The Complete Henry Root Letters

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Henry Root, who made a fortune in wet fish, spent ten years in correspondence with powerful and famous people across Britain. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. He was educated at Winchester College (where he first met Julian Mitchell) and Magdalene College, Cambridge. The cheek and audacity of Henry Root leaps off the page and each anecdote is funnier and more preposterous than the last. Root wrote the BBC – I think Monty Python had his number, the Queen, Prince Charles, various publishing houses.

It consists of real correspondence between an apparently wealthy and eccentric retired fish-merchant, and many public figures to whom he wrote, requesting support for bizarre right-wing proposals. His heroes were few, but those who were, to Root's mind, "sound" - principally Mrs Thatcher, the Dowager Lady Birdwood and James Anderton, "God's Cop", the self-appointed guardian of Greater Manchester's morals. By the way , reading the Private Eye magazine I can't help comparing it's "styles" with those incredible originals scripts, written by Henry Moor. Root first came to my attention more years ago than I care to admit when I was in Denmark and saw the televised version of Root into Europe.a b c "William Donaldson – Womanising satirist and novelist who squandered several fortunes on wild living". Liz Reed - another character created by William Donaldson, Reed's TV production pitches - for shows such as 'Disabled Gladiators' and 'Anglotrash' - in the guise of Heart Felt Productions were collected in the 1998 book, The Heart Felt Letters. Donaldson's biographical survey of roguish Britons through the ages, Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics (2002), has been described as "a breathtaking triumph of misdirected scholarship".

He completed his National Service in the Royal Navy in the late 1950s, reaching the rank of Sub-Lieutenant. He later remembered that "sex, whether in company or not, has been the only department in life in which I have demanded from anyone taking part the very highest standards of seriousness. Published in 1980, what would Henry Root of the wet fish emporium make of the A to Z listers of today.Donaldson lived at 139 Elm Park Mansions on Park Walk, Chelsea, London SW10, from which address all the Root letters were sent. M Godding Books Ltd is an internet book business running from Wiltshire and sending books all over the world every working day. Back in 1979, people with too much time on their hands could send actual letters to leading politicians, judges and other luminaries of light entertainment, and expect a reply. Not only have so many of the people approached here faded from the memory that one can't quite remember why they were laughable, but some of the attitudes verge on bullying and prejudice in a way that's now well beyond the bounds of acceptability by today's mores. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Supposedly a wet fish merchant from Fulham, he is an avatar for a lot of the to-the-right-of-Attila-the-Hun, Thatcher-supporting, mildly racist, entitled, liberal-baiting mansplaining that was de rigeur and absolutely unchallenged in the Spectator/Private Eye yachts and casinos circles that Donaldson frequented. Or saying that Henry Root Junior thought Cliff Richard was working behind the makeup counter at Boots makes me think, but for "Congratulations" go he. I love this book and his laugh out style at trying to rankle celebrities and people in the public eye. You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson, Terence Blacker, Ebury Press, 2007, pp.The letters aren’t really dated, with the exception of certain BBC television stars and the one to the South African Ambassador. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Donaldson's third marriage, in 1986, was to Cherry Hatrick, who survived him; they separated six months after their marriage.