Auberon Waugh

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Auberon Waugh
BornAuberon Alexander Waugh
(1939-11-17)17 November 1939
Dulverton, Somerset, England
Died16 January 2001(2001-01-16) (aged 61)
Combe Florey, Somerset, England
OccupationJournalist, novelist
EducationDownside School
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
Period1960–2001
GenreNovel, journalism
Spouse
​
(m. 1961)​
Children4, including Alexander and Daisy Waugh
ParentsEvelyn Waugh
Laura Herbert
RelativesArthur Waugh (paternal grandfather)
Aubrey Herbert (maternal grandfather)
Alec Waugh (paternal uncle)

Auberon Alexander Waugh /ˈɔːbərən ˈwɔː/ (17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was an English journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron".

After a traditional classical education at

Oxford University
.

At twenty, he launched his journalism career at the Telegraph Group, and also wrote for many other publications including Private Eye, in which he presented a profile that was half Tory grandee and half cheeky rebel. As a young man, Waugh wrote five well-received novels, but gave up fiction for fear of unfavourable comparisons with his father.

He and his wife Lady Teresa had four children and lived at Combe Florey House in Somerset.

Origins

Waugh was born at

Tutankhamen's tomb, and her mother was Hon. Mary Gertrude Vesey, only child and sole heiress of John Vesey, 4th Viscount de Vesci
(1844–1903).

He was named after Auberon Herbert (1922–1974), his mother's brother, a landowner and advocate of Eastern European causes after World War II, himself named after Auberon Herbert (1838–1906), a son of the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon. His nickname used by friends and family was "Bron".[1]

Early life

Born just as World War II broke out, Waugh hardly saw his father until he was five.

philosophy, politics, and economics degree at Christ Church, Oxford,[4] where he held an exhibition in English. He was rusticated
by the academic authorities, and never returned to the university, preferring to make an early start in journalism.

Career

During his

National Service, he was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards and served in Cyprus, where he was almost killed in a machine gun accident. Annoyed by a fault in the machine gun on his armoured car which he drove frequently, he seized the end of the barrel and shook it, accidentally triggering the mechanism so that the gun fired several bullets through his chest.[2] As a result of his injuries, he lost his spleen, one lung, several ribs, and a finger, and suffered from pain and recurring infections for the rest of his life. While lying on the ground waiting for an ambulance, his platoon sergeant kept him alive providing vital first aid. He was first treated for his injuries at Nicosia General Hospital.[5] While recuperating from the accident in Italy, he began his first novel, The Foxglove Saga.[2]

Journalism

Waugh began his career in journalism during 1960 as a cub reporter on Peterborough, the social/gossip column of The Daily Telegraph.

His early work as political columnist on

mass starvation as a political weapon. He was sacked from The Spectator in 1970, but with the support of Bernard Levin and others, he won damages for unfair dismissal in a subsequent action.[2]

He was opposed to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and criticised the Church that emerged from it. He was often critical of Archbishops Basil Hume and Derek Worlock.

He also wrote for the New Statesman, British Medicine and various newspapers (including the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Evening Standard and The Independent). From 1981 to 1990 he wrote a leader-page column for The Sunday Telegraph. In 1990 he returned to The Daily Telegraph as the successor of Michael Wharton (better known as "Peter Simple"), writing the paper's long-running Way of the World column three times a week until December 2000. In 1995 he finally ended his long association with The Spectator, but in 1996 he rejoined The Sunday Telegraph, where he remained a weekly columnist until shortly before his death.

Private Eye

Waugh became known for his Private Eye diary, which ran from the early 1970s until 1985, and which he described as "specifically dedicated to telling lies".[4] He fitted in well with the Eye, although he made clear his particular dislike of the Labour government of the 1970s. The education secretary Shirley Williams became an especial hate figure because of her support for comprehensive education. In his autobiography Will This Do?, Waugh claimed that he had broken two bottles of wine by banging them together too hard to celebrate when she lost her House of Commons seat at Hertford and Stevenage in the general election of 1979.[4]

Waugh was himself a candidate at the 1979 election, indulging another of his pet hates, former Liberal Leader Jeremy Thorpe, who was about to stand trial for conspiracy to murder in a scandal that Waugh had helped to expose.[4] It was alleged that Thorpe had links to an incident in which a man called Norman Scott, who claimed to have had an affair with Thorpe, had seen his dog shot dead. Waugh stood against Thorpe for the Dog Lovers' Party in North Devon, and Thorpe obtained an injunction against the distribution of Waugh's election literature;[2] but despite this The Spectator and The Guardian both printed it in full.[6] Waugh polled only 79 votes, but Thorpe lost his seat.[2]

Waugh left Private Eye in 1986 when Ian Hislop succeeded Richard Ingrams as editor.

Waugh's views

Waugh tended to be identified with a defiantly anti-progressive, small-c conservatism, opposed to "do-gooders" and social progressives. After his death the

left-wing journalist Polly Toynbee in The Guardian attacked him for these views.[7] He has been called a nostalgist and a romantic, with a strong tendency towards snobbery, although his anarchistic streak ensured that he retained the admiration of a number of people whom he would have considered "progressive" or "leftish", including Francis Wheen, who vociferously disagreed with Toynbee's obituary comments.[8]

Waugh expressed an intense dislike of poet Ezra Pound. In a Spectator column of 20 March 1976, he wrote: "Ezra Pound, as I remember, wrote some disgusting lines about storm clouds over Westminster in his Cantos. I haven't looked at them for twenty-one years and certainly don't intend to look them up again now. Ever since I was fifteen when I first read Pound's boring filth, the thought of storm clouds over Westminster has filled me with nausea and gloom."[9] In a letter dated 15 January 1973, writer Guy Davenport reported, "Auberon Waugh in the English press giggled over Ez's demise [1 November 1972], informing his audience that Pound's silly verse was so much twaddle, and his example the cause of Modern Poetry and all its vulgar pretense. He also confesses that he immensely enjoyed torturing Pound in the madhouse with letters asking what passages in The Cantos might mean. Pound's replies, tedious and lengthy, he destroyed after having his laugh."[10]

Waugh broadly supported

The Sunday Times' editor Andrew Neil
, whom Waugh despised, further confirmed his view.

To a traditional Tory, these were some of the most deplorable aspects of the Thatcher years. There was a certain amount of public posturing in his popular anti-Americanism; he visited the US whenever he could, and spent notable time holidaying in New England and on US speaking tours.[11]

He had a house in France and, despite his conservatism, was a fervent supporter of

national identity card, a policy which at the time was opposed by the Labour Party. Along with Patrick Marnham and Richard West, Waugh was one of three signatories to a letter to The Times that called for a British monument to honour those repatriated as a result of the Yalta Conference; it was eventually erected in 1986.[13][14]

Waugh held that while the

dangers of smoking (especially passive smoking) and drinking were exaggerated, the dangers of hamburger eating were seriously under-reported; he frequently referred to "hamburger gases" as a serious form of atmospheric pollution and even made references to the dangers of "passive hamburger eating". He also claimed that computer games "produce all the symptoms and most known causes of cancer". The Tobacco Advisory Council of the UK organised a pro-smoking book to be ghosted for either Bernard Levin or Auberon Waugh.[15] Neither columnist agreed to put their name to it, but Waugh wrote a foreword endorsing the book and hitting out at the anti-smoking lobby: "Let us hope this book strikes a blow against the new control terrorists", he said. He also posed for photos with a cigarette in his hand.[16]

Family

In 1961, Auberon Waugh married Lady Teresa Onslow, daughter of the 6th Earl of Onslow.[4] They had four children:

They lived at the Old Rectory, Chilton Foliat, Wiltshire, from 1964 to 1971, then moved into Waugh's father's old home, Combe Florey House in Somerset.[17]

Literary career

Waugh wrote five novels before giving up writing fiction, partly in protest at the inadequate money authors received from

public lending rights
at libraries and partly because he knew he would always be compared unfavourably to his father. The five novels are:

  • The Foxglove Saga (1960)
  • Path of Dalliance (1963)
  • Who Are The Violets Now? (1965)
  • Consider the Lilies (1968)
  • A Bed of Flowers (1972).

He also wrote a book about the

ATV
in the 1970s.

In 1986, his critical book Another Voice – An Alternative Anatomy of Britain (

Bad Sex Award
for the worst description of sex in a novel.

Two collections of Waugh's Private Eye diary have been published: Four Crowded Years: The Diaries of Auberon Waugh 1972–1976 (Deutsch/Private Eye, 1976), and A Turbulent Decade: The Diaries of Auberon Waugh 1976–1985 (Private Eye, 1985).

In 1991, he was interviewed by Anthony Howard for the Thames TV documentary Waugh Memorial.

Waugh opined on many and various topics. For example, in a leader piece for the Literary Review in 1991 he commented upon

sceptic James Randi's dismissal on British television of the supposed art of dowsing
for water. Waugh noted that, although he had no great interest in the subject, he lived in a house which had a well sunk through 70 ft (21 m) of rock on nothing more than the advice of a dowser.

Death

Auberon Waugh's grave near the Church of St Peter & St Paul, Combe Florey, Somerset

Waugh died of

obituaries were lengthy, and the headline "Auberon Waugh dies" was printed on the placards for the day's London Evening Standard
.

References

  1. ^ "The Herberts and Waughs". Exmoor National Park. Archived from the original on 22 July 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Wheatcroft, Geoffrey (18 January 2001). "Auberon Waugh". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  3. ^ Heaven, Will. "Why Bron went to war with Downside". Catholic Herald. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Auberon Waugh". The Telegraph. London. 18 January 2001. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  5. ^ "Names make news". Time. 23 June 1958. Archived from the original on 31 March 2009. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
  6. ^ Naim Attallah, A Scribbler in Soho: a celebration of Auberon Waugh (London: Quartet Books, 2019), p. 52
  7. ^ Toynbee, Polly (19 January 2001). "Ghastly man". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  8. ^ Wheen, Francis (24 January 2001). "Bron's last laugh". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  9. ^ Quoted in Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner, ed. Edward Burns (Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2018), vol. 2, 1486 n.7.
  10. ^ Ibid., 2:1455-56.
  11. ^ Waugh, Auberon (10 May 1993). "Way of the world a terrible curse". University of California. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  12. ^ Chapman Simon, Death of a fat lady, Tobacco Control 1999;8:443
  13. ^ "Yalta Memorial". The Spectator. 12 July 1986. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  14. ^ "Communist Victims/Twelve Responses to Tragedy". War Memorials Online. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  15. ^ "Legacy Tobacco Documents Library: Letter from Jeremy Greenwood to Clive Turner". bat.library.ucsf.edu. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  16. ^ "Legacy Tobacco Documents Library: N403 (qeo47d00)". legacy.library.ucsf.edu. Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  17. ^ Auberon Waugh, Will This Do (London: Century, 1991), pp. 166, 206

External links

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