Polymath or psychopath?

They don’t make Englishmen like the aptly named John Freeman any more. When he died last Christmas just shy of his centenary, the obituaries — once they had expressed astonishment that this titan from the age of Attlee and empire had still been around —paid tribute to a polymath whose achievements could fill nine more ordinary lives.

Freeman was a pioneer of television, virtually inventing the TV celebrity interview. He was a leading politician — the last surviving member of the 1945 Labour government; a diplomat — at one time our man in Washington and High Commissioner in India; a much decorated war hero; and — not least — a renowned swordsman between the sheets, boasting four wives and innumerable girlfriends.

For his tenacious biographer Hugh Purcell, Freeman was also a quarry to be ruthlessly hunted down. Purcell had long been fascinated that a figure who was once a household name could vanish into obscurity in his own lifetime, leaving nothing behind but his wives and children — and fading film of his famous TV confrontations with the likes of C.G.