Just the one regret

Is he a monster, saint, genius or lunatic? In this massive book Naim Attallah attempts to lay to rest the gossip, slander and misconceptions that have dogged him for much of his life, while also coming clean about his own mistakes and failures.

I have to declare an interest. I was, in the 1980s, one of ‘Naim’s girls’; I am very fond of him indeed, and for several years my father, Auberon Waugh, edited the magazine he once owned, the Literary Review. ‘Naim’s girls’ were a part of London’s social scene and provided Private Eye with one of many reasons to mock ‘Naim Attallah-Disgusting’. We were young, pretty, had ‘names’ and we loved parties. We were not paid very much but we certainly enjoyed ourselves. Other girls included Rebecca Fraser, Nigella Lawson, Virginia Bonham-Carter and Bella Pollen (whom Naim backed in a fashion business). He claims that he employed us to counteract Quartet’s left-wing reputation, which may have been true, but it was no secret that he also wanted to surround himself with beauty. Not only was he a publisher, party-giver and financial director of Aspreys, he was also a film producer (the deeply romantic The Slipper and the Rose) and a theatrical angel (Clive James’s shockingly bad Charles Charming’s Challenges on the Way to the Throne).

The book opens with a dizzying list of people he knew. Princess Margaret, Kenneth More and President Bhutto appear within a few pages. Then he begins to address the serious side. We see the small boy who started out with a hand-stencilled broadsheet in Palestine and who grew up to be one of the most controversial publishers in London.