Fred Sunset

One of the few pleasures of going to Los Angeles was meeting up with my old buddy, Mr Fred Astaire. When we both met we had both been taken with each other’s St Louis Blues (shoes). Of course, Mr Astaire had always been my hero. It turned out that Fred and myself both had our shoes made by that genius, George Cleverley.

Fred (I always called him Mr A) was the kindest and most generous man. One weekend, although I’m a snooker man, I spent playing pool with him in his games room. Knowing my love of photography and old films, he gifted me pile of old black & white photographs of himself. This picture is taken from one of his films where he is dancing with a good few people. I cleaned every thing off, leaving Mr A of course, and repainted.

Incidentally, while playing pool the telephone rang. Mr A apologised, and left the room to answer it in a nearby study. He returned 10 minutes later and apologised again for leaving me alone, and then remembered something. “Oh, Irving Berlin sends his best regards”. My old mum would have been so pleased.