It has arrived!

[Snoopy]

"Alan Clarke, The Biography" by Ion Trewin

I shall be knocking off tonight at 6pm and indulging in several hours by the fire reading this new book about one of my heroes. 

[Nick]

See also:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-alan-clark-was-not-wonderful-he-was-sleazy-and-cruel-1787343.html
 

[Snoopy]

Yes I read that yesterday and the comments from other readers that followed. More than a hint of very sour grapes from Dominic in my opinion. May have something to do with the fact that AC spoke disparagingly of Nigel in his diaries of course. Having met many of the Lawson family I have to say AC got it right.

[Nick]

Nigella? 

[Snoopy]

Mrs S#2 used to share a flat with a Lawson niece and they (the two girls) often babysat for Nigel and Theresa. Grandmother Lawson was a drunk and the babysitting was often as much looking after her as the children. Of course Nigella and brother Dominic come from Nigel's first marriage.  Nigella is of an age with Mrs S#2. All Lawson children are horrid, spoiled brats in my experience.

[Darwins Selection]

Nigella? 

I shall be knocking off tonight at 6pm . . .

[Snoopy]

Nigella? 

Answered above

I shall be knocking off tonight at 6pm . . .

From typing/editing magazine

 

Smutty minded beggar! 

[Pastis]

Well, I'm glad it arrived ~ postal service here is still appalling 

I was up too late last night (insomnia) and watching some TV, Scotland week or somesuch. To cut to the point R.Burns' poems and letters were under discussion; he was infatuated with some woman and rattled off a letter to her declaring his undying affection... Message delivery service, every hour, on the hour in Edinburgh... in 1791 

[Snoopy]

Books costing in excess of ?50 ordered last week for the THW all arrived by post. AC's biog ordered at the same time and from the same source (Amazon) came by courier. 


I paid no delivery charges.

[Pastis]

 

[Snoopy]

See also:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-alan-clark-was-not-wonderful-he-was-sleazy-and-cruel-1787343.html
 

Yes I read that yesterday and the comments from other readers that followed. More than a hint of very sour grapes from Dominic in my opinion. May have something to do with the fact that AC spoke disparagingly of Nigel in his diaries of course. Having met many of the Lawson family I have to say AC got it right.

As I suspected:
Page 425 speaking of the press coverage following AC's death
" Frank Johnson in the Spectator recalled the time just after he had become Editor when he published a piece by AC that included some exuberant abuse of Dominic Lawson, his predecessor

I think that answers the question of why, of all the reviews of this biog, Lawson is the one that slags the great man off.

The biog is pretty even handed to be honest. Nobody ever thought that AC was a saint, indeed he was the first to dispel that idea. The author had access to all AC's papers and took several years to go through them. Jane Clark agreed that "Nothing should be held back" and that the story should be told "warts and all" even where it could be fairly expected to upset her and his sons. It probably does that at times but Trewin had know AC for years and had been his editor and publisher during his (AC's) most successful literary years so he certainly knew his target before he got access to the documents. The biog does lean heavily on AC's already published "Diaries"  but that is to be expected as Trewin published the first book of "Diaries" and, after AC's, death edited the second and third books. Certainly as a diarist and politician with a penchant for putting his own opinions first and worrying about the consequences afterwards Alan Clark was unique. One of the very last independently rich MPs who could "tell it like it was". I would recommend the biog to anyone who wants the "inside" track on the man but if you don't like politics or history then don't bother. It is NOT a bonkfest.