Anecdotes

Grandfather of six.

Father of Margaret Sophia Laura (b. 1962), Alexander Evelyn Michael (b. 1963), Daisy Louisa Dominica (b. 1967) and Nathaniel Thomas Biafra (b. 1968).

Son of writer Evelyn Waugh and Laura Laetitia Herbert.

After he was asked to leave Oxford University, his father told him that there were now only two professions left open to him - schoolmaster or spy.

He was best-known for his contributions to "Private Eye", the British satirical magazine, between 1970 and 1986. He left it to become the editor of "The Literary Review", a magazine he edited until his death.

As a young man, whilst doing his National Service in the army (in those days mandatory), he contrived to shoot himself in the chest at point-blank range whilst fiddling with a machine-gun. Somehow, he managed to survive, though he had a long stay in hospital and had a lung removed and also part of his spleen. His injuries meant that he was a frequent hospital patient throughout his life and they eventually led to his relatively early death.

He was loved by his admirers, but never short of enemies, some of whom remained vindictive after his death. The journalist Polly Toynbee, very soon after his passing, wrote a devastating obituary article outlining her hatred for him, and several journalists subsequently hinted that, during his 40-year marriage, he had been a frequent adulterer. When the journalist Susan Barnes died, a few years after him, she was routinely referred to in several obituaries as Waugh's mistress. In fact, this turned out not to be true.