Television
Pronounced sharpness
Alexander Chancellor
To all those who would like to pro- nounce Lord Althorp's name as 'Ultrop' or `Oltrup', the answer was given by Miss Anne Diamond on breakfast television last Tuesday; it is pronounced 'Althorp'. That, at any rate, is how Lord Althorp, brother of the Princess of Wales and heir to Earl Spencer, pronounces his own name, and that is good enough for me. It will not, of course, be good enough for lots of other people who have been persuaded by the popular press that an aristocrat is someone who is chained to a family motto in a foreign language and whose name is not pronounced as it is written.
Another thing which people like the viewers of TV-am tend to believe about the younger members of the aristocracy is that they are only too likely to be addicted to drugs. Whether or not there is more drug addiction in this circle than in any other social group is something which I do not know, but the popular press again has created the impression that there is. In their reporting of the tragic death of Olivia Channon, many newspapers have painted a picture of generalised decadence among the richer under-graduates at Oxford, with the implication that their traditional revel- ries now conventionally extend beyond the excessive consumption of alcohol to the excessive consumption of drugs. When, therefore, Lord Althorp is mentioned as a friend of Olivia Channon and as a guest at the party of Count Bismarck after which she died, this is enough to make many readers jump to groundless conclusions.
Lord Althorp's 'exclusive' appearance on TV-am's Good Morning Britain was billed in advance as an occasion on which he would appeal to the young of Britain to steer clear of these dangerous substances. He did, indeed, do precisely that. But his principal motive seemed to be to defend the reputation of his university. Ninety- nine per cent of Oxford undergraduates, he said, could not afford drugs and were more concerned about where the next cup of coffee was coming from — a perfectly plausible statement in the light of what we have been told about the penury endured by many students nowadays. But he may have gone a little too far when he added: `At Oxford the people who take drugs are about three or four people mostly uncon- nected with the university . . . If the incidence of drug-taking at Oxford were really as low as that, it would be a very unusual place. However, he did well to appear on television and say what he did (though why he chose TV-am to say it on is another matter). He was totally convincing about his own hostility to drugs — a point which required emphasising in the light of his close relationship to the royal family. And he was equally convincing in denoun- cing the absurd exaggerations of the press in its portrayal of high life at Oxford. Lord Althorp declared at one point that his ambition was to go into politics, but only after he was 40 years old and had proved himself as a man deserving of attention. Miss Diamond was amused by the idea that he might become Prime Minister while his sister was Queen, but he discounted this suggestion. His ambition was merely to sit in the House of Lords. He has, however, some of the qualities of a good politician. He dealt well and in a dignified manner with questions about what it was like to be his sister's brother. And he was particularly good at handling the whole string of predictable questions which come under the heading: 'Aren't you ashamed of being so rich and grand when most people are so poor? And if you are not, shouldn't you be?'
He was even questioned about the hippy convoy. Would he have allowed the hip- pies to camp on his huge estate? He said he would have been guided in all matters strictly by the law. Did he not, however, sympathise with some of the ideals and beliefs of the hippies? He said he was unfortunately too unfamiliar with these to be able to give an answer. Altogether, he seemed both an amiable and rather a sharp young man.
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