Obituaries

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Jeanne Campbell, RIP: Forget Not

John F Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev, Fidel Castro, Lord Beaverbrook, Oswald Moseley, Claus von Bulow, Norman Mailer, J Paul Getty, Randolph Churchill, Henry Luce, Gore Vidal, the Beatles and Napoleon Bonaparte… Just some of the names appearing in this Daily Telegraph obituary of a remarkable and entertaining (yet oddly melancholy) life: Lady Jeanne Campbell , who has died aged 78, was a journalist who reported for the Evening Standard from New York for many years; she was also the former wife of Norman Mailer, the daughter of the reprobate 11th Duke of Argyll and the favourite granddaughter of Lord Beaverbrook. As a journalist she covered the funeral of John F Kennedy

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Bounders in clubland

I have been remiss, gentle reader, in failing to post another corker from The Daily Telegraph’s obituary pages. Lord Michael Pratt, who has died aged 61, will be remembered as one of the last Wodehouseian figures to inhabit London’s clubland and as a much travelled author who pined for the days of Empire; he will also be remembered as an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale. Pratt would arrive at country houses announcing that he was en route to another castle or (even larger) stately home, and was intending to stay for only one night. Quite often the “night” would turn into weeks, and sometimes months. Although

Friday

Alex Massie

Bill Deedes: off-stone for good now

Few journalists merit memorials; Bill Deedes, who died today aged 94, is an exception to that general rule. Most famously, he was the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh’s William Boot in Scoop*, but Lord Deedes was more than that. A Telegraph institution, editor of the paper, former cabinet minister, roving reporter, winner of the Military Cross, Denis Thatcher’s golf partner, and one hell of a journalist to, er, boot. He wrote about every Prime Minister from Ramsay Macdonald(!) to Tony Blair and continued to report until the end. Three years ago, aged 91, he was still on the road, travelling to Darfur – the subject of his final column for the