I have mentioned before on Random, and I am saying so again today, that reading diaries is so interesting because the true personality of the writer comes through. It cannot be hidden. When I read the diaries of Sir Laurence Olivier he came across as thoroughly unpleasant and rather obsessed with himself. The diaries of Noel Coward reveal a really nice man (yes I know he could be bitchy at times) who was loyal to his friends, supportive and helpful and showed a man full of self awareness. Other diaries I have read over the years have proved my theory well to me at any rate.
I knew very little about Kenneth Rose until I picked up a copy of a biography of George V in a recent book sale and he was the author. I am half way through it and liking it very much - it is written with clarity and style.
Who loses Who wins covers the period 1979-2014 so it covers a time and events with which I am familiar and it makes very interesting and entertaining reading.
Kenneth Rose was educated at Repton and was a scholar at New College, Oxford. He fought in the Second World War and was subsequently a schoolmaster at Eton before working for the British Council in Rome and Naples. He joined the Daily Telegraph in 1951 and remained with them until 1977 when the then editor, Dominic Lawson, terminated his contract. Though, on the surface of it, the severance was conducted in a gentlemanly manner, a diary entry for that year reads “Dean Godson, chief leader writer says that Conrad Black had told him Lawson wanted me out as the column had gone on for so long”.
Rose made a rather gleeful entry in 2005 when Lawson himself was booted out and not even allowed back in the building to get his belongings....
An obituary of Rose said he was the “most frightful snob” and I daresay he may have been, but I found his company in these diaries rather charming and amusing. One of the tabloids recently published extracts and, naturally enough, they picked out the plum comments on politicians and the Royal Family, but these are only part of the output and Rose had a great deal of witty acerbic and intelligent comments to make on Macmillan, Rab Butler, Eden, Margaret Thatcher (he liked her but said she had no sense of humour) and many other politicians.
He knew the Queen Mother well, ditto Princess Margaret and, after reading the almost unanimously nasty press on the latter, it is rather nice to find somebody who was fond of her and found her great company and a good friend. While I admire the Queen enormously she has never struck me as being in any way an intellectual - Margaret was the brighter of the two and clearly found her life tedious and pointless.
I found myself in total agreement with his comments on Princess Diana’s “spurious saintliness” and hysteria after her death. He states that Charles was “terrified” of her and what she would say or do after their separation and Rose is very blunt on her manipulation of the press.
A lovely diary entry in 2006.
”I dine with Charles Guthrie (travel writer and biographer) at Whites. While we are eating a tall, youngish man with a very pink complexion and curious ridge of hair high up on his forehead walks through to the other rooms. He looked extraordinarily young with unlined features and the complexion of an undergrduate or even a schoolboy”
It was David Cameron.
Another 2006 entry
“Saddam Hussein is hanged while tony Blair spends the New Year as usual sponging on a very rich pop star in the Caribbean”
The whole book is packed with fascinating anecdotes, trenchant opinions and bristles with wit and, in my opinion anyway, true and clear sighted comments.
I loved it. I also found myself liking the author enormously.
