Anglea Huth, the broadcaster and author of some 18 books, has now written her memoirs, Not the Whole Story. And though it may not be the whole story, what a story it is.
Huth is the daughter of the actor Harold Huth and the flighty Bridget Nickols, who had an amitié amoureuse with the King of Portugal and several affairs. Huth’s enjoyably monstrous grandmother, with a penchant for couture, a private account at the Bank of England and the world’s most valuable pearl, is vividly described. Once, in the V&A, she
found a magnificent collection of… dozens of pieces in all, hand-cut glass that slightly pricks your fingers. Each piece was engraved with a VR; it had been made to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Silver Jubilee. ‘I’ll take all that,’ said my grandmother, presumably thinking she was in a large department store.
Huth is marvellously gossipy: we learn that Princess Margaret had a phobia of dolls and mannequins and that John Betjeman found the notion of a ‘cocktail dress’ exquisitely funny. But she manages never to be bitchy and not a mean word is said about anyone. Nor does she ever show off. Film stars ‘happen’ to come to dinner; Huth just ‘comes across’ famous writers. We meet Marlene Dietrich and Britt Ekland, Sofia Loren and Rex Harrison, Keith Richards and Iris Murdoch, Liberace and the Queen Mother. It could all be a bit Jilly Cooper, what with the debutantes and the dances, the country weekends and courting. Everything is frightfully good fun. But Huth is too funny and modest to let her memoirs slip into caricature.
Her best chapters are about her school days, and the sort of education that doesn’t exist any more: plenty of dancing and picnicking and reciting poetry.
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