Who's roughly who
Patrick Marnham
veryone is diminished by their entry in
the new Who's Who (£40, and 4 lbs), which has been reset in type so small that its large proportion of older readers may have to use a magnifying glass. The smaller typeface has saved about 400 pages and half a pound. It is a relief to see that even now CARTLAND, Barbara (Hamilton), occupies 32 lines over a column, which is 30 lines more than Lord Olivier. That includes her triumphant last line, by far the most roman- tic line in her entire entry ('Love is an Eagle', 'Love is the Enemy', 'Cupid Rides Pillion'): this is 'See also Countess Spencer'. For if one does turn to 'SPENCER, Countess', the line above her entry reads, `See also under Royal Family'. So much for the late HEYER, Georgette.
The new entries include the delicious sim- mori-os, Posy, formerly of Queen Anne's School, Caversham and L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paree; but one has to face the fact that in real life she is Mrs Richard Hollis. She is the only cartoonist I could find apart from Giles and Wally Fawkes. SCARFE, Gerald, is in but he is an 'artist', 1982 also marks the debut of WHARTON, Michael Ber- nard, otherwise know as Peter Simple, who emerges as ten years older than he looks, a former member of the General Staff (rank unstated), a former BBC producer, and the author of Sheldrake, a novel, published in 1958, which should cause a rush for the Spectator's Books Wanted column.
MOUNT, William Robert Ferdinand, ap- pears for the first time; so does MCGOUGH, Roger, so does YOUNG, Hugo, just in time for his scandalous demotion in the hierar- chy of the Sunday Times, and how strange that he should have been christened 'Smelter'; keeping that quiet at Ampleforth in 1952 must have cost him a few packets of Sobranie Black Russian.
There is a second ILK, Alistair Charles William Forsyth of that, so 'Sir Ian Mon- erieffe of that' will have to look to his decanters if he is not to find himself sharing some of the publicity allotted to official Scottish eccentrics. KILMARTIN, Terence Kevin, after 30 years at the mill as literary editor of the Observer finally makes it, aged 60, presumably as the re-translator of Proust, which might be described as getting in the hard way. McEWAN, Ian Russell, ag- ed 34, is also in, which could not be so described. Mr McEwan is the author of a
handful of highly praised and extremely short novels, one of which did not win last year's Booker Prize. Salman Rushdie, who did win the Booker Prize, is not included.
How touching that a grandee like JAY, Peter, should continue to list his triumph as `TV Male Personality of Year, 1974'. How odd that the TV Female Personality of the same year, Esther Rantzen, does not appear at all, despite her numerous heroic labours. How even odder that her husband WILCOX, Desmond, should continue to put himself forward as the author of Explorers, when the BBC had to withdraw the book and pay out £60,000 in costs and damages because that book was compiled from the writings of other authors even more distinguished than Mr Wilcox. His decigion to list the book after such a disaster tells us more about him than anything else in his entry.
What some people forget is also of in- terest. A large number of distinguished gentlemen semi to have forgotten the existence of their previous wives. This may be understandable but hardly assists the purposes of the volume. I noticed, on fac- ing pages, a mother who fails to mention her only child and her son who fails to men- tion either of his remarkable parents. CHANCELLOR, Alexander, seems to have
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