Hugo Williams

for my sister Polly 1950-2004

You had to go to bed ahead of us even then, while your two older brothers grabbed another hour downstairs. The seven-year gap was like a generation between us. You played the princess, swanning about the house in your tablecloth wedding dress, till we told you your knickers were dirty and you ran upstairs to change. Your hair was tied up in plaits on top of your...

1. I lie in bed, watching you dress yourself in nudity for your part in a story you are about to tell me.

Once upon a time, you seem to say, there was a woman who took off all her clothes and stood for a moment with one hand on her hip.

You have my full attention as you pile your hair on top of your head and let it fall down again. Up to this point I am familiar with the story.

Your movements...

If I turn round now I’ll be back at school, arranging the chairs in the Library with Briggs and Napier. Briggs is chair monitor for readings. He’s flicking through a copy of my new book, ‘An Actor’s Life for Me’, and making animal noises. A display card on the table shows me smiling, holding up the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

They have taken...

Hugo Williams sits looking somewhat cowed and apprehensive in the tea rooms of the Waldorf Hotel. His appearance, dark, formal suit and tie, silk handkerchief arranged for show in his breast pocket, makes him look old-fashioned actorish. It is almost as if he were costumed for a funeral service, and in a sense he is.

Old theatrical aficionados of English drawing room comedy and...

I had an idea that would have made everything all right. I outlined a case that was ‘screamingly funny’. No chance of Sunday, I’m afraid. But wait, there may be.

I’ll never forget my face when I came home unexpectedly. Little imitation things were spread out on the floor. I had an idea that would have made everything all right.

Supposing something bad happened and I...