Friday 28 December 2012

The Autobiography...

What ever the reason for the non-appearance of Reggie's autobiography under the imprint of the Obelisk press I can now reveal that it was indeed written. Whilst in Paris in 1934 Reggie discussed the book with a local journalist. The journalist described the book as 'widely seen but not published'! Perhaps a reference to a much handled manuscript curling at the edges and smelling of rejection letters?

In any case Reggie had an anecdote about his friendship with a very famous actress and one gets the feeling that the anecdote was one of the more presentable ones in the book.

There is always the (very) outside chance that a copy of Reggie's scurrilous remembrances are lying in a university archive somewhere but at the moment my guess is that when his rooms in Paris were cleared, these and any number of other signifiers of his life were tossed in the trash. 

Time will tell and I am sure that there are a few people out there who would love to see them.

Until then we have to content ourselves with the fictionalised Reggie as described by Roy Horniman in the Magnificent Bellamy and perhaps one day the account of the Maidenhead drag party as referred to by the Judge in the Billie Carleton trial.