CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Dedication

       The Seven Ages

       Prologue: The Boy with the veil

      AGE I INFANT, MEWLING

      1 The front room

2 Our war

3 The return of Alfred Jacobi

4 The Christmas Conned ’em

5 Mum

6 Dad

AGE II SHINING MORNING FACE

7 ‘With one little touch of her hand’

8 Confinement

9 East London boy

10 My teachers

11 Intimations of immortality

12 The lads of life

13 The passport prince

14 Cloud-capped towers

AGE III SIGHING LIKE FURNACE

15 First term, first love

       16 The Marlowe Society

       17 Princes and puppets

       18 ‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus’

       19 Encounters with a colossus

       20 The Brummie Beast

       AGE IV SEEKING THE BUBBLE REPUTATION

       21 A shameful episode

       22 ‘I thought Hamlet looked a bit down at the wedding’

       23 Sir

       24 Clay feet and other parts

       25 Giving away Michael York

       26 Leading in the dark

       27 The Idiot

       AGE V AND THEN THE JUSTICE

       28 The intangible ‘it’

       29 From Kaiser to Emperor

       30 ‘Hamlet, played by Derek “I, Claudius” Jacobi’

       31 Enter Richard II

       32 A marriage proposal

       33 Terrible news

       34 So we’ll go no more a-roving

       AGE VI A WORLD TOO WIDE

       35 Ultimate nightmare

       36 The RSC

       37 Proboscis magnifica

       38 The Jacobi Cadets

       39 Two broken codes for the price of one

       40 Life among the great and good

       AGE VII STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY

       41 My new family

       42 The summons

       43 Walks on the dark side

       44 Russell Crowe’s bum

       45 Shakespeare’s end-games

       46 Aren’t we all?

       Picture Section

       Afterword and Acknowledgements

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       THE SEVEN AGES

       All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

      Shakespeare, As You Like It, II, vii.

       PROLOGUE

       The boy with the veil

      It shimmers and enchants; it belongs to a secret, magical, forbidden world, and I have always wanted it.

      She keeps her glorious white silk wedding veil – part of her wedding trousseau – in her wardrobe, and I sometimes sneak into my parents’ bedroom and gaze at it. And then one day in 1945, when I am six years old and they are both out at work, I creep into their room, open the wardrobe and carefully lift out the veil. I drape the gorgeous white material round my shoulders and over my head, and, swishing it around and puffing myself up like mad, I go out of the house and parade up and down Essex Road.

      We East London kids like to play out in the