Something you may not have known about Sir Clement Freud
Sir Clement Freud, wit, raconteur, chef, gourmet, writer, MP, and the bedrock of Radio 4’s Just A Minute, has died. Grandson of Sigmund, brother of Lucian, father of Emma and Matthew. The Freud family has certainly made its mark. Clement will be missed. I loved his humour. He defined lugubrious.
But now he’s dead, I can tell a story I’ve been sitting on for years.
In 1972 I was publicity director of Ward Lock and I had a very beautiful secretary named Yvonne (not the Yvonne I married a year ago today). We published some fairly crappy books, and one was a cookery book titled Cooking Into Europe.
Previously, when I was at Collins, we’d published a instantly forgettable children’s book by Clement Freud called Grimble. So I had his telephone number, and it struck me that an intro by Clement Freud — he was then a celebrity chef, before such creatures existed — might help lift Cooking Into Europe out of the rut into which it would inevitably slide. I contacted him, and he agreed. He came to our offices in Baker Street and we sorted things out.
He phoned a few days later, and asked if Yvonne could pop round to his house, which was nearby, to collect the manuscript. Off she went, and came back in hysterics. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You’ll never believe what happened!” she screamed. “I was in his study and I had my back to him, and he said ‘Take a look at this’, and I turned round and he’d got IT out and was showing IT to me! And you know what? It was ENORMOUS, truly gigantic, I never knew men could grow them that big!”
I was horrified. “What did you do?”
“Do? I roared with laughter and ran back here. What else could I do? My god, it was HUGE. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’m Jamaican and I know what I’m talking about.”
Yvonne was sensible, level-headed and practical. She knew how sad men were. She wasn’t remotely troubled by the incident, and thought it all a huge joke. She certainly told anyone who would listen to her about it — cackles and screams of laughter from next door always indicated the story was in its umpeenth retelling.
So there you have it. Sir Clement had a mighty todger. I hope it served him well.