LITMIR.BIZ

       Marchmont Street

      ‘Two rooms, kitchen and a bathroom. The walls were white, there were no pictures, he had a bookcase with all his books, a record player and a Roberts radio which would always sit on the floor next to his Parker Knoll chair’

      Paul Richardson

      In his later years, the home life of Kenneth Williams became the subject of some discussion and even wonderment, at least within the acting profession. Everyone in the business seemed to know, though few at first hand, that he lived on a small scale, in a barely furnished ambience that offered very little to a visitor and not much more to the occupant himself. Derek Nimmo, for example, never visited Kenneth’s flat, yet he had worked up in his mind an elaborate image to account for what he knew to be the monastic rigour prevailing there.

      Derek Nimmo: ‘Stanley Baxter made him put some pictures up once, but I think he took them down again quite soon. I remember once in the Escorial in Spain I went to Philip of Spain’s cell, and I use the word advisedly because it was a bedroom really, but just beside this great baroque altar. And Philip of Spain had a little window which he could open and see this extraordinary opulent, rococo-baroque world outside the great high altar. But he lived in a kind of white, spartan room. And I think that was Kenny’s way. He liked to look out on this extraordinary world he’d created or would observe, but he didn’t want to be part of it, he went back to his little whitewashed cell.’

      Paul Richardson: ‘Two rooms, kitchen and a bathroom. The walls were white, there were no pictures, he had a bookcase with all his books, a record player and a Roberts radio which would always sit on the floor next to his Parker Knoll chair. And that was it in the room. It was a galley kitchen, nothing in there. It’s true there was cellophane on the oven stove. All the cupboards were full of medicines, no food at all. In his bedroom was one single bed, with his desk – where he’d write all his diaries – and a small wardrobe, and that was it.’

      Yet Kenneth wasn’t quite alone in his little flat. There were times when he could have wished to be more solitary than he was, according to his older sister, Pat.

      Pat Williams: ‘He’d come up here sometimes, and he’d drink cup after cup of tea. “Oh put the kettle on again, make some more tea.” And he said, “You know what, Pat, honestly and truly, I can’t fart without she hears me.” I had to sit here and laugh. “It’s all very well for you to sit up here in your grandeur of Camden Town. I’m the star! I ought to be livin’ here, and you ought to be livin’ in that flat down in Osnaburgh Street, next to Mum. You’ll have a bash of her.” I said, “But she doesn’t want me, she only wants you.” “Yes, aren’t you lucky. You don’t care about me.” I said, “I do, Ken, I do, honestly I do.” “What are you laughing at then?” “Well, you make me laugh.” And I just couldn’t help laughing.’

      The presence of his mother, Louie Williams, across the landing offered him some kind of companionship, most of all in the evenings. But it must also have constantly refreshed his memories of a fretful inner-city childhood, not many streets away. There was an anger in those memories that couldn’t always be kept down. And it was shared by his sister, who gave her only extended interview to the BBC in 1994. Fragments of it were broadcast in a Radio 4 programme called I AmYour Actual Quality, part of the Radio Lives series, where listeners were quite startled by the basso growl of Pat Williams. She sounded at moments like one’s idea of the father she had so roundly detested.

      ‘Nobody got on with Charlie Williams. He was a real old-fashioned Victorian bully’

      Pat Williams: ‘Nobody got on with Charlie Williams. He was a real old-fashioned Victorian bully. You know the Charlie Chaplin walking stick? He had one of them. Canes. He used to hang it on the side of the mantelpiece. In the flat where we lived we had an old-fashioned range, you know, the fire one side and the oven the other. And as he came in for his meals he’d take the cane down from there and hook it on the side of the table, near where he sat. And we weren’t allowed to speak, and we were only allowed to eat whatever was on our plate. Weren’t allowed to move until it had all gone. Well, Ken loathed cabbage, spinach, sprouts, anything that was green he hated. And of course me, I’d eat anything, I was the dustbin of the four of us…And Dad used to have the sauce bottle, you know, the Daddie’s sauce. And he’d have his paper folded so that he could lean up and see what the day’s racing was, and he’d be so intent on watching his racing tips or working it out, I’d slide over the left, Ken would slide over to the right, and when I thought the old man wasn’t looking, as quick as you like I’d pop the fist out, grab a fistful of sprouts and eat it. And do you know, that old bugger used to see me every time. I got to think, well, he can see through paper. He wouldn’t say a word. Just pick up the cane, whish! And under the table he’d give me a whack across both legs. And I used to think, Ooh you rotten swine, one of these days I’ll get the better o’ you.’

      Pat Williams had the habit of relating a particular incident and making it sound like a regular occurrence. It was just her way of narrating things. But from what she said, you do get the sense that these individual scenes could indeed have stood for many more of the same type. How many times, for example, did Charlie Williams favour his son like this, in hopes of making a conventional man’s man of him?

      Pat Williams: ‘And Dad would come home with his present, you see. “Present for you, son, ‘ere yar, mate.” “Ooh good. Where’s mine?” “You ain’t got no present. It’s for the boy.” And Ken would open this parcel, see a pair of boxing gloves. And he’d hold ’em out in each hand. “What am I supposed to do with these?” “Put ‘em on yer bleedin’ fists and have a fight! Get in and fight yer own battles. Don’t rely on yer sister.” “No, thank you.” And he’d just drop them in father’s lap and walk out the room. And the old man would go mad.’

      Other vignettes seem to have exactly the same flavour, without the pugilistic props.