November the prince of months

By Ian Carnaby

The other day I was reflecting on the fact that there are only 13 days between Prince Charles, Mick Channon and me. It’s good to know that two of us are doing so well, though only one of us has realised his ambitions. That would be Mick, of course, because I quite wanted to play in goal for Southampton and Charles wanted to be king. Still, you can’t have everything and we’ve remained cheerful, although only one of us can go into wine bars, read sad little stories in the New Yorker and think about things in November’s fading light.

I don’t believe in astrology and have no superstitions, though I tend to murmur ‘one-nil!’ when something goes right early in the day. It can be anything, really. Most recently it was the discovery of some shaving foam, long forgotten, at the bottom of a Rupert Bear toilet bag. It hurts when you use soap on its own. ‘The shaving razor’s cold, and it stings’, as the Monkees sang. Daydream Believer is the most popular karaoke record because it has the narrowest range of notes, so most people can manage it all right.

I’m a Scorpio. A tail-end one, really, because I believe it’s something else after November 22 and I was born on the 20th. People read certain things about their star sign and persuade themselves the profile fits. Thus, I am a typical Scorpio, even though I don’t believe in any of it.

The only problem with November is that it comes and goes too quickly. You can go back and find it in films, of course. I always imagine that Don’t Look Now, set in Venice, takes place in November because some of the hotels and restaurants are closing for the winter. If it were December, the prep school the Baxters’ son attends would have broken up for Christmas, so the headmaster and his wife would not have rung Julie Christie about a minor accident and she would not have returned home on the next flight - saying goodbye to Donald Sutherland for the final time, as it turns out. I suppose one could turn to the Daphne du Maurier novella and prove once and for all that it’s November, but I am not prepared to do that because it might not be.

The Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup only just creeps into November this year. I have a soft spot for the race because I used to sell Hennessy in pubs and clubs around the Hounslow and Isleworth area. The strange thing with brandy, or cognac, is that you don’t hear it asked for so often these days. The other big firms, Courvoisier to a degree and Martell in a major way at Aintree, spent a lot of money on horserace sponsorship but things change in the boardroom, new marketing people come in and eventually the budget is employed in other ways.

That is what makes the Hennessy family special because their support has never wavered since the race first saw the light of day in 1957 and little Mandarin won for the first time, following up four years later, by which time the race had moved from Cheltenham to Newbury.

On the Friday of the Newbury meeting there used to be a press reception but one year, I suppose it must be at least a decade ago now, there was a lunch for all surviving owners, trainers and jockeys of the winners going back to 1957. I think only three were missing and the whole event was a credit to PR man Arthur Hopkins, who was a real old Fleet Street hand and would humour and cajole the great and the good (whatever that means) in the racing game during the week, then report football matches for the Sunday Mirror on Saturdays. Sadly, he is no longer with us.

I suppose my most poignant Hennessy was the 1982 race, won by Bregawn, because I was still working for BBC Radio and had presented the main programme, Sport On 2, the week before. Bregawn’s was a notable weight-carrying performance because he shouldered 11st 10lb, though things like that merely take you back to Arkle and the realisation that he twice scored under 12st 7lb - no longer possible under the altered conditions - scaring off most of the opposition even before he lined up.

I was either 16 or 17 when he won for the first time. Whichever it was, a lot of things still seemed possible. Do you know, even while I’ve been writing this, the Queen has made one of those oblique statements indicating that Charles’ time may well be at hand, which just goes to show that you should never give up. 1948 was a vintage year, we can all see that now, and November an extraordinary month. We’re all doing so well! I think I’ll go and have a mid-afternoon cognac in a quiet wine bar now.