Britain's reviled bankers and MPs pour their hearts out to spoof letter writer
Sir Fred Goodwin, the former banker, is among several unpopular public figures who replied to spoof letters sent under the name of Colin Nugent, a 62-year-old retired teacher from Pinner, Middlesex.
By Robert Mendick
Published: 7:05AM GMT 27 Dec 2009
The only problem for Sir Fred is that Colin Nugent doesn't actually exist. Neither for that matter does his wife, Beryl, his son, David, and daughter-in-law, Samantha, nor his beloved granddaughter, Sophie.
The Nugents were dreamed up by Geoff Atkinson, an acclaimed comedy producer and writer, who in his idle hours has spent the past year firing off spoof letters to Britain's beleaguered bankers, politicians and captains of industry. His missives and their often touching responses appear in a book published this week.
"I hope that this note finds you and Mrs Nugent well, and enjoying the summer. Your friendship and support mean a great deal to me, and I write to say again how much I appreciate them," wrote Sir Fred at the end of June, as he sat holed up at his home in Edinburgh.
He sent the Nugents flowers by way of thanks, and as recently as a fortnight ago a Christmas card. Mr Nugent had sent him flowers (twice), a model of Sir Fred's favourite car, and chocolate coins.
The first inkling Sir Fred et al will have that they have been duped – often in the nicest possible way – is when they read it in the Sunday Telegraph.
"I hope Sir Fred sees this book as healing rather than ridiculing," explained Atkinson, 54. "I hope he sits there and chuckles. He is in good company with other correspondents like Alan Greenspan and Mervyn King. On the other hand he did preside over this colossal banking crash. He is not completely innocent."
The first of 200 Nugent letters were sent out at the beginning of the year with varying success. In all, about half were ignored while another quarter never got past the gatekeepers to the great, the good and the ugly, receiving standard replies from secretaries and administrators.
But about 50 letters somehow touched a chord with their intended targets among them Lord Coe, Lord Rothschild, Marks & Spencer's Sir Stuart Rose, bankers Matt Ridley (Northern Rock) and Lord Stevenson (HBOS) and a string of MPs including David Miliband, Alan Johnson, Douglas Hogg and Anthony Steen. Perhaps feeling alone and unloved, often embattled recipients appeared not to have spotted Colin Usborne Nugent was a fiction despite the odd clue – such as the suggestion to Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England and an Aston Villa fan, that the footballer Gabriel Agbonlahor be appointed to the Bank's monetary policy committee.
Nugent advises in the autumn: "Stick Agbonlahor in the hole at the monthly inflation rates meeting and see what he comes up with. Fast, fiery, full of ideas, be sure to bring a footballer's brain to the impenetrable corners of monetary policy... Send out a message the common man can get his head around, you're the team that always turns in a performance, is rooted in the heart of England, and doesn't need Arab bail-outs to win the silverware."
Mr King appears to like the idea but stops short of implementing it. "I am quite taken with your suggestion that we invite Gabby Agbonlahor to join the Monetary Policy Committee. But I think he would be wise not to drive into the bank in his current motor car," replies Mr King in a letter dated October 13.
Bankers and businessmen were not Nugent's only targets.
As the MPs' expenses saga unfolded, Nugent, a kindlier version of that great spoof letter writer Henry Root from the 1980s, showed sympathy for them, too. Incidentally, Atkinson was a friend of Root's creator William Donaldson.
And so Nugent writes to the Tory MP Sir Peter Viggers of "duck house" fame. "Okay I gather the ducks didn't like the place but that's not the point," opines Nugent. "You've spent public money (a) supporting an artist in his work and (b) protecting wildlife... Our national obsession with finger pointing means you've been run through the mangle and become a lightning conductor for the great unwashed."
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