He is the womanising, wheeler-dealing ‘Del Boy’ who paid for a prostitute to take his teenage son’s virginity during a sordid trip to the Far East.
asserted
who → deal → East
And this week, Ronald Brand sparked fury outside court when he ranted to the media that his predator son Russell was the real ‘victim’, not the women the disgraced star had violated.
asserted
star → spark → media
Shortly after Brand was jailed for ten and a half years for raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others, the 82-year-old even accused his son’s victims of having ‘chased’ and ‘harassed’ the ex-comedian.
asserted
old → jail → comedian
Yet Ron’s bizarre outburst was typical for a man whose unconventional upbringing of his now-jailed son, 51, would have provided Sigmund Freud with enough material for a lifetime.
asserted
upbringing → jail → lifetime
In his two best-selling autobiographies, Russell wrote extensively of Ron, a flamboyant Romford market trader and lothario, describing him as an ‘Essex Cavalier’ for whom ‘every week [brought] a different woman and a new scheme for riches’.
asserted
Russell → sell → riches
The impressionable young Russell aspired to emulate his father by pursuing sex and money with gusto – along with only rarely bestowed paternal approval.
asserted
Russell → aspire → approval
Ron, who grew up on a council estate in Dagenham, had himself endured a difficult childhood, losing his own father when he was just seven.
asserted
he → grow → father
He married Brand’s mother Barbara in 1969 – but the marriage collapsed when their son was just six months old.
asserted
son → marry → 1969
And while Barbara became a ‘doting’ single mother, Ron was a ‘sporadic presence’, turning up for what Russell, in his characteristically woolly prose, called ‘cyclonic visits’.
asserted
Russell → become → prose
The impressionable young Russell aspired to emulate his father, Ron, by pursuing sex and money with gusto
Brand went to the Academy Awards in Los Angeles with his mother Barbara in 2011
One of the first anecdotes in Brand’s 2007 memoir My Booky Wook details how Ron ‘would invariably arrive late’ for weekend visits.
asserted
Ron → aspire → visits
‘A huge argument would ensue, which would generally end with both my mother and myself in tears,’ he recalled.
asserted
he → ensue → tears
At his father’s bachelor flat in Brentwood, young Russell told how he was left in front of the television while his father read newspapers or ‘diddled birds’ in another room.
asserted
father → tell → room
‘I would mainly watch comedy videos, Elvis films and porn,’ he admitted.
asserted
he → watch → videos
By the age of four, Brand claimed, he was ‘a weary connoisseur’ of his father’s ‘reservoir of pornography’.
asserted
he → claim → pornography
‘I think I always had a premature awareness of sexuality, but Ron Brand’s penchant for leaving me to occupy my infant mind with his cache of girlie magazines certainly did nothing to stem the erotic tide,’ he wrote.
asserted
he → think → tide
‘I adored the cartoons in Playboy.
asserted
I → adore → Playboy
Either they’d be one page, or sometimes a story drifting toward a climax where someone got their boobs out.
asserted
someone → drift → boobs
I suppose because they were cartoons and porn at the same time, and these are not two things you expect to see together.’
asserted
you → suppose → time
Even a family holiday to Pontins provided an opportunity for Ron to indulge his wandering eye.
asserted
Ron → provide → eye
Brand recalled how, during one stay at the holiday camp, a little girl approached him with the startling announcement: ‘Your dad’s in bed with my mum – do you want to come and have a look?’
asserted
you → recall → look
Curious, Brand followed her to the chalet, where he discovered his father lounging in bed while the girl’s mother emerged naked from the bathroom.
asserted
mother → follow → bathroom
Unfazed, the young Russell asked Ron for 50p to spend in the amusement arcade.
asserted
Russell → ask → arcade
In a 2002 interview, Brand and his father talk about visiting 'prostitutes in Hong Kong' when Brand was 17 years old
Ron, who dabbled in wedding photography and sold double glazing and water filters, amassed enough money through his Only Fools-style dealing to briefly send his son to the private Gidea Park primary school.
asserted
who → talk → school
The experiment in fee-paying education did not last long, however.
asserted
experiment → pay → education
‘It only took my dad a term to squander his nouveaux riches [sic],’ wrote Brand.
asserted
Brand → take → riches
‘So he didn’t pay the school fees, and so I had to leave and go back to the normal state primary school I’d been at 12 weeks previously.
asserted
I → pay → school
Ron was forever hidden behind a newspaper, Brand recalled.
asserted
Brand → hide → newspaper
Yet the boy remained desperate to win the approval of his father.
asserted
boy → remain → father
Which perhaps explains why, when Ron’s third marriage collapsed and he found himself in need of a holiday companion, the teenage Brand leapt at the chance to accompany him across Asia.
asserted
Brand → explain → Asia
A 17-year-old virgin, Brand found himself in a shared room of the Mandarin Palace in Hong Kong where his father had hired three local sex workers and ordered a bottle of champagne.
asserted
father → find → champagne
It was an encounter, Brand would later write, that ‘defined my relations with women – and myself’.
asserted
that → write → women
‘My dad set about unwrapping his two prostitutes, like pass-the-parcel where the music never stopped, and I sat nervously on the edge of the bed with Mary-Lou, kissing her and thinking she was beautiful and falling in love,’ Brand wrote.
asserted
Brand → set → love
‘She was a good prostitute, Mary-Lou, she played her part very well.
asserted
she → play → part
She didn’t make me feel embarrassed, and was incredibly romantic really, given the context.
asserted
me → make → context
‘I stroked Mary-Lou’s hair and kissed her cheek and traced my finger down her perfect nose, scored by the cacophony from the adjacent bedlam, “Yeah, come on!” and “Phwooar, you’re juicy!”’
asserted
you → stroke → bedlam
The next morning, Ron resumed his familiar position behind a newspaper – only lowering one corner to ask his son whether he had used a condom.
asserted
he → resume → condom
When Russell admitted that he had not, Ron merely remarked that he should have done – before disappearing behind the pages once more.
asserted
he → admit → pages
Ron was said to have declared of his son on the flight home: ‘I went away with a boy and came back with a man.’
asserted
I → say → man
Brand meanwhile reflected how his sexuality had been transformed from ‘bewildered innocence’ into something ‘more complex and rapacious’.
asserted
sexuality → reflect → something
But as Brand’s burgeoning showbiz career was taking off, his relationship with Ron began to sour.
asserted
relationship → burgeon → Ron
…and 28 more, not listed.
The Aporia
