HORATIO BOTTOMLEY’S PENSION

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18950, 20 May 1933, Page 12 (Supplement)

HORATIO BOTTOMLEY’S PENSION

In the London Dally Mall Margaret Lane writes: —

Mr Horatio Bottomley in.a days’ time will be an Old Age Pensioner. Ten shillings a week from the State. “Not enough to live on," 'he says, “and you, of 'course, may not see the necessity for my living at all. But Ican think of one or two reasons why 1 should like to live a couple of years longer.’’ Mr Bottomley is 73. He Is living at present with friends in a Bloomsbury square, and has no Immediate plans for the future. Prolonged Illness has left him a little frail and deaf. “ But my memory,’’ he will tell you pointedly, “Is still very good indeed." He has little-to say about this matter of the pension. “ I can’t talk about 11," he said. “ I haven’t even got It yet. And I can’t tell you about any future plans at present because 1 haven’t made any.

“ But I can’t really believe" —he smiled wryly—“that Mr H. B. is going to end like this."

Tho Spoon Lay Idle,

He was sitting at a little table, wrapped In a warm dressing-gown fastened across the throat with a safety pin. His hair, long and white, lay over the collar of It. “ You don’t mind, do you," he said, “If I finish my pudding while we talk? I don’t eat very much, you know, but I’m fond of cold plum pudding.” He nte It slowly, and once he had begun to talk forgot it, and the spoon lay Idle In his fingers.

“ I’m not asking for sympathy,” he •aid. "All the same, I've been inundated —Inundated —with kind letters from hundreds of people. You know (or perhaps you don’t know, you’re too voung to remember before the war)", 1 had the biggest following of any man in England, and they haven’t forgotten me. “ They write to me all the time, especially the people in Hackney—the constituency I represented in Parliament a good many years ago. They write and te’l me about their children. and about what's wrong with the mangle. ...” He paused and then sighed and picked up his spoon again.

An Extraordinary Life

“ i wouldn’t like this to be the end of me," he said, “though I’ve had an extraordinary life. I could have got

Ten Shillings a Week from the State. “Not Enough to Live On.” His Champagne Days Recalled,

anywhere—been anything—if I hadn’t made a fool of myself. “But as to that," he added 'confidentially, "If you knew all I know about certain matters, you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen sitting talking to me." He put on a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez and looked for a moment almost like the Bottomley of ten years ago. “ I’ve been a great personality,' he said simply, “and that'is what the people like. Colour, something that stirs their Imagination. A great personality doesn’t have to be as pure, as drvien snow for the public to love him. That’s what I was, a great personality. . . ." The Old Assurance. He took off his glasses and brooded. Suddenly he apologised for his “dirty, unshaven condition." “ I’m not well, he said. But his old assurance had not entirely deserted him. 44 1 promise you,” h.e said, “that if a great meeting were advertised at the Albert Hall this week, to discuss—oh, anvthing—'the present silly disarmament situation, for instance, and the speakers were to be Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald, Baldwin . . . and Mr Bottomley ... 1 dare promise you I’d get the most enthusiastic reception and the greatest applause. “ That’s an Impudent thing to have said, my dear, but I believe It, and when I can still believe In my following to that extent, it’s a rather wonderful thing.”

His mind went back to the war days. “They used to call John Bull the ‘soldier’s bible,’ you know,” he said seriously. “Do you remember me in those days? I really did wonderful work. “ Kitchener said 'to me himself several times, that I alone had made his Army. 1 Nine out of ten in Kitchener s Army are Bottomley’s men,' he said. Those were his very words.

Just A Name. “ Yes . . ~" he said, his voice dropping rather oddly. “ I've sent thousands of them to their graves." His confidence seemed suddenly to have deserted him. “So much has happened sln'ce," he said, and was isilent. After a pause: “I’ve been doing a little work in cinemas." he said without bitterness, “giving little talks on my career . . . but I doubt If I'm more than a name to the younger generation. They didn’t know what I was talking about." This little, blue-eyed, old man, suiting staring with the pudding plate in front of him, whisps of white hair trailing on his collar, a largo safety pin fastening his thick gown under his shrunken chin . . . was this the powerful Mr. Bottomley one remembers from childhood? The man who wore such massive fur collars and always talked about patriotism, and was reputed to throw away thousands in gifts and gambling, and always pressed champagne even upon the hairdresser who shaved him? Mr Bottomley, twice a millionaire, who (some said) might one day be Prime Minister? Btlll My Frlonds. “ I don’t want it to end like this," he said. “ I don’t, In many ways. I've been several kinds of a fool, but I might not have come off so badly If I hadn’t been so loyal to my friends. That’s one of my few—very few — principles and virtues . . . loyalty to my friends. “And the public," he said carefully, “are still my friends, I think. ‘Whatever his lapses,’ they say, ‘Mr Bottomley did a lot of good in his time.’ ” This reflection seemed to comfort him. He changed the subject abruptly, and shuffling through the papers lying beside his plate began to talk shrewdly of other things.