Tuesday 29 May 2018

Scrobs and the accountant's daughter...

A few years before her Fragrancy, the Lady Mrs Scrobs appeared on the horizon, and she was still some way off with chums and other blokes,  Scrobs had started to develop a close friendship with a family, with whom he spent many happy hours watching rugby, visiting pubs, drinking pints of beer and generally enjoying life in the middle nineteen-sixties

These friends were all larger than life characters, and Mr D had two daughters, one of whom began to accept and reciprocate the shine of a young, yelping Scrobs. All this didn’t go unnoticed by Mr and Mrs D, and the whole scenario was starting to look quite interesting for all.

Mr D was a senior partner in an accountants in Chancery Lane and drove a huge Bentley. They all lived in an enormous house in one of the nicer, leafier districts of Hastings (oh yes, there are some, but you have to know where they are), and we had many a day of jollity, most of which was endearingly funded by Mr D, because he was a generous man, and liked to see people getting on in life, and likewise his wife.

Scrobs was living in a flat (and relative poverty), in London at the time, and returned home each weekend to see these friends and of course, several others. On one occasion, during the week, when I was looking at a lettuce or something for supper, Mr D, with a twinkle in his eye, suggested that we go out for a few beers in London, because he had an early meeting the next day, and was staying up that night.

Of course, Scrobs agreed, and on arrival at Chancery Lane, (‘Ask for the Law Courts, you’ll find us halfway up on the left’, were the instructions). From there we repaired to ‘The Red Lion’ (‘we’ll just go in here for a couple of pints, and then we’ll go to the Spanish Club in Cavendish Square; dinner’s on me tonight’), for what turned out to be five pints of Bass and a crack at the sixpenny fruit machine!

The evening wore on and dinner was great fun, because everyone seemed to know Mr D, and he seemed to know everyone as well. I remember a sweet course of a candied orange... Which was a good thing, as Scrobs realised in the realms of Rioja, that he was being ‘vetted’ as a suitor for the particular shining daughter! There was much more jollity, and about half-nine, a huge handshake and a big thank you, followed by a somewhat varied route back to the flat, where I can still remember seeing one of my flatmates, and telling her that I’d just had a splendid evening, and she laughed and said it looked like it!

It is an abiding memory Mr D, and I still recall just about everything we discussed and laughed about, and I’m sorry the mutual shine didn’t happen, but glad that the various daughters went on and made a success in life, and I hope you all carried on to a ripe old age as well.

And why the reference to The London School of Useful Idiots? Well, the pub was at the end of Red Lion Street, off High Holborn, where in the sixties, the LSE had a noisy presence and were all regarded as a crowd of empty-headed wasters, easily ignored by real people who actually created the wealth they spurned so much. So no change there.

Funny ending to a post, but that's what happens really...

13 comments:

Thud said...

You do summon up the feeling of past times rather well.

rvi said...


Ah yes, memories of mis-spent youth! From 1965-1970 were undoubtedly the most carefree and enjoyable years of my life. Having escaped the unionisation carnage of Britain, I was happy swanning around in Switzerland and then Morocco - always employed in legitimate and reasonably well paid employment. I had great friends in each place and indeed several of us from those years are still in touch.

En passant and of course apropos of nothing did Mr D reject you because he caught you complaining about his daughter's cooking? As Mr Spooner would have had it, troping her grits??

rvi said...


Goosey

Just accidentally discovered your greeny blog, but I won't be contributing to it - my poetic skills being limited to the boy stood on the burning deck variety!

I was interested in your tale of your eyes, and glad to see the op was successful. As it happens, the local, best in the country, private National Eye Hospital is located at the end of our road. A few years ago Madame RVI was complaining about her eyes always itching, so we decided to pop along to see the docs there. The one we were referred to took one look and said you have signs of cataracts in both eyes and if you don't do something about them soon you will eventually go blind. He recommended that she had complete new lenses installed in each eye. She agreed, and he did the first one a few days later, and the second one another week after that. It is possiblew to go straight home an hour or so after the op, but she preferered to stay in overnight on both occasions just to be sure.. He inserted long distance lenses so Madam has to have simple reading glasses for short distance stuff (and as they are so cheap here, she has about 10 pairs dotted in their places around the house). But she was, and still is, very happy that the work was done bbefore any serious damage occurred- and can now see a fly on the moon, but can't see the front door key on the table in front of her face! She is very useful for navigating as she can read road signs at 100 yards! She makes a habit of seeing him again every couple of years, just to make sure everything is still in order, when he recommends suitable eye drops which she uses regularly as her eyes tend to get dry, especially at night. A very small inconvenience compared to perpetual blindness!







goosegirl said...

Having them done is a real eye-opener to say the least. I was so short-sighted that the thinnest available lenses for my glasses were over 1cm thick at the edges. Like Mrs rvi now, I can see long-distance but will need reading glasses when the other one's done so it's the opposite to what I've been used to seeing since I was six. Everything appears closer as well so can't wait to get the other one done as my current vision is like having had several tinctures, can't judge if there's a step in front of me and, if there is, how far down does it go, and I'm not supposed to bend down for any length of time so I'm using my pick-up stick I got when I had my hip replacement. It's a bit of a bugger getting older but it does have its benefits. Using a cane can get you special treatment in shops etc, someone offering to carry stuff to your car, free NHS jobbies and a B@Q and Boot's discount card. TBO, as long as I wake up in the morning, all's well with my world.

rvi said...


Hi GG
Hope all goes well with you second treatment. I am as blind as a bat without glasses which I have been wearing since I was seventeen. When I was a kid I had brilliant full range sight, but then I started work in a poorly lit office doing close up paperwork and my eye deteriorated rapidly as a result. Nowadays, if I read the paper without them, the natural focal length is about 3 inches! So my optician recommend multifocals which are just fine - once you get used to them - except they do foreshorten distances, so when I go into a parking space facing as wall I inch in and when it looks like I am about 2 inches away I stop, switch off and get out - then I find there is still at least 3 feet twixt front bumper and the wall. So I have to get back in, switch on and then creep forward until my headlights disappear below the horizon. Then I know I am more or less where I should be.

But as you rightly say as long as I wake up in the morning, all is fine and the world can just get along without me. Much of what I see on the tv drives me up the wall and gets me shouting naughty words at it in frustration, Then my better half pipes up with something like "Just forget about it. It is no longer your concern. You have done your bit for the world, so just let them get on with it - as long as it does not affect us, who cares anyway?"

Sound advice.

A K Haart said...

A lettuce for supper? A whole one??

Come to think of it I married an accountant's daughter. We ate some strange concoctions in the early days, mostly based on macaroni because we could do the whole thing in one saucepan.

goosegirl said...

Ah! Second time around I married a chef/ butcher but often wish he could cook a meal in one saucepan instead of using nearly every pan, utensil, various cutlery items and plastic bowls which I have to wash-up, but he does make some good food!! When we used to have a few sheep we chose a nice plump one with some fat on it for putting in the freezer at a later date. Boy, you've never lived until you've eaten your own lamb with home-grown veg and either mint sauce or redcurrant jelly that was also home-made. As for marrying anyone in the financial field - er - no and never even came close to it, though I nearly married a wrought-iron constructor.

Scrobs. said...

"En passant and of course apropos of nothing did Mr D reject you because he caught you complaining about his daughter's cooking? As Mr Spooner would have had it, troping her grits??"

Ha ha ha, nope, we often all went out for a few drinks, and of course there was also the one-to-one, but we did all sit in Mr D's kitchen noshing the biggest fry-ups you ever saw, cooked by her mum!

Scrobs. said...

Goosey, I hope all is much better and improving still! Will PM you!

Scrobs. said...

Mr H, Senora O'Blene and I constantly argue as to whether macaroni was an English invention, or an Italian one!

Still love the stuff, and her version of macaroni cheese is 'Perfection in a Pyrex'!

Scrobs. said...

"though I nearly married a wrought-iron constructor."

When I first read that, I thought you'd written 'boa constrictor'!

Probably did the same thing then..;0)

goosegirl said...

Should've gone to Specsavers!

Roger said...

Hi Scrobs, a long time between visits to your blog. Commenting on this as it must have been just prior to my arrival at your flat in Ifield Rd.! Now fully retired in rural NSW with time on my hands to peruse such prose! How are you all? Drop me a line at rhgoldy@bigpond.net.au if you have a moment. Cheers "cobber" Roger.