National Treasure Stephen Fry's Infamous Credit Card Spree

Credit Card Fraud is a subject that I often write about, and believe you me, it is no laughing matter.  It is not a victimless crime, and millions of pounds are lost every year to skimming, identity theft, phishing and Credit Card hi-jacking.

So it is a rare and happy day for me when I get an excuse to tell you about a card crime that I hope will make you smile.

This autumn saw the publication of the second volume of Stephen Fry’s autobiography, The Fry Chronicles.  This book takes up his life story where the bestselling Moab is My Washpot left off, and with Christmas coming up it looks a dead cert to be another smash hit for Britain’s favourite polymath and genial genteel genius.

What caught my attention was a re-telling of the infamous episode when he pilfered a credit card from a friend of his parents and used it to fund a Bertie Wooster-style spree at the London Ritz.  Playing truant from school, and dressed up in his grandfather’s clothes, he managed to spend two days propping up the bar, slurping cocktails and smoking Balkan Sobranies. 

He was eventually discovered, expelled from his public school, and detained for three months at Her Majesty’s pleasure in Pucklechurch Prison, a Young Offenders’ Institution near Bristol.  Thankfully he survived this experience without sinking into a life of crime and depravity,  achieving a First at Queens’s College Cambridge (despite having attended no more than a couple of lectures during his entire three years there), and went on to become one our most beloved and entertaining National Treasures.

The Fry Chronicles is a great ‘Laugh Out Loud’ read; well-written, witty, wry and entertaining, just as you would expect.  Surely the time to forgive Stephen Fry for his juvenile venture into crime is long past. He has more than re-paid his debt to society with a wealth of humour and entertainment delivered over many years, in a sparkling career which has brought us such unforgettable characters as Oscar Wilde, Jeeves, Professor Donald Trefusis and Lord Melchett.

NB Charlotte Mooney and ProSwift in no way condone, encourage, or approve of Credit Card Fraud, or any other kind of criminal activity. Or truancy from school. Or under-age smoking and drinking.