John Cleese blev engang i et interview spurgt, hvorfra han dog fik sine ideer. Da jeg ikke kan lokalisere interviewet lige nu, må jeg nøjes med at citere hans svar efter min stadig mere mangelfulde hukommelse:
I get them from my mother. And she gets them from a little man in Swindon. But where HE gets them I have absolutely no idea.
Jeg formoder Cleese svarede på denne måde for på humoristisk vis at udstille det klicheagtige i spørgsmålet, og så brugte han nok Swindon, fordi den by er gået hen og blevet en go-to reference for jokes. (Jeg har set Muncie, Indiana, brugt på lignende måde i amerikansk regi).
Så meget desto mere pudsigt, at Swindon , som tæller ca 233000 sjæle, og omegn faktisk har fostret en ganske anseelig mængde kendte og kreative personer. En af dem er filmstjernen Diana Dors, som en af mine all-time favoritanekdoter handler om. Jeg citerer den her fra min hårdtprøvede Cassell Dictionary of Anecdotes af Nigel Rees:
The film actress Diana Dors was born – and this will come as a mighty revelation to all those who don’t know it – Diana Fluck. Her father was the railway station master, or some such, in a tiny Somerset village. Anyway, when fame and fortune descended upon her in the 1950s, the well-known start was invited back to open the village fete.
The vicar – who had to introduced her – was very conscious of the fact that he would have to mention the name by which she was still known to all in the village, and how serious it would be if by any chance he mispronounced ‘Fluck’.
He worried about it, right up to the moment when he had to speak. He concluded his introduction with the words: ‘And now here she is, the woman the whole world knows as “Diana Dors”, but whom we will always remember as our own Diana Clunt …’
Denne prægtige anekdote kan Rees ikke give en mere præcis kildeangivelse af end at notere “A tale first heard by me in the late 1960s I should think”. Men for nogle år siden stødte jeg i Richard Dawkins’s selvbiografi An Appetite for Wonder på en oplysning, der måske kaster lidt mere lys over sagen. Dawkins skriver om Desmond Morris (som jeg tidligere har skrevet om her) og karakteriserer ham som “a biologist, television personality, anthropological collector, (implausible) raconteur and best-selling author” hvorefter han i en fodnote tilføjer:
I suspect him of being the original source of a widely circulated anecdote about the film star Diana Dors. She and he came from the same Wiltshire town and were childhood friends. Her real surname was not Dors but Fluck. She was invited back to open some fête or other, and the vicar, thinking to introduce her by the name the locals would have known, genially asked them to welcome the lovely ‘Diana … Clunt’.
Også på popmusikfronten er Swindon godt repræsenteret med bl.a. Supertramps Rick Davies og The Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward. For slet ikke at tale om det skammeligt undervurderede band XTC, hvis forsanger og primære sangskriver Andy Partridge er en af mine store helte. XTC is as good as it gets. OK, The Beatles er ikke til at komme uden om men kun Partridge kunne finde på en linje som “Then she appeared, as the giggling crew of Mary Celeste”.
Nej, små mænd (M/K) i Swindon skal man ikke kimse af. Ikke at jeg kunne finde på at kimse af nogen som helst. Nu jeg tænker over det, er det faktisk aldrig rigtig gået op for mig hvordan man kimser.