The incomparably unco-operative Max
William Camp
The author of The Glittering Prizes recalls that his own dealings with Lord Beaverbrook proved less enjoyable than those described by Robert Rhodes-James in The Spectator (19-26 December 1998).
In 1960 I had agreed to take over a biog- raphy of F. E Smith, on which no work had been done, from Frank Owen, one of Lord Beaverbrook's more bibulous acolytes. This study of Beaverbrook's fellow-rascal (who was made Earl of Birkenhead by Lloyd George in 1922) had been commissioned by MacGibbon & Kee, then owned by the left-wing property magnate Howard Samuel; if he didn't also own Tribune, Samuel was treated as if he did and was admired by both Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot. As a Tribune contributor, I also knew Beaverbrook's two younger left- wing devotees, Bob Edwards and Robert Pitman; so, while I badly needed to consult Beaverbrook for the biography, I felt I hardly needed to beat a path to his door. But my letter to him was intercepted by his henchman, A. G. Millar, who told me not to expect a response for several weeks. Imagine my pleasure when, only a day or two later, I received (unknown to Millar) the following from La Capponcina, Cap d'Ail:
The book will be a fascinating task for you. And I am sorry I cannot help you at the pre- sent time. However, on my return to London I will try to arrange a meeting with you.
Yours sincerely, Beaverbrook.
Knowing how much he admired FE, I didn't mention those aspects of FE's life on which he could, had he wanted to, shed fascinating light. A date for my interview was fixed and I was almost en route for Beaverbrook's West End pad in Arlington House behind the Ritz, when Millar phoned to say he was no longer willing to see me. No reason was given but, soon enough, the Londoner's Diary in the Evening Standard solved the mystery. Under the heading `No Interview', the paragraph read:
In order to write his coming biography of F.E. Smith, the first Lord Birkenhead, Mr William Camp states that he has interviewed many of Smith's contemporaries and talked with his close friends. One close friend with whom Camp did not talk was Lord Beaver- brook. An application was made for Camp to have an interview and Lord Beaverbrook at first agreed. But then he heard that the biog- raphy was to be a hostile one. The interview was swiftly cancelled. Lord Beaverbrook objected to a book that was hostile to Lord Birkenhead.
He was wrong. I was not seeking to write a hostile book but I did want to provide a more balanced account of a number of controversial events which the only biogra- phy (by his son Freddie) to have appeared since the time of his death in 1930 either skirted over or did not mention, like the notorious 'Glittering Prizes' speech, the trial and condemnation of Casement and FE's involvement in the sale of honours. I barely alluded to his love life, though I did record how, like his father before him, he died of drink.
But to return to Beaverbrook. Having been denounced in advance in the London- er's Diary, I was attacked in a longer item in the same columns the moment the book, The Glittering Prizes, was published, under the heading 'A Book to Condemn'. I shared the odium with the BBC whose Tonight television programme was castigat- ed for 'just publicising' the book instead of, presumably, taking a lead from William Barkley (a well-known Beaverbrook hack of that time) who had written a whole page of excoriation elsewhere in the paper. I naturally expected to be damned in the Telegraph (`sensational trash') where the owner's wife, FE's younger daughter, Lady Pamela Berry (Hartwell), held sway, though I doubt if she had time to read the book or any part of it; when Peregrine Worsthorne arrived at their house bearing a copy, she promptly flung it into a stove.
Despite Beaverbrook's efforts to blacken me, reviews in other papers were mostly favourable, just as most of my sources had proved co-operative and fruitful. One, however, became increasingly apoplectic after letting his hair down. This was Lord Harry McGowan, FE's surviving crony who had come to his financial rescue in the Twenties by making him a director of ICI, of which McGowan was chairman, at a salary of £5,000 a year. When FE died in 1930, his ICI board agenda papers were returned to McGowan unopened; FE had not attended a single meeting. Much to McGowan's disgust, I refused to omit this incident and I think it could have been through McGowan that Beaverbrook was alerted. Their favourite rascal had had to be protected from both bankruptcy and inebriation while he was alive; 30 years on, their vigil continued.
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