My Story: Somewhat Like A Beginning

What Ho Proles!

Having taken advice as to how to begin this little narrative of mine, I’ve decided to dismiss the whole business of beginning in medias res, as the classical chaps call it, in favour of the more Christian virtue of having a good old fashioned beginning. Consider it a blessing, since what could you really gain by setting out on a journey with, let us say, a man with his arm down a champion racehorse’s throat in a desperate attempt at retrieving the keys to his Bentley? All that will come in good time. If starting at the beginning was good enough for God, I’m not one to go arguing with the great novelist in the sky. Even he saved the best stuff till last.

As to my beginning: I was born in 1965, on the family estate at C---- N----. My father, William, is one of this country’s great economists; my mother, the frugal daughter of a notorious London blackguard. I, myself, feel like the happy conjunction of these different palates; a colourful bricolage of the high and the lowly, the rich and the austere.

Present at my birth were my mother (naturally), Miss Drake (the local midwife), my aunt Primrose, and Dr. Clegg, who at that time was still registered with the Medical Council. Nobody knew about his thing for ether, his nocturnal habits in the graveyard, nor about the seven wives he had spread across Lincolnshire. All we knew was that he took the title of the official Murgatroid family doctor and had a profitable sideline in doping my Grandfather’s racehorses. It was he who had the privilege of first slapping my rump, hearing me yell, and, calling on his vast medical expertise, declaring to my father that he’d been blessed with a fine daughter.

I only tell you all of this in case you think there was anything ordinary about my birth. Although I was born in the nineteen sixties, I’m neither tree hugger nor hippy with dreadlocks and a taste for ill grown weeds. I’m a Tory gentleman, and though my sins are plenty, the variety is quite dull. You must see: I am a Murgatroid; some say the Murgatroid of this age, the Murgatroid who will fly the family flag, promote the crest, write the family name in the annals of history. I am the Honourable Jacob Peas Murgatroid and you do well to remember that.

By all accounts, the world was less than impressed by my first few weeks on this earth. The Hall seemed to fall quite indifferently to the new pattern of life involving the child of the misdiagnosed gender. All I know is that I could not have been a handsome baby or my aunt would not have fainted on first seeing me. Nor could I have been much of a handsome child since my aunt continued to suffer dizzy spells whenever I was left in her care. What I was, however, was quick witted and with a keen eye always ready to form hasty judgements. It has been said that there have been none more able to take an immediate dislike as the young Jacob. As a four year old, I dismissed my first governess on account of her smelling of humbugs. At six, I citied ‘a certain shiftiness about the blighter’s eyes’ when I dismissed the gentleman tutor called to the Hall to teach me Latin. At eight I caused a scene at the local country fair when I demanded a public flogging for a rascal who had clipped my eye for something I had said about his mother. You might say: the qualities of the man were there in the child and that I was a Tory through and through.

By the age of eleven, I had grown into a youth of some elegance. Stick thin, though blighted by a slight ocular deficient in the right orbit, I refrained from all sports but for my beloved cricket in which I excelled as a student of the leg break.

Eton only advanced my love of the sport whilst providing the education suitable for any child born into the English gentry. My House Masters were clearly impressed with my talents and had me marked down as a potential Head Boy. It was a station to which I never aspired, believing that in a system ruled by adults, the role of Head Boy is too much work for far too little glory. Besides: I had my eyes for finer prizes, which at the age of thirteen, began to include bonneted members of the local Catholic girls school. It was during this time that stole my first kiss from Annabella Smythe Patterson, who unknown to me, was the niece of a local timber merchant back home in C---- N----. How the news travelled! I recall a difficult weekend when my Father had me home to remind that we Murgatroids must be careful in forming assignations with members of the manual class.

After Eton, I progressed to the University of Oxford where I read Economics. My days were wasted on less scholarly pursuits, I suppose, but that was only befitting a gentleman for whom a career in the city was already decided and arranged. I came down with a rather rotten third class degree and landed a fine job with my father’s company. The subsequent years passed with much adventure, none of which has much bearing on this story except to say that with each passing birthday, I became more resolute in my determination to serve the nation and, one day, to become the highest servant of the state.

Then came the wonderful news that an election would soon be called. The year was 2005. It would be a good year for people with the name Anthony Charles Lynton Blair; less good if the name was Murgatroid. It was the year that this poor nation of ours was set back by five years, consigning one of its brightest stars to the backwoods of political life. It was the year I lost an election and gained my notoriety. It was the year that my name became linked with a sixty nine year old school traffic warden called Mrs. Millicent Granger. It was the year that I learned that succeed, you have to beat the rotten Labour supporting proles at their own game.