad establishment – Radley was named ‘Top sports school of the year’ by The Field in 1952 – this reputation for fearlessness was a vital one to have acquired.

  In class, Peter’s efforts reflected the unthinking conservatism of every public schoolboy’s sheltered lifestyle in the early fifties. ‘I wrote this absolutely ghastly essay which won a prize. As far as I can remember it called for the chemical castration of the unintelligent working-classes. I think it was chemical castration, nothing cruel. The idea was to prevent their breeding. I was just pompous, witless and hopeless. People say I’ve got more reactionary in my old age, when in fact I’ve moved to the left from my very solid Nazi position at the age of thirteen.’6 Peter’s teachers recognised him as officer material, and at the end of his first year appointed him Head of Thompson’s Social Hall, a large scruffy room where juniors gathered and kept their belongings in horse boxes. Paul (‘Bill’) Butters, who joined the Social as a new boy at the start of the following year, saw a different side of the young Peter Cook from that observed by his teachers: ‘Peter was even at the early age of fifteen a boy who inspired respect. But it was his quick wit and ability to see the funny side of authority that was particularly attractive.’

  His school reports acknowledged a ‘creditable standard of performance’, but expressed concern over the ‘withdrawn’ or ‘aloof’ side of his nature. Thompson himself wrote that Peter ‘continues to show intelligence and an original approach – though he must not overdo the latter. As Head of Social Hall he has set a good example, though I have noticed some of the aloofness mentioned by his Form Master . . . it has rather diminished positive impact. His long period off games through injury has no doubt been a contributory difficulty.’ In January 193 he moved up to a study in the octagon, where his studymate J. A. Aylen found him to be an easy, cheerful companion, who did not suffer fools gladly but who was never rude to them. While life could not be said to be looking up to any great extent, he had at least established a modus vivendi, as at St Bede’s.

  That very month, however, Peter suffered a shattering blow. His holidays in Gibraltar had remained the shining beacon at the end of every term, making life at Radley that much easier to endure. Now, suddenly, his father was posted back to Nigeria, to become Permanent Secretary of the country’s Eastern Region, based at Enugu. It was something of a compliment – the Colonial Service there had missed Alec Cook’s abilities in the preceding eight years – but being sent back halfway round the world was the last thing that the Cook family wanted. Swallowing his disappointment, Peter wrote to his father, a Molesworthian masterpiece of noncommittal irrelevance: ‘The weather here is very cold and a good deal of snow has fallen. Yesterday the Intersocial Rowing Competition began. We were just beaten by 3½ seconds but we have a very young crew and we should be very good next year. The Hockey 1st XI have been winning all their matches. I watched Joe Davis on TV the other day he was absolutely marvellous and got 2 breaks over 100 against Walter Donaldson.’ To his mother, Peter wrote in scarcely more intimate terms: ‘Yesterday was Field Day and we had an all day exercise in full corps uniform. Angels One Five is being shown here at College sometime next week. Thompsons are doing very well in the athletics cup. By the way back Little Yid for the National. Lots of love, Peter.’ A world of emotional disturbance lay between his polite lines, distressingly devoid of any useful expression of feelings.

  Peter’s academic performance collapsed. His report that term spoke of dissipation, a lack of energy and ‘somnolent lapses’. Thompson concluded that ‘There can be no doubt about Peter’s ability but I am disappointed that he does not make more positive use of it. I recall literary and artistic talent which he seems content to let sleep, doing in the classroom no more than is required of him and making little effort to find outside avenues of fulfilment. There are faint signs already that it may lead to a most undesirable cynicism of outlook.’ The warden added a comment, that ‘I want to see him do MUCH better than this – we all know he can and he knows it too.’ Peter had already applied, prematurely one would think at the age of fifteen, to Pembroke College, Cambridge, his father’s alma mater; but such future academic rewards were undoubtedly beginning to drift out of view.

  Salvation came in the shape of his mother, who was finding the demands of the Colonial Service something of a trial. The thought of leaving baby Elizabeth behind as she had left Peter proved too much for her, and she agreed with Alec that she would stay in England for much of his second Nigerian tour of duty. Instead Peter was able to join his mother and sisters at Aunt Joan’s that Easter, and spent the holidays happily fishing and playing golf. In June Margaret obtained two £6 tickets for the Coronation, and took Peter out of school to go and see it. For the first time in his life, he found himself living in the same country as most of his immediate family, able to go on outings with his mother like anybody else. Suddenly, all was right with the world. As if to prove it, Ted Dexter left Radley and his childhood asthma began to clear up at the same time.

  The effect on Peter’s school reports was immediate and electric. Thompson noted the sudden improvement, ‘under the stimulus of impending examination’, and remarked that ‘He begins to see how he may find scope for his talents in our general community life.’ Within a term or two his Social tutor was enthusing further: ‘Peter’s linguistic abilities, allied to a sensitive
imagination, are assuring splendid results and arousing high hopes for his academic future.’ His form master recognised the change in ‘an alert and intelligent young man, very ready to be interested and to take delight in his studies. He works conscientiously, thinks clearly and writes fluently.’

  Margaret Cook paid an extended visit to her husband in the latter part of 1953. Then, early in 1954, she set about finding a permanent English home, and settled on Knollside, a spacious cottage with an oversized conservatory in Uplyme, just outside Lyme Regis. Now it was Alec’s turn to be lonely and downcast. ‘The house in Lyme Regis sounds nice, but £5800 is a lot, and what happens if I retire and get a job in England not in the vicinity? Have you heard of any unfurnished houses to let? I know they are said to be few and far between – I know very little about life in England. I understand your desire to have a house which I share, but there are obvious snags. Anyway, let me know what else you find in your prowlings. I am sorry to be so vague about my future but it is very difficult to forecast what may happen during the next year or 18 months; what I do know is that I find these separations very hard to bear, and I am pretty sure I shall have had enough of this job by September 1955.’

  Alec’s solitary lifestyle had been enlivened only by the visit of a passing bishop. ‘He proved to be quite a live wire – fond of his noggin. It was a pleasant change to have some conversation. Otherwise life is the same all round. I went for a walk to the river this evening, but I didn’t see any kingfishers as I had hoped to. I listened in avidly to the Queen’s arrival in Gibraltar and was not dry-eyed at the end of it. I’m glad she is back home again safe and sound. I did not imagine there would be any nonsense at Gibraltar and should have felt so ashamed had there been. I had a nice letter from Peter, mainly about fishing, and one from Sarah too. Peter seems to have loved his holidays – you can congratulate yourself on having made a great success of them. I am very much looking forward to meeting Peter again and agree that he is a son to be proud of. I do think we can take credit for having placed both Peter and Sarah in nice schools. Give my love to Sarah and Elizabeth. I am always reminded of the latter when the chuck-chucks mill around at breakfast on my solitary porch. Tons of love darling – I expect things will work out – from Alec.’

  Undeterred by her husband’s financial misgivings, Margaret went ahead and bought the house, and a Labrador to go with it, and the family spent the summer of 1954 redecorating their new home. Peter’s letters to his father brimmed with excitement as never before: ‘The curtains are up! The carpets are down! and the chandelier for the sitting room is up too, and the garden is as wild as ever. I like the house very much and am painting the conservatory which is a great suntrap.’ Peter also set to work on the garden, and took a keen interest in its upkeep for years to come. He was rewarded for his efforts with a brand new dark grey flannel suit from Austin Reed’s in Exeter, ‘which looks very well’.

  In June 1955 Peter had further cause for excitement. ‘DcomeDaddy, I read in The Times yesterday that you have been decorated with the CMG. Heartiest congratulations! You certainly deserved it and Granny will be thrilled.’ He was genuinely bursting with pride at his father’s achievement. That summer the whole family holidayed in Nigeria. Margaret and Elizabeth went on ahead, and as Eleanor Hudson was unable to look after Peter and Sarah in London, he and his sister had the unparalleled adventure of staying unsupervised at the Rubens Hotel in Victoria for a night. Peter took her to see the Crazy Gang at the Victoria Palace, where she was hit on the head by a rubber ball hurled from the stage.

  The presence of his entire family intensified the pressure that Alec Cook felt to retire from the Colonial Service. His mother, too, perhaps mindful of his father’s fate, ventured the opinion that ‘You have another big job to do, in England. Making a happy home for your three dear children and Margaret, and giving them a background of wise and loving care. Children miss so much if the father is away.’ That autumn Alec Cook sailed to England to collect his CMG at Buckingham Palace, and never returned to Nigeria. A few years later the Colonial Service itself packed up its bags and went home – prematurely, its officers felt – leaving the country to independence and the eventual bloody civil war that Alec and his colleagues had informed Whitehall would inevitably ensue.

  At Radley, the return of his mother and in due course his father acted as a catalyst, spurring Peter on not just academically but socially. The sardonic wit he had employed primarily as a defensive tool was now put to use in entertaining his schoolfellows. One of his most popular gifts was an ability to mimic most of the members of staff, with an accuracy, a degree of comic invention and a recklessness that far outstripped that shown by any of his colleagues. First, perhaps unsurprisingly, was ‘Rutch’ himself, who according to Peter’s then studymate Aylen was ‘perfect for lampooning. Myopic, pipe-smoking, tatty smelly mackintosh, strutted rather than walked, introspective, devoid of charm. Peter’s first target, and he did it well. Peter caricatured him by habit, perhaps by nature, but never maliciously.’ Then there were impressions of Warden Milligan’s languid Etonian drawl – ‘merciless’ according to another contemporary – and of Ivor Gilliat, a boisterous gurgling toad of a master who was overfond of young boys, ‘a perversion which Peter took great glee in publicising’ according to classmate Stephen Dixon. Rather than merely mimic his victims, Peter applied his father’s gift of spinning a comic web around a simple original premise. Jonathan Harlow recalls: ‘A scrap of speech . . . would become the starting point for a whole persona so wild and wonderful that the original could never again be seen as ordinary mortal. Thus our benign and blameless chaplain was transformed before our very ears into a monster of depravity, ruthlessness and Jesuitical guile: Richelieu, Torquemada, Alexander VI and Pope John rolled into one.’7

  The most memorable of all Peter’s comic creations was without doubt Mr Boylett. Arthur Boylett was Radley’s High Table butler, a short, balding gentleman in his fifties, always attired in shabby tails, a grey waistcoat and tie, whose job it was to wait personally on the Warden at mealtimes. Mr Boylett’s generally cheerful demeanour contrasted with his nasally monotonous voice and his habit of making unintentionally humorous pronouncements. ‘There’s plenty more where that came from, if you get my meaning’ he would announce conspratorially, as he served up another helping of potatoes. Boylett first came to the broad attention of the pupils when he accidentally swept the High Table breadcrumbs into the lap of one of the prefects. ‘Well, they were your crumbs,’ he explained. Peter made it his business to buttonhole the unfortunate butler between meals: ‘Boylett used to tell me these terribly boring – which he thought interesting – facts. He said “You know that stone which is lying just outside the left hand side of the gravel driveway as you go out? I sold that yesterday, because I thought I saw it move.” And he kept selling things which he thought he saw move. I had long conversations with him about moving stones, and twigs he’d seen which had hovered in a strange way and might be valuable. “I thought I saw it move” became the catchphrase for anything.’8 Peter was to take the catchphrase and the character on to Cambridge University, and then on to television, where Mr Boylett metamorphosed into E. L. Wisty.

  Peter would loudly announce, as Boylett, that he had bought up all the grass at Radley, on the grounds that he had seen it move, only for the bottom to fall out of the market. He even developed a Boylett walk. ‘By now Peter was a gangling 17-year-old,’ recalls Paul Butters, ‘and he would keep his fellows amused in Social by walking up and down the markets miming the luckless Boylett. Once Peter had paraded one way down the markets as Boylett, he would return, often behind the Social Tutor himself, imitating the luckless Rutch. When Boylett and Thompson had been completely dissected, it would be the turn of the Chaplain. This time, Peter’s mimicry extended down Covered Passage (the main passage down to the refectory). Peter’s face would screw up to imitate the Chaplain and his legs would follow the same upright path, as he chanted the words that we all imagined our Chaplain to
be mumbling under his breath – “I hope, I hope, I hope it is the Pope”.’

  This was a mightily dangerous game to play, yet Peter pulled off the remarkable trick of laughing loudly at the system and yet being wholly accepted by it. All are agreed that his pastiches of Boylett and the masters were largely unmalicious; but that would hardly have been a defence if discovered. The Radley authorities were simply unaware of the three-ring circus being organised, in many cases quite literally, behind their backs; and if they had been made aware, they would have found it difficult to reconcile the nature of the crime with the exquisitely polite, diligent and well-mannered boy who had already been marked down as a future Head of Social. Richard Cottrell, another schoolfellow, explains that ‘Peter had a very confident, assured persona and could switch on dependability at the bat of an eyelid. There was a lot of “the speed of the hand deceives the eye” stuff going on.’