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* * * * * * * * * 34 | * * * WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2007

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Bernard Manning, who died this week, pre-empted his critics by writing his own obituary. Here, three Telegraph writers take an irreverent leaf out of his book

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our obituary of the Soho the final word. JEFF GILBERT writing about’’. drinker and writer Jeffrey The obituary is the first draft About life, not death: Bernard Manning’s self-penned obituary omitted certain key facts, such as his date of birth and background details Bernard was followed by an of history, which is why the “add” which he had written circumstances of a death and himself. It was funny and the tributes are elsewhere, on rather charming. But it would the news pages. The qualities SAM LEITH ‘HE PRETENDED NOT TO HAVE GONE TO ETON’ never have done for the for a good obituarist include main obituary. Olympian detachment and The obituaries in The omniscience, coupled with am Leith, who died Leith. He grew up in Surrey fledgling Ephraim Hardcastle “When I did diaries,” he said, diminished figure. He Daily Telegraph are not the ability to make a telling aged 33 last month after and was a King’s Scholar column. The sobriquet “all the writers I admired communicated with friends death notices, written by the judgment: that is one reason Sa short illness, was a at , where he he acquired there, “Sam told me to **** off. Now they only via the internet and families, as they often are why the Telegraph’s are journalist and writer who developed an interest in Sneed”, combining as it does still hate me, but they are seldom left his flat, confining in America. Nor is the obits unsigned. An obituary should squandered the promise suicidal American poets. “sneer” and “snide” with the nice to me at parties.” his expeditions to Brixton’s beat any longer the stamping combine ruthless examination of his early career in a He was known by his suggestion of a Dickensian He published his only Atlantic Road, where he ground of the cub reporter. of the facts and scrupulous succession of dingy pubs, contemporaries as “Gollum” scrivener’s clerk, stuck. It book, Dead Pets (Canongate), was typically seen “wearing That may be why American accuracy in reporting, with and his modest literary or “Toady”, insults he took served him well through the in 2005. An anthology of odd slippers and muttering obituaries can be terrible, an eye for the telling detail talents on a toilet book. Six in good part. He went on to five years he was to spend interesting information about about hammers”. He passed while ours are routinely or the funny story that tells months before his death, he study English at Magdalen as a gossip columnist. He animal mortality designed to Anything Eat Wasps? (Profile, his time watching television regarded as among the best- you something about the was described by his closest College, Oxford, where he joined The Daily Telegraph in hit the Christmas gift market, 2005) began to affect his and submitting unsolicited written, most entertaining deceased’s character. They’re friend as “a complete waste pretended as far as possible 1999, where he remained for it was a moderate critical judgment, and in 2007 he was reviews of imaginary novels and most popular sections about life, after all, not death. of space”. not to have gone to Eton. the rest of his professional success but failed to sell. dismissed from the Telegraph to the Review of the newspaper. But they Leith was born on January He joined Fleet Street career. Retitled in paperback, Daddy, for gross misconduct. of Books. weren’t always. The obituaries Andrew McKie 1, 1974 in London, eldest from university in 1997, He was thought to have Is Timmy in Heaven Now? In later years, as his Owing perhaps to his revolution was begun by this Obituaries Editor son of the writer Penny and cut his teeth assisting been happiest in his early (Canongate, 2006) also failed fondness for Scotch whisky increasing eccentricities, newspaper in 1986 when Junor and the restaurateur his great mentor Peter thirties, when he worked as to sell. Leith’s pathological gave way to a love affair with Leith never married. He is my predecessor, the saintly Obituaries: Page 27 and jigsaw magnate James McKay on the ’s the Telegraph’s literary editor. hatred of the authors of Does Brasso, he cut a somewhat survived by his cat, Henry. CRAIG BROWN ‘SPENT MOST OF HIS LIFE IN PYJAMAS’

raig Brown began life, he poked fun at the use, recycling them in writing jokes aged famous behind their backs. parodic form. Cnine at his prep school, He wrote his first parody Early in his career, he Farleigh House. It was the of the playwright Harold discovered that humour perfect environment for a Pinter aged 14, and was requires minimal research particular form of English still writing parodies of – the less, the better – so humour: the headmaster him some 36 years later. Brown was able to trot out always wore the school His parodies were not five or six articles a week uniform (Start-rite sandals, always taken in good part. for some decades. Every grey flannel shorts, Aertex “Is that who I think it is?” now and then he would get shirt) and the music master Pinter once said to a party out his scissors and paste, used to transport his hostess, spying him across bundle the least timeworn wheelchair-bound girlfriend a busy room. of these old articles to school by attaching a “Why? Do you want to the pop music weeklies, an together, dream up a title rope from her wheelchair to punch him?” asked the unhealthy interest in the suggestive of novelty, and his car. hostess. five-times-a-week goings- have them republished in With his friend Charlie “I wouldn’t want to dirty on at ATV’s Crossroads book form. Alas, the public Miller, who later went to my fists,” scowled Pinter. Motel, an early stint saw through this deceitful work for the BBC, he spent Others who voiced their at autograph hunting ruse, and consistently his free time mimicking the disapproval, sometimes (Derek Nimmo, Engelbert refused to buy them. more outlandish members through solicitors, of his Humperdinck, Mick From time to time, he of the teaching and cleaning efforts on their behalf McManus) and so forth dabbled in other forms – a staff into a small portable included Tracey Emin, – could easily be converted novel here, a radio or TV tape-recorder. He later saw Mohamed Fayed, Janet into lightweight journalism. script there – but without this practice as a more Street-Porter, Sir Tim In 1987-88, he held down any notable success. He was socially acceptable form Rice and Major Ronald what was very nearly a less a long-distance runner of voodoo. As luck would Ferguson. Following proper job, writing the than a sprinter, though in have it, his slim parodic the funeral, a special parliamentary sketch real life he was neither, skill, generally applied to reception with canned for the Times, but after preferring to stay put. those who irritated or upset music will be held for these 18 months he found the Craig Brown spent most him, was to keep him in adversaries, affording them commuting too taxing (he of his life in his pyjamas, good stead for the rest of the opportunity to dance had always lived in the either at his desk or in his days: he once defined on his grave. countryside) and threw in bed, reading. He divided writing as “turning your As a humorist, Craig the towel. Yet he retained his time between Swindon worst enemies into money”. Brown was soon to discover an interest in politicians, and Ipswich. He was of an From poking fun at that the time-wasting though not in politics, and irritable disposition and, teachers behind their backs, pursuits of his childhood would often put their major like so many humorists, he matured; in his adult – obsessive reading of all speeches to profitable often failed to see the joke. HILARY ALEXANDER ‘WAS SHE A SECRET WOGAN “TOG’’?’

hey found her slumped fashion director of The Daily She had been covering over her Apple Mac… a Telegraph, a secret “TOG”, a show the night before by Thalf-smoked Marlboro aka tired old git? a little-known designer, Light still smouldering in the The flickering glow of a staged in a disused garage ashtray beside her. She was Matthew Williamson candle somewhere near the wearing her favourite tribal illuminated the prints by the Hammersmith flyover. The gear of gipsy skirt decorated fireplace – a Maori chieftain scorched running order with bells and beads and in feathered cape with facial – burns were very “in” that a Mongolian jacket, a relic tattoos, one of the hints to her year – lay alongside her from some long-ago fashion birth many moons ago in the laptop. She had scrawled a location trip where they far reaches of New Zealand. big “X” alongside several had camped in yurts on the They jostled for space on numbers – 3, an octagonal shores of Lake Khövsgöl and the old brick wall with an sofa-dress in multifunctional photographed bridal gowns Ecuadorian machete (she Karl Lagerfeld wearing his nylon; 12, a pink shagpile among reindeers and the had been a hippy in South Comme des Garçons suit and coat with five sleeves; and reindeer people. America); an antique Chinese a pair of Hunter wellies; with 22, the finale, a bridal dress Her shoes – Kurt Geiger opium pipe (acquired when Linda Evangelista, Claudia constructed entirely from patent platform sandals she had lived in Hong Kong) Schiffer and the Beckhams. recycled semi-skimmed milk – were kicked off. It was and what looked like a pair of Not that her interests were containers with matching obvious why: a large blister nipple tassels… confined to the catwalk. ankle boots. had formed on both heels. Photographs crammed Underneath her notebook, the She had begun to write Thumper, her adored black on top of the piano were Telegraph cryptic crossword her story. “This show, and white moggy, snoozed evidence of a life in fashion: was almost complete – save which plumbed both the blissfully unaware on the in the front row at John for that devilish 28 across heights and the depths Kazakhstan rug. The lilting Galliano’s first haute couture – “common mare, cuts of pretension, touched a tones of Terry Wogan on show for Christian Dior; transport (9)’’ – one clue she chord…” But did she like Radio 2 whispered around with Donatella Versace and never got. Her secateurs and it? We may never know. The the room. Was Alexander, the Giorgio Armani; dancing with garden gloves also lay nearby. truth died with her.