Nick Mason had a talent for writing satirical verse that was up there with PG Wodehouse, Noël Coward and, at times, even WS Gilbert.
Nick and I were fortunate enough to work on the Sunday Times Magazine during the editorship of Godfrey Smith, an immensely stout and jovial man who was like a cross between Friar Tuck and Dickens’s Ghost of Christmas Present. Godfrey called his staff his “young rips” – irrespective of gender - and filled our day and nights with lunches, champagne parties and treats.
The apogee of Godfrey’s golden age was taking all us young rips to Yugoslavia in 1971 to compile a feature to be called A Day in the Life of Sarejevo. This at a time when nothing much had happened in Sarajevo since that unfortunate business with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.
As it turned out, not a word of A Day in the Life of Sarajevo ever appeared in the magazine. Its only written record was a 400-line poem by Nick and myself for private circulation around the office, sparing no drunken or gluttonous detail of our visit. Nick worried over Godfrey’s reaction – years later we discovered he had learned almost the whole thing by heart.
Every Christmas since 1968, Nick had written me a set of verses, usually a ribald commentary on my current book project. In December, only four days before his shockingly sudden death, his card with the traditional poem tucked inside arrived as usual. This time his target was the Chelsea Arts Club, the venue for our occasional magazine reunions. I phoned him at once to say it was one of his best for years. I’m so thankful we had that chance to talk.
