Uncommon Individuals

From dandy Beau Brummel’s penchant for having his boots polished in champagne to telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell’s attempt to teach his dog to speak and Baron Rothschild’s habit of attaching four giraffes to his Edwardian carriage, there is a magnificent tradition of British eccentricity. The old aristocracy supplied many of the most bizarre ones, because to have a really odd lifestyle you require a large personal fortune and the arrogance to ignore the reactions of your fellow countrymen. The height of 19th- and early 20th-century empire encouraged wealthy men to be eccentric. Certainly, the 19th century was the golden age. Noblemen in particular could indulge in daftness without incurring the attention of the police. And dozens of them did, from the Victorian fifth Duke of Portland, who resided in a warren of underground rooms below his Welbeck Abbey mansion, to the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, who preferred dogs to women, and Lord Rokeby who spent most of his life submerged in water at his home near Hythe. But the tradition of eccentricity continues into the modern era. Take concert pianist Anne Naysmith, who lived in a blue Ford Consul in Chiswick. Or cantankerous lead singer of The Fall, Mark E Smith, who sacked a sound engineer for having ordered a salad. And what about the Dowager Marchioness of Reading, who wrote to The Spectator defending football hooligans: “Now we don’t have a war, what’s wrong with a good punch-up?” She also told The Telegraph that “the only answer to paedophiles is to cut their balls off”. And the 1980s provided enjoyment with Harper’s & Queen’s features editor Ann Barr. She lived with a parrot called Turkey, who accompanied her to parties but caused havoc when left alone at home — chewing at the first editions and laying an egg under the bath. And how about actor Terence Stamp, who startled new acquaintances by walking up stairs backwards, staring with his intense blue eyes at alarmed companions who followed him?

Richard Branson can squeak into the GBE second XI for his childhood prank of stealing the prosthetic legs of his neighbour, Sir Douglas Bader, while he dozed after lunch. What about the actress Sarah Miles and her curious habit of storing her own urine in the fridge for occasional refreshment? Water prompts recollection of the Beatle, John Lennon, who spent much of his time paddling in his swimming pool at his Surrey house, Kenwood. Biographer Hunter Davies recalls visiting Lennon by appointment for an interview only to be told by Yoko Ono that he was having one of his “no speaky days”. After hours of silence, Lennon and Davies adjourned to the pool where they heard the faraway sound of an ambulance siren. “John started aping the sound, ‘nee naw, nee naw’. He then leapt out of the pool still chanting, went to the piano, and composed ‘Across the Universe’.” The women are no less odd. The late Isabella Blow and Vivienne Westwood were certainly daft, the former whose outfits were almost always accessorised with f lamboyant Philip Treacy headwear, fashioned to look like crocodiles’ teeth, lobsters, and flying saucers, which she ascribed to the ‘vampiric’ nature of fashion. “I wear the hats to keep everyone away from me,” she revealed. And Westwood was similar, distinguishing herself turning up ‘knickerless’ to be honoured by the Queen.

Then we have, actress Tilda Swinton, androgynous and ethereal, like Bowie’s eponymous character in The Man Who Fell to Earth. How many successful actresses would risk public ridicule by displaying themselves in a glass case for a week, as Swinton did in 1995 at the Serpentine Gallery for an installation she called ‘The Maybe’? Speaking of Bowie, does he qualify as a GBE? He once said: “I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.” The Man Who Fell to Earth, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke, Major Tom, and Ziggy Stardust vouch for his eccentricity. He recalled, “Everybody was convincing me that I was a Messiah, especially on that f irst American tour. I got hopelessly lost in the fantasy. I could have been Hitler in England. I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I’d be an excellent dictator. Very eccentric and quite mad.” Bowie was a key member of that group of British eccentrics — along with William Blake, Lord Byron, John Lydon, Kate Bush, Jarvis Cocker and Grayson Perry — who were both grounded in the culture they were born into and made by their determination to kick against it. In contrast, children’s author Roald Dahl seemed an establishment figure in his shabby garden shed, writing masterpieces. Yet he became more and more eccentric, indulging his love of fantasy and absolute escape from reality. He surrounded himself with curious objects, including bits and pieces of his own body that had been removed in operations.

One friend recalls Dahl at dinner producing the head of his femur at the table, and passing it around the table, asking people if they could guess what it was, horrifying some diners. And, obsessed with chocolate, Dahl could tell you the year that every great chocolate bar was invented in the 1920s and ‘30s. On his death, mourners sprinkled Smarties on his coffin. And what of modern politicians? The late Lord Longford was delightfully dotty. As a post-war Labour minister, he flew into Berlin, watching from his aeroplane window as a stairway was wheeled into place before a red carpet and a military band. He got up and somehow exited from the wrong door, landing heavily on the tarmac as the band struck up the National Anthem.

Lord Longford would wander the streets of Bloomsbury unaware that jumbo dollops of pigeon droppings adorned his vast bald dome and once turned up at the office of publisher Sidgwick & Jackson in collar, tie, and smart jacket, but still wearing striped pyjama bottoms. And finally there are the dipsomaniacs. Every day, Keith Waterhouse enjoyed an average of eight lunchtime glasses of Pinot Grigio at his favourite trough, O’Neill’s in Earls Court. I once joined him and was confronted by an offer: buy two glasses and you get the rest of the bottle free. “What is that?” pointed Keith, when I returned from the bar with two glasses and the bottle. He refused to drink the offending wine, lurched up to the bar, ordered two more glasses, and told the baffled bar tender to pour the remainder down the sink. His curious explanation? “We’ll be here all day with a bottle.”