I'm All Right Jack (18 page)

The newspaper announced:

Cox telephoned.

“Stan, mate, you
got
to do it.”

“I’m on my way,” said Stanley.

W
HEN
S
TANLEY
arrived at the main gate of Missiles Limited, an unexpected difficulty arose. The gate was strongly picketed by members of the Amalgamated. A rival picket from the General stood nearby. Nobody was going to be allowed in.

As Stanley turned the bubble car towards the gate, the Amalgamated picket closed its ranks and would not be induced by hooting to give way. Its members waved him away with cries of disapproval, and all towered over the vehicle, peering in through the perspex roof. Above the noise of the engine, strong advice to be off came floating in to Stanley.

“Hop it. Get out of it. Scab. Creep.”

This last word came from Brenda’s friend, Baz, who appeared to be an active member of the picket.

“I say, Baz,” said Stanley, pushing some of his face through one of the little side windows, “call these chaps off, will you? I want to see the Personnel Manager. Very important.”

Cries of dissent arose from all sides.

“You ain’t going to work today, cock. Off you go, scabby.”

“But I don’t want to work——”

Derisive noises drowned the rest of this protest.

“Let’s see him off, boys!” cried Baz. “One, two.” And despite Stanley’s protests a number of them lifted the bubble car and turned it round facing the other way.

“But damn it——” cried Stanley as he bumped down to earth.

“Go on! On your way!”

The General picket did not come to the aid of one of their members. When they saw which member it was they made a rude noise or two but remained otherwise inert.

Stanley made a little circle to face the gates again, but they picked the car up again, upside down this time, and carted him to the corner of the street before putting it down again.

“Off you go, creep!”

There was nothing to do but retire. Stanley drove round the corner and waited sadly for Mr Hitchcock to come out, not daring to go away for fear of missing him. He sat there, getting steadily hungrier, until the middle of the afternoon when he saw the Personnel Manager’s car come out and go past. Tooting his horn, he set off in pursuit.

For some time, Mr Hitchcock did not respond. He could not see the bubble car in his driving mirror. Stanley finally came alongside him at some traffic lights and made it known that he wanted to speak.

Mr Hitchcock pulled up again beyond the lights and got out.

“Sir,” said Stanley, clambering out of his cockpit‚ “I must see you. I want to hand in my notice.”

“Oh do you,” said Mr Hitchcock. “Well, you’ve left it a bit bloody late. The whole industry’s at a standstill. It’s out of your hands now.”

“Oh.”

“What’s more,
I’
m
under notice because of all this. You see what you’ve done, Windrush? Playing silly-buggers. Quite frankly, Windrush, you’ve acted like a sheer Charlie.”

At Plantagenet House, the Coloured Conference was witnessing the liveliest hour of its unprofitable life.

In ringing tones, the Agyppian delegate, Mr Mahommed, was denouncing the aggression of Solomonia, whose troops that morning had begun a most efficacious invasion. Reports were confused, but seemed to suggest that the capital, Rak, was already in the invaders’ hands.

Bitterly, Mr Mahommed laid the blame for this
catastrophe
at the door of Great Britain, whose failure to
maintain
a balanced supply of arms in the area, he claimed, had led to the present disgrace.

“I accuse Britain of this swindle,” he cried. “It is old policy of divide and rule once more, with no thought for coloured peoples. Officials of the Foreign Office have not been able to conceal contempt, this is my personal
experience
here, and while we have been shown examples of Western know-how and so forth, the old game has gone on. Supply of arms for the defence of my country has been sabotaged by British Government using Communist agents to make strikes.

“And I accuse Emmanuel, representing Solomonia here, together with his Government, of unprovoked attack on peace-loving peoples. I call on all in the name of my government to condemn the action of Solomonia and support case of my country in United Nations.”

The Solomonian delegate rose to reply, pointing out that the Agyppians were far from peace-loving in their attitude to Solomonia.

“Large-scale arming in Agyppia has been well known to the world, as well as my own government,” he
maintained
. “Even the civilian population, including large
group well known as Sons of Sunshine, and sometimes as Mahommed’s Nature Boys, has been engaged for weeks in military drill. This was designed to wage war on neighbours, and not for peaceful uses. The Agyppian delegate cannot deny this.

“Nor can his Government deny the line-up of their troops along our frontiers, and tomorrow the world will be able to see their captured equipment, under guard of our troops, whose gallant and brilliant manœuvres today were able to forestall wicked aggressions planned by Agyppia.”

A note was handed to him while he spoke.

“In addition to this,” he continued, having read the note, “I must challenge the authority of Mr Mahommed to speak, however persuasively, on behalf of his
Government
. The information which just reaches me is that his Government is no longer in power.”

Mr Mahommed got up, and walked with his entourage out of the Conference.

Several speeches followed, some supporting one side and some the other, but all of them expressing the loss of their confidence in the power and the policies of Great Britain.

Mr Brimpton, the Minister of State, was missing this.

He sat in the House of Commons for Question Time, deputizing for the Foreign Secretary, who was in America. The success of the Coloured Conference was going to be a vital step in his ascent to a peerage, and he listened with bored impatience to the replies of the Minister of Works. Minister of Labour next. Poor old Eldritch; in for a tough time over these strikes. He looked in a languid fashion at his Order Paper:

‘Windrush?’ thought Mr Brimpton. ‘I seem to
remember
there was a chap at the Office …’

His thoughts were interrupted by an urgent call from behind the Speaker’s Chair.

Mr Brimpton dashed to Plantagenet House, but before he arrived the Coloured Conference had finally and irreparably broken down.

Stanley sent in his resignation by post. Nobody,
presumably
, was going to stop the postman getting in. There seemed to Stanley to be no real place for him in the
postwar
world. He had tried Government service and both sides of industry. One side would not have him, and he had let the other side down. There was still advertising, but he knew in his heart there was no crying need for him there. For a few seconds he allowed himself to entertain the idea of a monastery. His rejection by Cynthia must have put this into his mind, but the thought of all the other Toppers quickly put it out again. He certainly did not want to see nothing more of women. What was there for him?
School-mastering
? Charlie and Shower though Mr Hitchcock might call him, he was not as big a fool as that. There was nothing left.

He packed his few belongings in his grip, and parcelled up Kitey’s books, still unread. These he left with Mildred, asking her to post them, for he was recognized everywhere he went now, and he hated the thought of stares in the Post Office.

So, declaring to the great-aunts that he was going away, Stanley pointed the bubble car out of London.

“Well, Stanley,” said his father, “it’s nice to see you again. You look as if you could do with a bit of sun. What time do you aim to go back?”

“I don’t think I am, Father,” said Stanley. “Do you mind?”

“My dear boy, not a bit,” said his father. “I think you’re very sensible.”

They had a quiet meal together and watched the little world of Sunnyglades go by.

“You know,” said his father, “we’re starting a campaign
to stop all these houses encroaching on us. Disgraceful. There’s not much of Surrey left, you know.” 

“No, there isn’t.” 

“Trouble is, everyone’s very busy here, one way and another, and we haven’t been able to get anyone to be secretary of it. I don’t suppose you would?” 

“Well, yes. In a day or two.”

“Good. Ah, here comes the sun.”

Stanley did not have tremendous hopes of the success of the campaign, but he determined to do his best to keep the world away. He had found a lost cause to fight for, and felt at home. 

In a few days Mr Mahomrned joined the Sunnyglades community. He had asked for, and been granted, political asylum. His
£
20
,
000
cut on the rocket contract would last him comfortably much longer than the
£
2500
Stanley received by parcel post from a grateful Cox. 

The strike did end, two days later, and for a day or two Cox had been left with the rockets on his hands. Naturally, this did not last for long. Cox sold them to the Solomonians.

Kitey, who bitterly opposed a return to work in almost any circumstances, was overridden by the National
Execu
-
tive
of his union, depressed by the defection of Cynthia to the entertainment industly, and infuriated by the continued frivolousness of Mrs Kite. Bent on recovering his
self-esteem
, he drew out half his savings and left for a long recuperative holiday in the Soviet Union. 

Wallace Hardy-Freeman’s return to Bangkok was simply accelerated by the breakdown of the Coloured Conference, a breakdown which the
Daily Rapid
jubilantly reminded its readers it had always forecast. No more of this folly, it urged, and invited its readers to salute some Americans who had immigrated to Britain. 

Uncle Bertram, from what Stanley heard from time to time, seemed each time to be doing better and better.

The Solomonians, after a suitable stay to rub in their superiority, withdrew from Agyppia with their booty.

At a distance, it all looked very satisfactory. 

And Stanley kept his distance.

Alan Hackney (1924–2009) wrote over thirty screenplays and numerous television scripts, and wrote for
Punch
for many years. He was best known for the films that were based upon his two novels,
Private’s Progress
and
I’m All Right Jack
(first published as
Private Life
). The screenplay of
I’m All Right Jack
won him a Bafta award in 1959.