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Talk into Thursday with Simon A over the question of lifestyles and the way money isolates you from people. Simon quotes the case of a house in Mill Hill which he went to at the weekend, where there is opulence on a scale which stunned even Simon. It’s the home of a man who just does deals. He benefits no-one but himself, is surrounded by non-friends and basks unhappily in wealth that could rehouse half Camden’s waiting list in a week.

Contrast with Clive Hollick, Simon’s City friend1 – head of Vavasseur and Shepperton Studios, etc, and a committed socialist who feels the City is hopelessly corrupt, but is trying to change it from within. He won’t take any more than his £15,000 salary and refuses all expense account perks. A man to watch.

Monday, July 26th

Letter from Esquire (Lee Eisenberg) to say they like the article,2 will print it almost uncut and have offered me $1,500 payment! Which, given the present dilapidated state of sterling, is nearly £800.

Jill rings, hardly able to contain her excitement. They want me for two days, to advertise Mattessons’ sausages, and will pay £10,000 and may go higher! Jill is obviously keen for me to accept (it will mean £1,000 to her, after all), but I can’t – and in a sense the enormity of the money offered (almost double my entire writing fee for thirteen Ripping Yarns!) makes my refusal easier. Jill clearly thinks I’m bonkers, but we decide to elbow any further commercial offers – and there have been a spate of them in the last few months – until March next year.

Filming on Jabberwocky began this morning at Shepperton, but I’m not required until Wednesday and have no words until Friday.

Wednesday, July 28th

A leisurely start to Jabberwocky. I’m not called until 10.30. No cars available on this picture, so I drive over to Shepperton myself to see how long it takes. Miss the turning off the M3 and career on for a further twelve miles before I can turn and roar back again. At the gates of Shepperton a uniformed gateman has no idea where Jabberwocky is being shot and directs me to a back lot where there is nobody to be seen. So my carefully nurtured calm is ruffled a little.

Eventually sniff out the studio where they’re filming the crumbling court of King Bruno. The entire set is thick with dust and debris. The normally searingly bright studio lights are veiled with black drapes, giving the set a dim, sepulchral, twilight appearance. Pigeons cluck at the top of the throne, rubble is dropped during the takes, whenever John Bird as the Herald bangs his staff.

In the middle of this murk, little figures, dwarfed by the height of the set, move around. Two cameras are in use. TG looks thin, but excited. He directs softly, padding around the camera, letting the First Assistant do all the shouting. They’re a half-day behind already and the producers are looking around with fixed grins. Terry agrees it’s like the first week of the Grail – an immediate artistic/economic gap.

Max looks wonderful as a little, wizened king. He’s taken his teeth out and hasn’t shaved. He is the personification of death warmed up. John Le Mes in his severe black skull cap looks more sinister than I’ve ever seen him. It’s a magnificent fusion of imaginative costumes (Hazel and Charles), imaginative sets (Roy Smith), and imaginative make-up (Maggie).

Terry says that Milly Burns and Bill Harman have done a jackdaw job all over Shepperton, pinching bits of other sets. They’ve just finished a German co-production of Mozart’s Figaro, from which quite a few props/sets will recur in Jabberwockyl

I wait until 3.30 to play a short and rough scene with Bernard Bresslaw and Bryan Pringle. TG says it looked terrifying. We do an impromptu fight – none of us knowing quite what’s going on – but there’s a rush to get Bernard B off to Bournemouth, where he’s doing a summer show on the pier.

Friday, July 30th

Up at seven. The first taste of the real joys of filming. As Eric puts it in his letter from France which arrived today … ‘Up early to be carried around by talkative drivers to wrong locations in time