“Perry”, whose column was once essential reading for Conservative Party members, passed away last week, aged 96. Welcome to Tatler. You can opt out at any time or find out more by reading our cookie policy. Peregrine Worsthorne: I was the second person to use the four-letter word on British television and it almost cost me my job at the Daily Telegraph. “I still don’t know why I made such a fool of myself,” he wrote in the liberal newspaper The Guardian in 2004. ‘Just about,’ he replied. Another charming and eloquent editor of my acquaintance, Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, who was briefly editor of The Sunday Telegraph, has been in the news. My Asperger’s son became difficult in his early teens and Perry often asked us to lunch.

“Foolhardiness, I suppose. “Cameron fits into that gentlemanly tradition, but he’s very embarrassed and awkward about it. As a result, I shall be remembered, if at all, as the second person to say” — and here he said it again — “on British TV. I had recently divorced and Perry had just met Lucy, at a party of Cynthia Kee’s. In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. He retired to an old rectory in Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire, where he died on October 3, 2020, aged 96. Perry became a beautiful old man with white hair, white beard and a saintly look. In 1973, in what Mr. Worsthorne had described as a rehearsed and knowingly provocative episode, he appeared on British television and was asked to comment on the likely public reaction to news of a sex scandal involving a Conservative government minister, Lord Lambton, the Earl of Durham (who would, by coincidence, become his father-in-law). This site uses cookies to improve your experience and deliver personalised advertising. Peregrine Worsthorne died peacefully at home on 4 October 2020.

Peregrine Worsthorne died peacefully at home on 4 October 2020. I enjoyed his sense of humour. When he actually said, “Will you marry me,” I was so excited that I ran across the room and jumped into his lap, and as I weigh 13 stone, I expect his knees cracked.’, Sir Peregrine Worsthorne with his wife, Lucinda Lambton, Perry was among the last of Margaret Thatcher’s honours, receiving a knighthood in the 1991 New Year honours list for services to journalism. Print + Digital Only £1 a Month. In that period he also performed military service with a clandestine reconnaissance unit known as Phantom. Chandler Tregaskes, The aristocrat who was ‘part country squire part man-about-town’ with an appetite in equal measure for women, horses and country sports, The last of JFK's siblings has died at the age of 92, By His remark was long credited as only the second use of the word on British television after the theater critic Kenneth Tynan uttered it in 1965 in what became a cause célèbre in a national debate about public morality. He couldn’t forgive the good-natured popular John Julius Norwich for being ‘bland’. At his lunch table two weeks ago, his eyes a vivid blue, he tried to speak, but couldn’t summon the right words. He was considered something of a flâneur and a bohemian, with his tendrils of white, curled hair growing collar-length in old age. The flâneur and bohemian was said to write as he dressed, with great style, By Mr. Worsthorne’s parents divorced when he was 5, and his mother married Sir Montagu Norman, the governor of the Bank of England. I eventually braked outside the gates of Siena saying I couldn’t drive any further. Well, Perry was beautifully looked after in old age by Lucy, Luca and Claire his secretary. But when his father-in-law died in 2006, the older man followed an ancient tradition known as primogeniture and left his entire fortune of some 12 million pounds (about $15.7 million) to his closest male heir — his only son, Ned — ignoring five daughters and his wife. Mr. Worsthorne enjoyed an upper-crust upbringing, attending the Stowe School and spending time as an undergraduate at both Oxford and Cambridge during World War II. On that three-hour visit, I’d asked if he could still read, as the Times was on his knee. You have successfully subscribed to our newsletter. I told Perry she’d talked a lot and rather dominated the small gathering. It is his many kindnesses and gallantry that I shall remember most. “Having backed the hereditary aristocracy all my writing life as a journalist,” Mr. Worsthorne told The Daily Mail, “I feel bitterly disappointed by my brother-in-law’s cruel and selfish behavior toward his sisters. Perry thought this bad form and dishonest; old age was awful, he claimed, as so many friends died or got ill. They were also friends with my ex-husband Andrew Barrow and his future wife Annabel Freyberg and my son first encountered the colourful pair with his dad and stepmother, reporting: ‘Lucy wants her head pickled in a jar’. Educated at Stowe and then on to Cambridge, Wortstone was commissioned into the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, where he had the benefit of also being educated at Oxford when recovering from an injury, under CS Lewis at Magdalen College. His luxury Desert Island Disc item, chosen in 1992, being, even, a lifetime supply of LSD.
In 2013, Mr. Worsthorne publicly supported legal efforts by his wife and two of her sisters to secure a share of the legacy. The Court Circular is your inside track on the latest happenings in the Royal Family, covering the biggest stories shaping the monarchy right now. Sir Peregrine Worsthorne – known as ‘Perry’ to his friends – was only the second person ever to voice an expletive on live television. Perry was among the last of Margaret Thatcher’s honours, receiving a knighthood in the 1991 New Year honours list for services to journalism. by entering your email address, you agree to our privacy policy, The business partner, brother and close friend to Donald Trump, who supported his candidacy ‘one thousand per cent’, has died, By Lord Moore, in the Telegraph’s obituary writes: ‘Perry was one of the most dashing figures of post-war Fleet Street, he was a great companion and a dear friend and will be greatly missed.’. Please refresh and try again. As an observer and admirer of the United States, he wrote in 2014 that he had met eight serving, former or soon-to-be-elected presidents, from Herbert Hoover to the elder George Bush, in a long and tangled relationship with America during which he supported Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade and President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War. Sir Peregrine Worsthorne with his wife, Lucinda Lambton, after his knighthood. Compared by some to Leonard Zelig, the chameleon-like central character in a 1983 Woody Allen movie, Mr. Worsthorne depicted himself as an unabashed elitist. He was powerful, special, popular, intellectual.

His support for McCarthy lost him sympathy both with the administration of President Harry S. Truman and his own editor, who wrote to him “to say that my job in Washington was not to find excuses for Senator McCarthy but to condemn him,” Mr. Worsthorne said. Two weeks earlier I had visited him with my son Nicholas, at his home in Buckinghamshire where he lived with wife Lucinda Lambton and devoted young Croatian carer Luca. He appeared regularly on television as an acerbic and iconoclastic commentator. For decades he had praised the hereditary elite and its role in British history, culture, governance and public life. He wasn’t expecting anything back for his kindness. I’ve travelled with Perry to Ireland (twice) and with him and Lucy to Ireland and Scotland — they had huge amounts of old-fashioned luggage and wore elegant hats. A former editor of the Sunday Telegraph and an ensign-bearer in retirement not only of the past, but also of long-passed notions. His books include “In Defense of Aristocracy,” published in 2004, in which he bemoaned the exclusion of the British aristocracy from public life. He was not averse to confrontation and when someone said at a local dinner that his friend Noel Annan was the fifth man, Perry stood up, demanding that the accuser apologise or he would leave. Nils Jorgensen / Shutterstock. Perry was brought into the garden, with its animal topiary, and we sat with him in the sun. Sorry, you have entered an invalid email. His first journalism job at The Glasgow Herald was blighted by a misunderstanding, he thought a sub-editor, his first job, was second to the editor. “It is because I am so aware of my racism that I feel obliged to be fiercely anti-racist.”. Mr. Worsthorne forecast public indifference, using a four-letter word that later crept into use on cable television and in some general interest publications, but which in 1973 was wholly forbidden. He was unconditionally kind.’. Mr. Worsthorne’s language caused a stir with both the BBC and the owners of the Telegraph newspaper group, very likely costing him any chance of becoming editor of The Daily Telegraph, the flagship of Conservatism at the time.
For many years before and after his editorship he wrote columns for the newspaper, into the late 1990s, surviving several changes of ownership and editors. Contrarianism, he once remarked, was synonymous with “the pure pleasure and enjoyment of annoying people.”. (Lucy was investigating cryogenics). Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne was born on Dec. 22, 1923, in London, the second son of the aristocratic Priscilla Reyntiens and Alexander Koch de Gooreynd, a banker of … Another bête noire was former publisher turned writer Diana Athill, for extolling the pleasures of old age. To be ashamed of that side of our national life is very sad.”. Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne was born on December 22 1923. For an advocate of the aristocracy, Mr. Worsthorne’s second marriage created a cruel irony. Peregrine Worsthorne died not too long ago, at a great age. It is probable that when I first met Perry Worsthorne I was wearing a dress, though thankfully I have no memory of the event. Tatler, Sir Peregrine was married to Claudie Bertrande Baynham until she tragically died of cancer in 1990, he went on to marry Lady Lucinda Lambton a year later (the much-loved, eccentric architectural writer, broadcaster and author of books such as Temples of Convenience, a history of the lavatory).

He looked so sorry when I was on crutches at one of Lucy’s birthday parties and, after he’d given me dinner at the Garrick Club, he put me in a taxi and told the driver: ‘Look after her!’. The Times reports Lucinda’s recollection of Perry’s proposal: ‘The thing I most admired about him, from the beginning, was his elegance of mind and manner. But it is his many kindnesses and gallantry that I shall remember most. Back in England, he joined The Daily Telegraph and rose to editor of its Sunday edition, The Sunday Telegraph, from 1986 to 1989. From a newspaper perch, he championed the British “elite,” lamented the decline of “the gentleman” and made headlines himself with a word that can’t be quoted. Perry seemed pleased to see us. (When I’d mentioned the actress Moyra Fraser, an ex-girlfriend, he’d murmured: ‘She was very special’.). Rebecca Cope, Jeremy Selwyn / Associated Newspapers / Shutterstock.

It was said that he wrote as he dressed, with style and flamboyance, and his editorial style was anything but boring – lauded as a ‘fearless contrarian and an entirely original thinker’ by Lord Moore – as he rose up the journalistic ranks to eventually become editor of the Sunday Telegraph in 1986. His critics long condemned Mr. Worsthorne as a supporter of colonial administration and white supremacists in southern Africa. Two weeks earlier I had visited him with my son Nicholas, at his home in Buckinghamshire … I first met him in the 1990s.


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