“Some people think I’m a complete arsehole, I don’t mind that now. Once upon a time I did. That moment of change from caring what people think of you to not caring is, for me, the defining moment of the ‘growing-up’ process. With me it was also the realisation, during my various incarcerations in HM prisons, that I wasn’t a criminal.”
Keith Allen, An autobiography: Grow up
THE FIRST thing that strikes you, staring into this characterful face, is what a rogue this man is. A thief, for sure; a charmer, probably; a man with a belief that life should be led to the full… definitely. A face that shows life isn’t always easy, but that you should grab it while you can. Yet intelligence, worldliness, vague disdain, even a slight weariness can be read in its interesting lines.
“Ah,” says Keith Allen, noticing I’m weighing up the cover of a book he’s currently reading. “That’s a biography of William Dampier. He was the first Englishman to land in Australia – people don’t know that – 60 years before Cook did. And he wrote about it, drew maps. Darwin was always referring to him; Cook was referring to him; everyone. And even in the 20th century, they were still using his maps that he drew in the Pacific in the 1600s.”
So that’s who he is then, the man with the interesting face. Someone on the fringes of society; a talented man who ploughed his own furrow; who looked at the rules of society, and stuck two fingers – very visibly – up to them.
You can read the rest of this article in the August issue of Cotswold Life. See our subscription offer on the home page.