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A Short Walk from Harrods
Bogarde, poet, autobiographer and novelist, began his acting career on the stage. Here he recounts his life growing up in London. "I learned very early in my life that nothing was forever; so I should have been aware of disillusion in early middle age: but, somehow, we try to obliterate early warnings and go cantering along hopefully, idiotically. . . ."
273 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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115 people want to read
About the author
Dirk Bogarde
37 books29 followersDirk Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde was born of mixed Flemish, Dutch and Scottish ancestry, and baptised on 30 October 1921 at St. Mary's Church, Kilburn. His father, Ulric van den Bogaerde (born in Perry Barr, Birmingham; 1892–1972), was the art editor of The Times and his mother, Margaret Niven (1898–1980), was a former actress. He attended University College School, the former Allan Glen's School in Glasgow (a time he described in his autobiography as unhappy, although others have disputed his account) and later studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. He began his acting career on stage in 1939, shortly before the start of World War II.
Bogarde served in World War II, being commissioned into the Queen's Royal Regiment in 1943. He reached the rank of captain and served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer. Taylor Downing's book "Spies in the Sky" tells of his work with a specialist unit interpreting aerial photo-reconnaissance information, before moving to Normandy with Canadian forces. Bogarde claimed to have been one of the first Allied officers in April 1945 to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he found it difficult to speak for many years afterward. As John Carey has summed up with regard to John Coldstream's authorised biography however, "it is virtually impossible that he (Bogarde) saw Belsen or any other camp. Things he overheard or read seem to have entered his imagination and been mistaken for lived experience." Coldstream's analysis seems to conclude that this was indeed the case. Nonetheless, the horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he claimed to have witnessed still left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late-1980s he wrote that he would disembark from a lift rather than ride with a German of his generation. Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former SS officer in 'The Night Porter'.
Bogarde's London West End theatre-acting debut was in 1939, with the stage name 'Derek Bogaerde', in J. B. Priestley's play Cornelius. After the war his agent renamed him 'Dirk Bogarde' and his good looks helped him begin a career as a film actor, contracted to The Rank Organisation under the wing of the prolific independent film producer Betty Box, who produced most of his early films and was instrumental in creating his matinée idol image.
During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp (1950) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee; a handsome artist who comes to rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris in So Long at the Fair, a film noir thriller; an accidental murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted (aka The Stranger in Between) (1952); in Appointment in London (1953) as a young wing commander in Bomber Command who, against orders, opts to fly his 90th mission with his men in a major air offensive against the Germans; an unjustly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment (1953); Doctor in the House (1954), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor; The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey; Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles.
Bogarde continued acting until 1990. 'Daddy Nostalgie' was his final film.
Bogarde served in World War II, being commissioned into the Queen's Royal Regiment in 1943. He reached the rank of captain and served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer. Taylor Downing's book "Spies in the Sky" tells of his work with a specialist unit interpreting aerial photo-reconnaissance information, before moving to Normandy with Canadian forces. Bogarde claimed to have been one of the first Allied officers in April 1945 to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he found it difficult to speak for many years afterward. As John Carey has summed up with regard to John Coldstream's authorised biography however, "it is virtually impossible that he (Bogarde) saw Belsen or any other camp. Things he overheard or read seem to have entered his imagination and been mistaken for lived experience." Coldstream's analysis seems to conclude that this was indeed the case. Nonetheless, the horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he claimed to have witnessed still left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late-1980s he wrote that he would disembark from a lift rather than ride with a German of his generation. Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former SS officer in 'The Night Porter'.
Bogarde's London West End theatre-acting debut was in 1939, with the stage name 'Derek Bogaerde', in J. B. Priestley's play Cornelius. After the war his agent renamed him 'Dirk Bogarde' and his good looks helped him begin a career as a film actor, contracted to The Rank Organisation under the wing of the prolific independent film producer Betty Box, who produced most of his early films and was instrumental in creating his matinée idol image.
During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp (1950) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee; a handsome artist who comes to rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris in So Long at the Fair, a film noir thriller; an accidental murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted (aka The Stranger in Between) (1952); in Appointment in London (1953) as a young wing commander in Bomber Command who, against orders, opts to fly his 90th mission with his men in a major air offensive against the Germans; an unjustly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment (1953); Doctor in the House (1954), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor; The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey; Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles.
Bogarde continued acting until 1990. 'Daddy Nostalgie' was his final film.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 23, 2018
Even though I enjoyed Dirk's writing about settling down to the minutiae of life, I read this book a little too soon after losing my mom from the effects of Parkinson's. The parts about his partner's illness tore me up.
April 7, 2011
One of Dirk's later autobiographies. It documents his life in London after he returned from his beloved France. The book is a sad one, Dirk describes the illness and death of his long time friend and companion Forwood in such a way that you cannot fail to be moved to tears. The emotion in his writing is tangible, he had a big heart and a gift for drawing the reader in and holding them there with bated breath, until he delivers another sucker punch line that gets you right in the guts.
Remarkable.
February 20, 2025
This book was the best of the set. Borgade doesn't hide behind others in his story telling and makes the story about himself and what matters for life: friendship, dogs, home, gardens, and noon time Bloody Marys.
September 28, 2020
I read quite a few of Dirk Bogarde's book years ago, and have just discovered them again. This must be one of the later ones, as it deals with his moving back to London from France. Also the sad reasons for doing so and loosing his partner Forwood.
But the descriptions of life in the south of France was just what is needed on a wet weekend in the middle of a pandemic!
But the descriptions of life in the south of France was just what is needed on a wet weekend in the middle of a pandemic!
August 12, 2017
For some reason I never got around to read this volume of autobiography until now. I had read the previous ones years ago. I was aware that this one was rather sad, concentrating on the decline and eventual demise of Bogarde's partner Forwood and their return to England after many years living in the south of France, but actually it is a quite uplifting recap of the time spent at Le Pigeonnier, with more tales of incidents and the people who lived nearby. Yes the end is quite sad, although his final film experience is related as a thankfully enjoyable one, but there is some hope as he establishes himself in his final London flat and carries on with his writing career.
February 4, 2016
Sad to read, but as always, lovely to spend some time with Dirk Bogarde again. What a multi-talented man he was.
December 2, 2023
A Short Walk From Harrods is a volume of Dirk Bogarde’s autobiography. At the start of a chapter midway through the book, he begins, “It’s so easy, writing like this, without any reference book, diary, journal at hand to set one’s own path (I burned all my stuff just before I left) to forget to round up all one’s sheep.” There follows recalled advice from his first editor, that you, the writer of autobiography, ought to “Round up all your stray sheep.”
The advice was clearly intended to provoke and ordering of memories, thoughts and intentions. These need to be identified and the extraneous edited out before the writing begins. Wavering and wandering is never easy to write, and even harder to read. But that is precisely what we are doing in life. We never know from one moment to the next, what might happen. Thus sifting and sorting becomes the currency of a biographer, especially an autobiographer, if any sense is to be made of the narrative. It does leave a question in the reader’s mind as to what has been left out.
What is interesting about the quotation from Dirk Bogarde’s memoir is the sense that is revealed if the text stops at “forget”, because the purpose of the sifting and sorted is, in fact, exclusion of the extraneous, the unsupported, the only partially remembered. That is why reading between the lines of an autobiography is often more interesting than staying in them.
In A Short Walk From Harrods, Dirk Bogarde recounts the time, many years, he spent in his beloved home in Provence. It is about how he comes to feel more at home in his adopted French identity than his adopted British. It is about his companion Forwood’s gradual deterioration into the symptoms of Parkinson’s and his eventual, slow and messy demise, at the hands of a tumour.
The book is about Dirk Bogarde’s relationship with his dogs, with his neighbours, with his writing (a little), and with his companion. But eventually, the author manages to skirt around much that we really want to hear. We never really understand the nature of his relationship with Forwood. We never really appreciate whether the homosexuality was ever or had ever been an issue. It is taken for granted, as is the heavy drinking and the chain smoking. It’s as if the autobiography always places a limit on what it might reveal. Anything too personal automatically becomes a stray sheep and is therefore not penned.
At the start and end of this description of life in France, there is a head and tail about returning to London, to a life the author felt he had left behind, a life with which he had become uncomfortable. Embarking on it anew after Forwood’s death becomes a personal challenge. The death of a partner is devastating, as was clearly the personal illness that Dirk Bogarde suffered, even before Norwood’s death.
But what is interesting about this memoir is a sense of rebirth, rebirth into an admittedly different person, almost a revisited persona, a reinvention of Dirk Bogarde the actor, the star, coping with a different life alone. As ever, we feel that he skirts around the really important material, that we never really get to know what he feels and thinks. But for an actor whose public face was the one people knew, its reinstatement by the end of this book clearly prompted something of a sense of personal relief.
The advice was clearly intended to provoke and ordering of memories, thoughts and intentions. These need to be identified and the extraneous edited out before the writing begins. Wavering and wandering is never easy to write, and even harder to read. But that is precisely what we are doing in life. We never know from one moment to the next, what might happen. Thus sifting and sorting becomes the currency of a biographer, especially an autobiographer, if any sense is to be made of the narrative. It does leave a question in the reader’s mind as to what has been left out.
What is interesting about the quotation from Dirk Bogarde’s memoir is the sense that is revealed if the text stops at “forget”, because the purpose of the sifting and sorted is, in fact, exclusion of the extraneous, the unsupported, the only partially remembered. That is why reading between the lines of an autobiography is often more interesting than staying in them.
In A Short Walk From Harrods, Dirk Bogarde recounts the time, many years, he spent in his beloved home in Provence. It is about how he comes to feel more at home in his adopted French identity than his adopted British. It is about his companion Forwood’s gradual deterioration into the symptoms of Parkinson’s and his eventual, slow and messy demise, at the hands of a tumour.
The book is about Dirk Bogarde’s relationship with his dogs, with his neighbours, with his writing (a little), and with his companion. But eventually, the author manages to skirt around much that we really want to hear. We never really understand the nature of his relationship with Forwood. We never really appreciate whether the homosexuality was ever or had ever been an issue. It is taken for granted, as is the heavy drinking and the chain smoking. It’s as if the autobiography always places a limit on what it might reveal. Anything too personal automatically becomes a stray sheep and is therefore not penned.
At the start and end of this description of life in France, there is a head and tail about returning to London, to a life the author felt he had left behind, a life with which he had become uncomfortable. Embarking on it anew after Forwood’s death becomes a personal challenge. The death of a partner is devastating, as was clearly the personal illness that Dirk Bogarde suffered, even before Norwood’s death.
But what is interesting about this memoir is a sense of rebirth, rebirth into an admittedly different person, almost a revisited persona, a reinvention of Dirk Bogarde the actor, the star, coping with a different life alone. As ever, we feel that he skirts around the really important material, that we never really get to know what he feels and thinks. But for an actor whose public face was the one people knew, its reinstatement by the end of this book clearly prompted something of a sense of personal relief.
January 24, 2022
A very moving account of his joyous life in France and the difficult final weeks of his partner in London. I very much like his writing which shows honesty and intelligence.
September 23, 2018
All the review clichés coming out: 5 stars, compelling, unputdownable.
Dirk Bogarde was as fine a writer as he was an actor. This book (one of many in a series of autobiographies) focusses on his time in Le Pigeonnier in France and his move back to England very late in life; a neatly flowing stream of melancholic, ascerbic, thoughtful, heartbroken and downright hilarious remembrances which capture with such colour and vivacity a time when stardom had long gone and happiness and pain pulled with equal measure as he and Tony Forwood squirrelled themselves into French provincial life.
Dirk Bogarde was as fine a writer as he was an actor. This book (one of many in a series of autobiographies) focusses on his time in Le Pigeonnier in France and his move back to England very late in life; a neatly flowing stream of melancholic, ascerbic, thoughtful, heartbroken and downright hilarious remembrances which capture with such colour and vivacity a time when stardom had long gone and happiness and pain pulled with equal measure as he and Tony Forwood squirrelled themselves into French provincial life.
August 15, 2008
Number six in Bogarde's autobiographical series. Here, he reverts to his mature voice, which comes as a relief. Had I mentioned, Great Meadow (No. 5) is a little tiresome, because written in the style of a 12 year old?
In this installment Bogarde waxes lyrical about his time in France, his years with his manager Forwood and his return to London due to failing health on both his and Forwood's part. The interest is in the details and the description of life as it was lived in Province before Peter Mayle ever arrived and spoiled it for everyone.
In this installment Bogarde waxes lyrical about his time in France, his years with his manager Forwood and his return to London due to failing health on both his and Forwood's part. The interest is in the details and the description of life as it was lived in Province before Peter Mayle ever arrived and spoiled it for everyone.
December 23, 2016
Enjoyed this book very much. It charts how the author, Dirk Bogarde, ends up back in London after having left to live in a house on a hill in France, where he remained for over 20 years, becoming a French citizen. It is when his good friend becomes ill that he is forced to return. Although an acclaimed actor, Bogarde demonstrates amply what an accomplished and stylish writer he is, despite many years of speaking only French.
October 24, 2014
Terribly sad, but beautiful, too - I love his books which describe a way of life that may have disappeared by now. Never envy anyone! Because it ain't really over until the fat lady sings, or the partner gets ill and you have to come down from your summit.
January 20, 2016
Like taking a long pensive walk with an elderly cultured English gent. Sweet.
January 2, 2017
As always, excellent.
February 19, 2025
LGBT-friendly. VERY LGBT-friendly. TOO LGBT-friendly.
Lots of talk about flowers, if my memory serves me.
I will NEVER understand the kick people get out of flowers. Sometimes I think they're just bullshitting, that they only gush over them hoping it will get them laid.
For women it's different. It's normal for them to like doodads and gimcrack. But men? Really, I think it's like pretending you're a "feminist", and is probably just as ineffective. It only worked for Alan Alda because he was the first such trickster.
In real life I've never seen a guy get some action because he pretended he liked flowers or was a "feminist" or could cook or "hated guns".
It all started with Hippies. No MEN were actually hippies, they just pretended they were because they thought hippie-chicks were easy.
Of course for this guy, Bogarde, he was a big ol' homo (the real thing too, not like nowadays just trying to be "cool") so all bets are off.
I was stuck behind the Iron Curtain having to read anything I could find or borrow, so I ended up reading a pile of this sad-sack's mutterings.
At least I learned a lot. Don't hang out in bars full of big Judy Garland fans, for one thing.
Lots of talk about flowers, if my memory serves me.
I will NEVER understand the kick people get out of flowers. Sometimes I think they're just bullshitting, that they only gush over them hoping it will get them laid.
For women it's different. It's normal for them to like doodads and gimcrack. But men? Really, I think it's like pretending you're a "feminist", and is probably just as ineffective. It only worked for Alan Alda because he was the first such trickster.
In real life I've never seen a guy get some action because he pretended he liked flowers or was a "feminist" or could cook or "hated guns".
It all started with Hippies. No MEN were actually hippies, they just pretended they were because they thought hippie-chicks were easy.
Of course for this guy, Bogarde, he was a big ol' homo (the real thing too, not like nowadays just trying to be "cool") so all bets are off.
I was stuck behind the Iron Curtain having to read anything I could find or borrow, so I ended up reading a pile of this sad-sack's mutterings.
At least I learned a lot. Don't hang out in bars full of big Judy Garland fans, for one thing.
December 30, 2020
This book (one in a series of autobiographies) focuses on his time in Le Pigeonnier in France. He is one of the few actors who really do like getting away from the limelight. The first half of the book describes the various stages of renovation of 'Le Pigeonnier' where he lived with his partner Forwood. An idyllic setting, for the house, which is surrounded by hundreds of olive trees clinging to the terraced slopes in the beautiful landscape of Provence. The pruning of the vines, the spraying and cultivating the land.
In the second half of the book, he sells Le Pigeonnier and moves back to Chelsea, London. The move is prompted by Forwood's ill-health, by the onset of Parkinson's and cancer, and the increasing necessity of making hospital visits. I found the reality of his situation quite melancholy after his move back to London into a flat, after having lived in a rustic property in such a beautiful part of France. if that wasn't enough he then discovers to his dismay that the removal firm he entrusted had not taken proper care of his furniture. It was well written and moving. Bogarde has a way with words and in the end, I felt sad that he had to give up that part of his life in Provence where he had initially gone to get away from the limelight.
In the second half of the book, he sells Le Pigeonnier and moves back to Chelsea, London. The move is prompted by Forwood's ill-health, by the onset of Parkinson's and cancer, and the increasing necessity of making hospital visits. I found the reality of his situation quite melancholy after his move back to London into a flat, after having lived in a rustic property in such a beautiful part of France. if that wasn't enough he then discovers to his dismay that the removal firm he entrusted had not taken proper care of his furniture. It was well written and moving. Bogarde has a way with words and in the end, I felt sad that he had to give up that part of his life in Provence where he had initially gone to get away from the limelight.
April 3, 2024
The evening shadows lengthen: in his penultimate volume of memoir, Bogarde describes packing up and returning from France, and the life he’d built there, the illness and death of his lover of 40 years, and his own adjustment to old age and infirmity in a London flat for which the most he can say is that it’s convenient for the titular department store. Written in a way that manages to banish any trace of self-pity, whilst at the same time conveying an awful, aching loss, the three pages out of the hundreds he wrote that are about his partner’s death are among the most economical yet powerful on bereavement that I have ever read. He’s not an actor who writes, he’s a writer who acts. Compelling. ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
June 11, 2023
Sheer bliss. I'm listening to the audiobook and that means Dirk Bogarde's gorgeous voice with all the beauty of its tone and modulation. The perfect diction and pace of Upper-class English (the best of what that means not the worst).
He's a lovely writer, a poet and a novelist wonderfully combined. Happiness, tragedy, the beauty of life in Provence. The sadness of old age and illness. But above all he conveys the understanding that everything is temporary, gone into the past in seconds.
He's a lovely writer, a poet and a novelist wonderfully combined. Happiness, tragedy, the beauty of life in Provence. The sadness of old age and illness. But above all he conveys the understanding that everything is temporary, gone into the past in seconds.
April 10, 2021
An interesting life, extremely well recounted
September 4, 2022
A joy to read evocations of life in Provence, and sorrow for the wrenching illness and death of companion Forwood.
August 6, 2015
a slow pace but very well written.
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January 13, 2017A book about a country property, another culture - then giving it all up. Making films. Death of those close to you.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews