‘It is wrong direction from Coventry,’ Jacques warned him, ‘and in any case they sure to offer you my job at the Savoy.’
‘I’d better come along. Otherwise those Frogs will never get a decent meal.’
‘Those Frogs,’ said Jacques, ‘will always know when it’s my day off.’
‘Yes, and book in even greater numbers,’ suggested Mark, laughing.
It was not to be long before Parisians were flocking to the George Cinq, not to rest their weary heads but to relish the cooking of the two-chef team.
When Jacques celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday the great hotel did not have to look far to appoint his successor.
‘The first Englishman ever to be maître chef de cuisine at the George Cinq,’ said Jacques, raising a glass of champagne at his farewell banquet. ‘Who would believe it? Of course, you will have to change your name to Marc to hold down such a position.’
‘Neither will ever happen,’ said Mark.
‘Oh yes it will, because I ’ave recommended you.’
‘Then I shall turn it down.’
‘Going to put cars on wheels, peut-être?’ asked Jacques mockingly.
‘No, but I have found a little site on the Left Bank. With my savings alone I can’t quite afford the lease, but with your help...’
Chez Jacques opened on the rue du Plaisir on the Left Bank on May 1, 1982, and it was not long before those customers who had taken the George Cinq for granted transferred their allegiance.
Mark’s reputation spread as the two chefs pioneered ‘nouvelle cuisine,’ and soon the only way anyone could be guaranteed a table at the restaurant in under three weeks was to be a film star or a Cabinet Minister.
The day Michelin gave Chez Jacques their third star Mark, with Jacques’s blessing, decided to open a second restaurant. The press and customers then quarreled amongst themselves as to which was the finer establishment. The booking sheets showed clearly the public felt there was nothing to pick between them.
When in October 1986 Jacques died, at the age of seventy-one, the restaurant critics wrote confidently that standards were bound to fall. A year later the same journalists had to admit that one of the five great chefs of France had come from a town in the British Midlands they could not even pronounce.
Jacques’s death only made Mark yearn for his homeland, and when he read in the Daily Telegraph of a new development to be built in Covent Garden he called the site agent to ask for more details.
Mark’s third restaurant was opened in the heart of London on February 11, 1987.
Over the years Mark Hapgood had often traveled back to Coventry to see his parents. His father had retired long since but Mark was still unable to persuade either parent to take the trip to Paris and sample his culinary efforts. But now he had opened in the country’s capital he hoped to tempt them.
‘We don’t need to go up to London,’ said his mother, laying the table. ‘You always cook for us whenever you come home, and we read of your successes in the papers. In any case, your father isn’t so good on his legs nowadays.’
‘What do you call this, son?’ his father asked a few minutes later as noisette of lamb surrounded by baby carrots was placed in front of him.
‘Nouvelle cuisine.’
‘And people pay good money for it?’
Mark laughed and the following day prepared his father’s favorite, Lancashire hot-pot.
‘Now that’s a real meal,’ said Arthur after his third helping. ‘And I’ll tell you something for nothing, lad. You cook it almost as well as your mother.’
A year later Michelin announced the restaurants through-out the world had been awarded their coveted third star. The Times let its readers know on its front page that Chez Jacques was the first English restaurant ever to be so honored.
To celebrate the award Mark’s parents finally agreed to make the journey down to London, though not until Mark had sent a telegram saying he was reconsidering the job at British Leyland. He sent a car to fetch his parents and had them installed in a suite at the Savoy. That evening he reserved the most popular table at Chez Jacques in their name.
Vegetable soup followed by steak and kidney pie with a plate of bread and butter pudding to end on were not the table d’hôte that night, but they were served for the special guests on Table 17.
Under the influence of the finest wine, Arthur was soon chatting happily to anyone who would listen and couldn’t resist reminding the head waiter that it was his son who owned the restaurant.
‘Don’t be silly, Arthur,’ said his wife. ‘He already knows that.’
‘Nice couple, your parents,’ the head waiter confided to his boss after he had served them with their coffee and supplied Arthur with a cigar. ‘What did your old man do before he retired? Banker, lawyer, schoolmaster?’
‘Oh no, nothing so grand,’ said Mark quietly. ‘He spent the whole of his working life putting wheels on cars.’
‘But why would he waste his time doing that?’ asked the waiter incredulously.
‘Because he wasn’t lucky enough to have a father like mine,’ Mark replied.
Not the Real Thing
Gerald Haskins and Walter Ramsbottom had been eating cornflakes for over a year.
‘I’ll swap you my MC and DSO for your VC,’ said Walter, on the way to school one morning.
‘Never,’ said Gerald. ‘In any case, it takes ten packet tops to get a VC and you only need two for an MC or a DSO.’
Gerald went on collecting packet tops until he had every medal displayed on the back of the packet.
Walter never got the VC.
Angela Bradbury thought they were both silly.
‘They’re only replicas,’ she continually reminded them, ‘not the real thing, and I am only interested in the real thing,’ she told them rather haughtily.
Neither Gerald nor Walter cared for Angela’s opinion at the time, both boys still being more interested in medals than the views of the opposite sex.
Kellogg’s offer of free medals ended on January 1, 1950, just at the time when Gerald had managed to complete the set.
Walter gave up eating cornflakes.
Children of the Fifties were then given the opportunity to discover the world of Meccano. Meccano demanded eating even more cornflakes, and within a year Gerald had collected a large enough set to build bridges, pontoons, cranes and even an office block.
Gerald’s family nobly went on munching cornflakes, but when he told them he wanted to build a whole town — Kellogg’s positively final offer — it took nearly all his friends in the fifth form at Hull Grammar School to assist him in consuming enough breakfast cereal to complete his ambition.
Walter Ramsbottom refused to be of assistance.
Angela Bradbury’s help was never sought.
All three continued on their separate ways.
Two years later when Gerald Haskins won a place at Durham University, no one was surprised that he chose to read engineering and listed as his main hobby collecting medals.
Walter Ramsbottom joined his father in the family jewelry business and started courting Angela Bradbury.
It was during the spring holiday in Gerald’s second year at Durham that he came across Walter and Angela again. They were sitting in the same row at a Bach quintet concert in Hull Town Hall. Walter told him in the interval that they had just become engaged but had not yet settled on a date for the wedding.