It was a bitterly cold wintry day and I was meeting a couple of former colleagues for Xmas lunch. We’d arranged to meet at the German Market in St Ann’s Square Manchester and Charlie was a longtime friend of one of my colleagues. Two things immediately stood out about Charlie. First of all, he had quite a posh southern accent and he wore a cravat, which together give him an air of being from a different era. He was extremely easy to chat with and I took to him immediately.
After the Xmas event, lunches begin to happen more frequently, and I discovered that Charlie was a wonderful lunchtime companion. He was an accomplished painter, and his individually painted Xmas cards were always a delight to receive. His casual comment regarding a shop in London which was ‘where I always get my ochre!’ completed that Bohemian aura.
Charlie‘s other great passion was wine, which he sold as what would be called today a side hustle, which ‘enables me to drink better wine’ as he put it. Every year he would make a trip to France to bring back champagne, which I began to buy from him regularly, as it was both reasonably priced and extremely good. On one occasion, when Charlie came to my house for lunch we were celebrating his return to his favourite libration after having been quite poorly for some time. To underline the special nature of this event, he brought a bottle of vintage champagne from the same vineyard, which he carried in an insulated champagne carrier, the like of which I’ve never seen before. I have to say that that champagne was exquisite! At the same time, despite his considerable knowledge of wine, Charlie was not a wine snob in any sense. He once said that the only description any wine really needed was that ‘it tastes good and gets you pissed’ and I do find that difficult to contradict.
I went to visit Charlie for lunch one day and his house was, I can only describe as delightful – it could have been specified by a set designer working on a Bohemian drama. The front room was packed with items from his two passions – cases of wine, as well as several easels, tubes of oils and acrylics and a variety of artist tools and materials. The next room was lined with bookcases and much of the floor space was taken up with framed pictures, leaning against even more books. From between a couple of the frames, Charlie pulled out a small print and casually said, ‘This is my Magritte!’ Over lunch he told me that one day many years ago, he got a call from his mother who had a small shop selling artists’ materials, saying she had a painting that he should see. He walked into her kitchen to see propped up on the stove an original Picasso! A builder had brought it in as he thought ‘It might be worth a bob or two.’ I transpired that it was part of a major theft, which had been hidden in an old building. The thieves have been caught and convicted and sometime later this haul was discovered by this demolition crew!
Charlie was full of interesting surprises, none said for self aggrandisement, just parts of his life. Charlie once told me that when he was at college, ‘ol’ Penrose was always dropping in!’ that would be Sir Roland Penrose, artist, historian, and husband of legendary photographer Lee Miller – the one who was photographed in Hitler’s bath on the day of his suicide!
Charlie for me fulfilled both my criteria for good friendship and conversation. He was interesting – very interesting and always interested. I loved talking to him and though I didn’t know him very well, I felt a great warmth for him and from him and I miss him a lot.
rowlandwithaw 