Plumbing the depths with Jilly

I WAS interested to read Jilly Cooper's flattering opinions of Irishmen, as outlined in the recent Thursday Interview. In her view Irishmen are wonderful and funny and good-mannered and attractive. I was even more interested to hear her confess how she once got "slightly" drunk with a "heavenly" Irishman: "It was in his house... he was drying his hair and he came in with a pink bath towel. And it was the only time in my life I ever made a pass at a man, and he was very close to me.

I can't remember what happened...

Well, I can. I must say it is rather typical of Jilly to recall only that the bath towel was pink. In my recollection it was the gin which was pink. And I recall quite a lot more.

But perhaps I should start at the beginning.

I was a self-employed plumber in London at the time, living on my own in digs in Battersea. My landlady, Mrs Cumiskey, was a decent woman of the old school

I mean she took a strong personal interest in her lodgers, unlike the rather soul-less businesswomen who run lodging-houses these days.

Early one morning Mrs Cumiskey knocked at my door and informed me there was a Miss Cooper on the line. I walked to the end of the long dark corridor to take the call, taking no notice of

Mrs Cumiskey's rather quizzical air. Nor did it bother me in the least when I saw my landlady attempting to conceal her rather bulky figure in an alcove while listening to my phone conversation.

But Jilly's call did rather throw me. She came straight to the point: she had plumbing problems, I had been recommended to sort them out and she would be calling round within the hour. Then she hung up.

MRS CUMISKEY now innocently materialsed again, looking innocently material even more quizzical, so I told her straight out that Miss Jilly Cooper would be calling shortly "and bringing her plumbing problems with her.

This was the first and only time I ever saw Mrs Cumiskey surprised, but she was equal to the occasion. "Does she think you're a urinogenital surgeon or what?"

She then reminded me that no lady visitors were allowed after 11 o'clock. I had to remind her rather firmly that this did not mean 11 in the morning.

Jilly quickly arrived. Dressed as if for a ball, she swept past the stunned Mrs Cumiskey, shot into my room, arranged herself on my only chair and launched into a 20-minute monologue.

It turned out that Jilly's plumbing problems were not plbmbing problems as such: she was simply planning her first plumbing novel. Tired of being criticised for her high-society blockbusters set in glittering locations, she now wanted to write of the real world.

The next thing I knew, Jilly had pulled out a bottle of pink gin from her enormous hold-all, to celebrate "our collaboration".

OUR collaboration? Yes. Jilly wanted to be "my mate". I said I had lots of mates and she was welcome to join them, we usually met in the Pig and Whistle on Kilburn Road on Friday evenings. No, that wasn't what she meant: she wanted to be a plumber's mate. That was her sole ambition, she said, or at least her sole ambition that morning.

I tried to explain about apprenticeship, but Jilly had no time for that. She wanted to go "on tour" with me and visit "lots of interesting places and low dives". I explained that the colleagues I knew rarely went on tour, unless Battersea to Hackney counted, and the most interesting low dive from a plumber's point of view was beneath a kitchen sink.

I was quite unable to dampen her ardour. So we both had a little more pink gin. Jilly was full of odd remarks. When 1 mentioned adjustable wrenches she giggled to herself, scribbled in her enormous notebook and said something about adjustable wenches, which I didn't think was at all funny. She had already asked me if I didn't think "cisternly love" was rather a good pun. I'm afraid I didn't. But she had already decided to use it on the dust-jacket.

It was at this stage that Jilly began absentmindedly swinging an enormous spanner of mine.

When she accidentally sent it flying through my open bathroom door I saw instantly it was headed for the overhead water cistern. I rushed in only to catch the entire contents of the smashed cistern on my head.

Jilly now dashed in and began fussing over me, whipping off my soaked shirt: a large pink bath towel was then wordlessly handed to her by Mrs Cumiskey, who just happened to have been standing behind the door.

All in all it was quite a scene, and I know it will not have been lost on a creative artist like Jilly. When her Plunger Kelly arrives in the bookshops you will know where it all began.