Photo source: Tripomatic.com
I remember sitting, butterflies in my stomach, waiting to go and fight a cause on a local BBC radio station, early one Sunday morning just as the day was dawning.
There was barely another soul in the large expansive BBC building, and I fell to talking with the only other person in reception.
He had not always been a doorman; not so long ago he had been an entertainer on the cruise ships. He was full of tales of the celebs he met. Stephen Fry – what a gentleman, he said.
And as he talked the butterflies subsided and I thought to myself, do you know, young man, you are really rather a good doorman.
He puts the terrified masses at their ease as they come through that door rehearsing their lines. His life is an interesting one, by all accounts , and it does do to lose yourself in someone else’s existence when you’re about to confront a senior member of the clergy on live radio.
The doorman, or indeed doorwoman, is someone to be cultivated.
I have no idea if we met a doorman at Westminster. It was their Open House event, October before last I think, and we were ushered in through considerable, if jovial, security, into the great old hall and onwards to the chambers.
But I would hazard that even prime ministers cultivate their relationship with doormen. For who has greater nerves to calm than a PM?
I have cast iron proof that Benjamin Disraeli talked to doormen.
It comes from the conjecture about the last lines of an English Prime Minister.
William Pitt the Younger: political giant, the man who led England against Napoleon, and conversely introduced Income Tax. He kept England from going off its rocker during the French Revolution, though his patience was sorely tried.
His tenure was long and distinguished: he was the youngest ever Prime Minister, taking over at 24, and was still in the post – with only one break -when he died in 1806.
His deathbed conversation is a source of wildly conflicting stories, according to John Ehrman, who talks about it in his book The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle,published in 1996.
Ehrman’s favourite is recorded by James Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield. The great prime minister’s words were said to be:” Oh, my country! How I leave my country!”
Some, Ehrman says, misread Pitt’s words when they were written down, and quoted him as saying “Oh, my country; how I love my country!” which does seem a little sentimental for an Englishman.
And then there’s George Canning’s take on the last words.He knew they were true because he heard them from the Bishop of Lincoln who was a friend of Pitt. And the bishop takes the poetry out of the situation. “I am sorry to leave the country in such a situation,” he records Pitt as saying apologetically.
But the last word goes to a doorman at the house of Westminster. Benjamin Disraeli claims his authority as the doorman himself, to whom he got chatting one day, as you do. The last words, as quoted by Pitt’s illustrious successor, Disraeli?
“I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s pork pies.”
You have the different versions of history. You are well equipped; and now, who to believe; Chesterfield, the goodly bishop – or the Westminster doorman?
Kate Shrewsday 
Wow Kate, you picked a great picture for your post today. Of course you needed a great picture to go along with a great post :-). I have to admit, I had to also google pictures of pork pies and now I am hungry :-).
Doorman- if only for entertainment value 🙂
Not exactly his last words but, on his deathbed, Disraeli was asked if he’d like the Queen to visit him and he is said to have replied, ‘No thank you. She might ask me to take a message to Albert.’ 🙂
The doorman at Rigby and Peller is definitely not in the same ilk as the one you met at the BBC. Disraeli is credited so many quotes. This is my current favourite: Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life. Nothing to do with your post, but I thought of it this morning when I read another blog.
A man is standing on top of the safety wall at the edge of a New York Skyscaper leaning towards certain death. The doorman of the building goes up to try and talk him down.
“Hey… guy…errm, you believe in God don’t you?”
The man leans back away from the edge, “yes, yes I do.”
“Well so do I!, let’s talk this thing …”
The man takes one mini-step away from the edge.
The Doorman asks, “So which religion, which church are you?”
“I’m a Christian”, he says, “Baptist.”
“That’s amazing, so am I!” said the doorman, “Which type of Baptist are you?”
“Northern Baptist”, said the man takling a good step back from the roof edge.
“AMAZING!, me too”, said the doorman, “Are you with the branch that sided with Pastor Corey?”
“YES! said the man.
“Die Dog!” said the doorman pushing him off the roof.
As for your question about who to believe . . . the postman rings twice, the doorman rings true. 😉
I fully expect to be thinking about savoring one last piece of chocolate while taking my dying breath.
The things doormen must hear. I read a book along this vein, Kate. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. It had a great use of doormen…… 😉
I’ll go with believing the doorman! I think he had less to “dress up” for posterity. One of my favorite giggles is “Carlton, the doorman” in the 1970s sit-com follow-up to Mary Tyler Moore, “Rhoda.” Forty years later it can still make me laugh. I think I’d have been a good door”person,” actually. A role not to be underestimated, methinks!
I loved Carlton, the doorman, too, Debra. Hadn’t thought about that faceless character in a long time.
I think I would also ask for some good pie while on my deathbed.
A doorman has nothing to lose by telling the truth.
You are a wonderful storyteller Kate!
The doorman is to believed over any politician! In fact, Pinocchio with nose on maximum extension or Baron von Munchhausen would be more reliable than any one of the latter.
I’m definitely going with the doorman.
I once wanted to be an elevator operator; one of the people who open and close the doors to the elevators in the Chicago skyskcrapers. Floor please? Stand back. Step forward.
Who can possibly question pork pies, Kate? But who was Bellamy? Are they still making them or was Bellamy Pitt’s cook?
Just like ThreeWellBeings, I’ll go with believing the doorman! I also loved “Carlton, the doorman”.
I think people like to re-invent the so called last words of famous people, purely to make them over at the end intio who they want the world to remember. After all having said their last words, the speaker cannit return to contradict them.