THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT
Our fourth extract, 17th. March 1996, from Quentin Crisp's Autobiography first published in 1968 and reproduced by kind permission of Quentin Crisp
As soon as I was a few days old I caught pneumonia. I was literally as well as metaphorically wrapped in cotton wool. From this ambience I still keenly feel my exile. When I was well again, I saw that my mother intended to reapportion her love and divide it equally among her four children. I flew into an ungovernable rage from which I have never fully recovered. A fair share of anything is starvation diet to an egomaniac. For the next twelve years I cried or was sick or had what my governesses politely called an "accident"-that is to say I wet myself or worse. After that time I had to think of some other way of drawing attention to myself, because I was sent to prep school where such practices might not have seemed endearing.
© Quentin Crisp 1968
A previous extract
Back to The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp
This will take you back to the index