Product Description

Drawing on a rich selection of private papers and hours of interviews with Deedes and his contemporaries, Stephen Robinson charts brilliantly the depths and shallows of the life of the man who inspired Evelyn Waugh's hapless reporter William Boot in Scoop and was the recipient of Private Eye's famous Dear Bill letters. Deedes was also a husband and father of five and Robinson explores the rumour and reality with equal measure to reveal the true character of one of the most extraordinary men to have graced the pages of the British national press.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162412 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Review
'...beautifully written but fair rather than fond. Robinson must be applauded for unearthing so much new information.' - Lynn Barber, The Daily Telegraph 'Robinson writes clearly and sparely, and the book reads well ... Masterly' - Sunday Telegraph 'This intelligently probing and well-written authorised biography ... succeeds definitively' - Spectator

SPECTATOR
`This intelligently probing and well-written authorised biography . . . succeeds definitively'

DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Beautifully written . . . Robinson must be applauded for unearthing so much new information'

Customer Reviews

Superb Account
Even for those with no connection to the journalistic canon, Bill Deedes has always proved an inspirational and somewhat legendary figure. Robinson, an exceptionally gifted former Daily Telegraph writer and close personal friend of his subject for decades, cleverly peels back the many layers of the Deedes persona to posthumously reveal a far more complex and enigmatic character than appeared in life. Written with a reporter's eye for detail, and a novelist's command of the language, The Remarkable Lives of Bill Deedes offers a unique and not uncritical insight into Fleet Street's so-called Patron Saint. This biography cannot be recommended too highly.

Knockout
I must admit that I knew and worked with Bill Deedes, but that only makes me appreciate this exceptional biography even more. Stephen Robinson gets the mixture of war hero, journalistic legend and Evelyn Waugh inspiration spot on.

Warts and All


Stephen Robinson's biography of W F "Bill" Deedes is a masterpiece. No flattering portrait this, just an honest "warts and all" examination of someone who had several remarkable careers despite lacking many skills other than those of the army subaltern. Deedes was deferential to the point of diffidence, frequently bored and took full advantage of the nepotism that led him to journalism as the first member of his family for five hundred years to actually take a job. Nepotism got him into the newspaper industry and his reputation for not rocking the boat kept him there even after the Daily Telegraph was taken over by Conrad Black and by the end the Barclay brothers. His judgement was frequently at fault (his role in the Profumo Affair was discreditable) and his attitude to his family was so distant at times one wonders how he managed to father five children.

If Deedes was on occasion a moral coward, failing to stand up for what was right, no one could deny his physical courage which earned him a Military Cross of which he rarely spoke and even then in self depreciating terms. His personality was insular and this insularity (the enjoyment of the company he chose rather than that which family and friends would choose for him) was sufficient to sustain him. Robinson's pithy characterisation of Deedes as being "without pomposity or self importance (who) never believed politicians or journalists should take themselves too seriously" catches the self-sufficient flavour of the man.

One suspects that he felt he was a hostage to fate as in the final forty eight hours of the second world war a shell fell within yards of him but failed to explode. "Deedes was one technical malfunction away from being killed". Like many survivors Deedes never forgot the sadness of war, the young men who died whereas he had survived. For at a time during the war itself he was highly critical of the politicians who had brought it about but returned to his One Nation Conservativism by 1945.

Deedes was also worried (despite being comfortably off) of falling into genteel poverty. He was generous to many people (other than his immediate family) but despite temptations never strayed from his own unhappy marriage vows unlike many MP's. His working relationship with Victoria Combe raised many eyebrows but by then Deedes was in his eighties and he remained too conventional to change the habits of a lifetime. He was so amiable and likeable on a personal level that no one guessed his lack of intimacy with his own children or the selfishness which led to the breakdown of his marriage. He shook hands with his grandchildren rather than hugged them.

The book also serves as a social history recording things which some would prefer were forgotten including the refusal of dockers to load ships during the Normandy invasion although the reasons for the refusal are not absolutely clear. It also recalls Deedes having to sell the family silver in pre-NHS days in order to pay for blood transfusions for his son who was born with asplastic anaemia and died aged twenty three. Most telling perhaps was the "Dear Bill" personna created by the public schoolboy pranksters of Private Eye. The characterisation of the privileged by the privileged.

A throughly honest book. By far the most readable and honest biography I've had the pleasure to read in many a long day. Whether one likes Bill Deedes is irrelevant. What matters is the accuracy of the record and in that respect Robinson rightly deserves the fullest praise and maximum number of stars.