A fickle jade

Strix would have been 100 on 31 May. Before he had decided on a screech owl as his nom de plume, he had been Moth, and occasionally Scadavay and Apemantus. He had joined The Spectator in 1931 as a bumptious young man with a first in English from Oxford, where he had also been editor of Isis and president of the OUDS. His name was Peter Fleming and his association with The Spectator lasted for nearly 40 years, though it is as a travel writer that he is now remembered by aficionados.

‘A relaxed and somehow amateurish atmosphere pervaded No. 99 Gower Street in 1931,’ he wrote, ‘and it was comparatively easy to introduce such revolutionary innovations as the appointment of a film critic (me).’ After a few months in the job, he — characteristically, as it was to prove — got leave to travel to Manchuria.

When I was half way across Russia, Britain went off the gold standard and in the ensuing economic blizzard The Spectator’s small staff was drastically reduced.