Peter in 1946 at a
Christmastime ball at the Grosvenor House in London. The Parkin family
had been longtime friends of the Sellerses and Rays; it was Hilda’s much-older brother, Stanley, who owned the theater in Ilfracombe. “It was a big
thing to go to the Grosvenor House,” Hilda recalls. “One of the first times
we’d been able to go to a big ball for a long time. Peter was really my
nephew’s friend; my nephew was about my age. And when he told Peter
his aunt was coming I don’t think he was very pleased. Until we met. And
then we had great fun together.”
Hilda, who was living in Norfolk at the time, has kept to this day the
many letters Peter Sellers wrote to her during their three-year relationship.
“I’ve got 109 letters from Peter, with three proposals of marriage and threats
to commit suicide if I broke up with him. Some of the letters were sixteenpages long, and he’d already written one in the morning, and he was writing
one now, and he’d just posted one.”
From one letter: “Hilda, will you marry me next year? We will both
be 22.”
From another: “Dearest Hilda—If you ever took it in your mind to
pack me in, I’d go completely round the bend.”
Another describes the view from his parents’ flat on Finchley High
Road: “From the window, I can see the backs of rows of dreary looking
houses. An overcast sky looks down upon the tax- and cup-tortured England. When I get to the top I’ll get you a Rolls Royce! Throw in a few
butlers for luck.” (By “tax- and cup-tortured England,” Sellers is referring
to the fact that in the postwar years taxes were as high as food supplies were
low. He railed against Britain’s new Labor government in other letters, even
going so far as to blame Labor for the frigid winter.)
“He was a little fat boy, not that it meant anything,” Hilda notes. “I was
a trained dancer and acrobat, and I taught him to dance. Peter got on very
well with it. He was always kidding, impersonating. . . . We had a thousand
laughs. We made some records together, Peter and I [in novelty booths
where people could cut their own vinyl]. He used to impersonate me.”
He also enjoyed other impersonations: “Often, his letters would arrive
with photographs, and in one of them he was dressed up like his mother.”
This was not done behind Peg’s back. She took the picture. “In another he
was pretending to be his nonexistent sister.”
Toward the end of their relationship, Peter paid Hilda a visit in Norwich, where he’d taken the job of carnival barking at one of the Parkins’
amusement parks. He checked himself in at the best hotel in town—under
the creative name “Lord Beaconsfield”—and went pluckily off to visit his
girlfriend. In point of fact, however, the first and only Earl of Beaconsfield
was the nineteenth-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, with
whom Peter, fantastically, had begun to claim family ties.
Hilda: “My family was running this carnival, as you call it—it was an
amusement park—and Peter came up to see me. He came everywhere,
wherever I was, bless his heart. He said, ‘You must come over to the hotel.
I’ve booked in as Lord Beaconsfield.’ His mother said there was some back
relationship with Beaconsfield, but that line had died out many years ago.
There happened to be a lady in that hotel, and someone told her, ‘Oh, we
have Lord Beaconsfield.’ And she said, ‘There is no Lord Beaconsfield.’
“So they went and looked in his suitcase and found a pack of very cheap
cigarettes—Woodbines. Not the best cigarettes! And his pajamas were from
Marks and Spencers. When we got there, a couple of fellows came straight
up to him. One stayed with me, and one marched him off to the manager’s
office. He came out a little while later, red-faced, and we both just walked
off. I said, ‘I thought I was going to be arrested!’ ”
And what was Peter’s first response when confronted by the hotel manager? “When they
Christmastime ball at the Grosvenor House in London. The Parkin family
had been longtime friends of the Sellerses and Rays; it was Hilda’s much-older brother, Stanley, who owned the theater in Ilfracombe. “It was a big
thing to go to the Grosvenor House,” Hilda recalls. “One of the first times
we’d been able to go to a big ball for a long time. Peter was really my
nephew’s friend; my nephew was about my age. And when he told Peter
his aunt was coming I don’t think he was very pleased. Until we met. And
then we had great fun together.”
Hilda, who was living in Norfolk at the time, has kept to this day the
many letters Peter Sellers wrote to her during their three-year relationship.
“I’ve got 109 letters from Peter, with three proposals of marriage and threats
to commit suicide if I broke up with him. Some of the letters were sixteenpages long, and he’d already written one in the morning, and he was writing
one now, and he’d just posted one.”
From one letter: “Hilda, will you marry me next year? We will both
be 22.”
From another: “Dearest Hilda—If you ever took it in your mind to
pack me in, I’d go completely round the bend.”
Another describes the view from his parents’ flat on Finchley High
Road: “From the window, I can see the backs of rows of dreary looking
houses. An overcast sky looks down upon the tax- and cup-tortured England. When I get to the top I’ll get you a Rolls Royce! Throw in a few
butlers for luck.” (By “tax- and cup-tortured England,” Sellers is referring
to the fact that in the postwar years taxes were as high as food supplies were
low. He railed against Britain’s new Labor government in other letters, even
going so far as to blame Labor for the frigid winter.)
“He was a little fat boy, not that it meant anything,” Hilda notes. “I was
a trained dancer and acrobat, and I taught him to dance. Peter got on very
well with it. He was always kidding, impersonating. . . . We had a thousand
laughs. We made some records together, Peter and I [in novelty booths
where people could cut their own vinyl]. He used to impersonate me.”
He also enjoyed other impersonations: “Often, his letters would arrive
with photographs, and in one of them he was dressed up like his mother.”
This was not done behind Peg’s back. She took the picture. “In another he
was pretending to be his nonexistent sister.”
Toward the end of their relationship, Peter paid Hilda a visit in Norwich, where he’d taken the job of carnival barking at one of the Parkins’
amusement parks. He checked himself in at the best hotel in town—under
the creative name “Lord Beaconsfield”—and went pluckily off to visit his
girlfriend. In point of fact, however, the first and only Earl of Beaconsfield
was the nineteenth-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, with
whom Peter, fantastically, had begun to claim family ties.
Hilda: “My family was running this carnival, as you call it—it was an
amusement park—and Peter came up to see me. He came everywhere,
wherever I was, bless his heart. He said, ‘You must come over to the hotel.
I’ve booked in as Lord Beaconsfield.’ His mother said there was some back
relationship with Beaconsfield, but that line had died out many years ago.
There happened to be a lady in that hotel, and someone told her, ‘Oh, we
have Lord Beaconsfield.’ And she said, ‘There is no Lord Beaconsfield.’
“So they went and looked in his suitcase and found a pack of very cheap
cigarettes—Woodbines. Not the best cigarettes! And his pajamas were from
Marks and Spencers. When we got there, a couple of fellows came straight
up to him. One stayed with me, and one marched him off to the manager’s
office. He came out a little while later, red-faced, and we both just walked
off. I said, ‘I thought I was going to be arrested!’ ”
And what was Peter’s first response when confronted by the hotel manager? “When they
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