THIS is the blog that I hoped I never had to write.
My friend Rodney Dalton died this week.
He had stoically and successfully overcome two cancer diagnoses over the last two years but the ferocity with which it returned earlier this summer was too much.
I visited him in hospital just over two weeks ago knowing how ill he was and in the short time I was with him we talked about films, booze, boxing, football, Frank Sinatra, clothes, good restaurants and cigars – all the things that we enjoyed as friends.
I was even able to tell him a piece of gossip I’d picked up about a successful and prominent Yorkshire businessman who once punched an American tourist in a restaurant in London.
Rodney has been a huge figure in my life for over 20 years and, after my father, the man I have learned the most from and had the greatest respect for.
He was the man I asked to speak at my wedding in the absence of both my father and my wife’s father. (That’s us in the photo above sitting in a bar in Venice have a pre-nuptials libation.)
Undergoing treatment after his first cancer diagnosis, it was touch and go whether he and his wife Helen could make the wedding in Venice.
But he did and he gave a wonderful speech.
My only regret was that we didn’t capture it on video.
A couple of days before I was due to visit Rodney in hospital I mentioned this regret to a close of my wife Harriet who had been at the wedding.
She searched her phone and found a film of Rodney’s entire speech.
I was able to play it for Rodney and his son Henry when I visited him in hospital and sent it to his wife Helen and daughter Claudia.
As I left the hospital it hit me that that was the last time I was going to see my old friend.
But like the many people who knew Rodney – and there were several hundred at his funeral on Wednesday – we have so many stories that will sustain his memory in our minds and in our hearts.
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WHEN I introduced Rodney before his speech at our wedding last year, I told guests that he had a unique claim to fame: he’s the only person I have ever met who has had lunch in a three Michelin star restaurant and dinner in a three Michelin star restaurant…on the same day.
Rodney told guests that being asked to speak at the wedding of someone who has done as much public speaking as me was like being asked to sing in front of Frank Sinatra.
Which is of course rubbish, but I’ll keep repeating that line.
He went on to tell the audience: “I live in fear of being asked to make a speech, as a result of which I have enrolled at a Bank of speeches for every conceivable occasion and so when Harriet and David asked me to say a few words today, I went with great confidence to the Bank.
“The man in charge said that they have speeches for me for every conceivable occasion when I could be called on to speak – engagements, birthdays, bar mitzvahs.
“They even have one for when I win an Oscar and they have one for when I’m elected Pope.
“Indeed, every conceivable occasion. However when I asked for one for David Parkin’s wedding, he said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’”
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AS well as asking Rodney to speak at my wedding, I also entrusted him with writing my blog while I was away on holiday.
When I was business editor at the Yorkshire Post I published several articles by Rodders where he took the opportunity to have a pop at recruiters, fundraising balls and architects who didn’t wear ties.
He received a raft of lunch invitations from recruiters and architects keen to persuade him that they weren’t what he thought they were.
When he wrote this blog for a couple of weeks a few years ago the feedback was hugely positive.
One message said: “Well done to Rodney. A rant about lawyers, taking a celebrity chef to task and a name drop for the Dakota hotel – it’s as if you’re not away!”
An eminent property lawyer, once described by legal bible chambers as a “local legend”, he was a great speaker and writer.
Indeed he had earned himself a reputation as a wordsmith whose searingly incisive commentary covered all the critical issues of the day such as restaurant openings, bar openings and cocktail recipes.
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I FIRST met Rodney in my early days as business editor at the Yorkshire Post.
My deputy, Sheryl Moore told me she was going out for lunch with a leading legal figure in Leeds.
When she returned several hours later having clearly enjoyed the lunch a great deal, I politely enquired where she’d been.
“I’ve been out for lunch with Rodney Dalton,” she said before swearing at me and then slumping across her desk.
Now, rather than immediately referring this clear case of insubordination to the human resources department, my immediate reaction was to think that I needed to meet Rodney Dalton for lunch.
I subsequently achieved this aim and we dined at Brio in Leeds – Rodney counted all of Leeds’ best restaurants as clients – Gianni Bernardi’s Brio, Leodis and then The Foundry run by Phil Richardson and Shaun Davies, Steve Ridealgh’s Brasserie 44 and Robert Chamberlain’s Sous le Nez.
The lunch was long and hugely enjoyable and I concluded two things from it: Rodney Dalton was a guy I wanted to spend more time with and, if I was to retain my position as business editor at Yorkshire’s national newspaper, then I should go out for dinner with him in future rather than lunch.
It was at one of those dinners a couple of years later when I received a call from the night editor of the Yorkshire Post.
It had been announced that Yorkshire-born business colossus Lord Hanson had died.
I’d met the Huddersfield-born peer on several occasions including travelling to interview him at his home in Palm Springs, California.
I excused myself (Rodney completely understood and had his ever-present copy of The Times with him to read) and ran back to the newsroom where I wrote an obituary to be included in the next day’s edition.
I rejoined Rodney at Bibis in time for cheese and a digestif.
The night editor, who used to work at The Sun, later told me he’d got a call from David Yelland, a former editor of The Sun turned high ranking PR guru who knew Lord Hanson, saying that the Yorkshire Post obit was the best one he had read.
I was just happy that Rodney liked it.
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RODNEY and I shared a mutual appreciation of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr and so when I saw that a Rat Pack tribute show was opening in London I secured a couple of tickets as a thank you to Rodney for his regular generosity to me.
He said he would make other arrangements for our trip and bought first class rail tickets, took me to The Wolseley for brunch accompanied by Petit Chablis and then champagne in the West End.
We got to the theatre, enjoyed the the first half of the musical and then went to the bar at the interval where I asked Rodders what he would like to drink.
“What would Dean have drunk?” he replied before deciding we should definitely have a Jack Daniel’s.
At the funeral this week, Rodney’s son Henry mentioned his habit of falling asleep at social occasions.
When we returned to the stalls of the warm theatre after our drinks and the second half of the Rat Pack show started, I noticed Rodney drifting off.
He was soon fast asleep and started to snore.
Members of the audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats and I decided I had to take action and wake him up.
Before I had a chance there was a crash of drums and cymbals as the band launched into another big musical number.
Rodney sat up in his seat fully awake and started clicking his fingers in time to the music.
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WITH an easy charm and great interest in people, Rodney was comfortable in the company of royalty to rogues.
It was no coincidence that Mike Firth, founder of the Yorkshire International Business Convention, chose to introduce keynote speaker, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, to Rodney when the American statesman decided he’d like a pint of Yorkshire bitter in the bar after his speech.
When I ran a lunch to “celebrate” the 40th anniversary of Norman Hunter and Franny Lee’s infamous battle on the pitch, I chose to sit guest of honour Norman ‘Bites Yer Legs’ Hunter next to Rodney.
Rodney did a great job of priming Norman for his Q&A after lunch by asking him questions about his playing days and wanting to know which of the stories that have gone down in the Leeds United annals were true and which were apochryphal.
I later told Rodney he’d done a great job and it was a bit like in racing when they put a donkey in with a thoroughbred racehorse to calm it down before a big race.
I think Rodders thought he was the racehorse.
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AS you can imagine, there were lots of stories told when those who attended Rodney’s funeral in Harrogate gathered at Pannal Golf Club afterwards.
Leeds businessman Michael Michaelson, who used to greet Rodney with great gusto and reverence when he met him in Sous le Nez or the Dakota, said to me: “He was a great man. Convivial, engaging and always phenomenal company. Nobody loved a cheeseboard like the great Rodney Dalton.”
Andreas Evans and his sister Stephanie attended the funeral representing the wider Evans family.
Their father Michael, who sadly passed away last year at his home in Monaco, was a great friend of Rodney.
Andreas has a wealth of great stories involving Rodney.
“A true Lunchtime Legend, a Gold Medal bon vivant, a huge character with a very wide circle of loving friends and family has passed and with his passing our world has become just a little bit dimmer. So very sad, but I am thankful to have know him at all and to have shared so many fun times.
“Once, Rodney, his wife Helen, my wife Vanessa and I visited La Grillade (the former French brasserie that became a Leeds institution) to see if we could ‘eat dinner backwards’, that is to say start with desert and finish with starters (don’t ask why, we just thought it would be fun) so under the pretence of having been to the theatre, we asked for a brandy, then said we were a little peckish, any chance of some cheese, then we fancied something sweet so had a desert to share, then we said we really fancied something a bit more substantial and ordered mains…at that point, the kitchen door opened and half the kitchen crew were peering out to see which bunch of idiots were in the restaurant and finally the owner, Guy Martin-Laval, worked out what we were doing and came over and joined us for the starter and appetizers…such fun!”
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RODNEY once told me that he was heading off to Lords early the following morning to attend the first day of England’s Test Match against Pakistan as a guest of Colin Graves, the founder of convenience store chain Costcutter who was then the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
Rodney, who already knew his way around the home of cricket as a member of the MCC, was unsure who the other guests might be in the box but was looking forward to the experience.
He later texted me: “I have just arrived in the box and seen the guest list. I may not be the best known person here. There is a chap called Mick Jagger on the list.”
Later on in the day another text was received from Rodders: “Sir Mick has arrived. We had a long chat about sex, booze and a rock n’ roll life and I asked him what he had been doing.”
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WHEN Rodney’s law firm hosted a table at a charity ball some years ago they invited several key clients and their partners.
One of the guest’s wives was foreign and had quite an unusual name that Rodney quickly concluded he was going to find very difficult to pronounce.
After several attempts to master the pronunciation of the name he decided his safest bet was to approach the lady in question at the drinks reception before the ball and apologise and admit he was struggling to say her name correctly.
On the evening of the ball he walked up to the lady with the difficult name and said:
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to pronounce your name, can you please tell me the correct way?”
She looked at him coolly and then replied: “It’s Sue.”
Rodney touched his moustache, smiled and said: “Thank you, I think I’ll be able to master that,” before excusing himself and going looking for the lady with the difficult name.
Have a great weekend and please do feel free to share your tributes, memories and stories of Rodney in the comments section below.