Last Chorus: An Autobiographical Medley, by Humphrey Lyttleton
‘Old Etonian ex-Guards Officer jazz trumpeter’. That was the way tabloid gossip columnists used to describe Humphrey Lyttelton (1921-2008) in the early years of his fame. Not long after he was released from the Grenadiers at the end of the second world war, he hyphenated his identity to become Old Etonian ex-Guards Officer jazz trumpeter-bandleader-broadcaster-cartoonist-calligrapher-birdwatcher-gastronome-paterfamilias. In this amiable hotch-potch of a book, he reviews every aspect of his multifaceted life with bonhomous éclat. Now, as ever, Humph swings.
His father, C. W. Lyttelton, was a beloved Eton housemaster and teacher of English literature, perhaps generally best known for his published correspondence with Rupert Hart-Davis. As a pupil playing in Eton’s savage Wall Game, C. W. subversively buried the ball in the mud, but the brawling went on without it.
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