Alan Clark: The Biography

by IonTrewin (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2010

  $3.33

  Celebrated diarist, famous womaniser, Tory MP and controversial minister - a castle-owning toff and lecherous cad to some, to others a colourful and life-enhancing figure - Alan Clark was politically incorrect before the term was invented. He is best remembered for his sensational diaries - but what of the man? Alan Clark rarely spoke about his upbringing, even to his family. Was it as unhappy as he hinted? Ion Trewin has had unrestricted access to extensive family papers (including twenty years of unpublished diaries). He has talked to politicians, to those who knew him at the prep school which burnt down, to friends at Eton and Oxford, and to some of the many women he found impossible to resist despite a loving marriage of forty-one years. From his struggles to teach himself to write to formidable historian and diarist, from his enthusiasm for Margaret Thatcher to the 'drunk at the Commons dispatch box' affair, ALAN CLARK THE BIOGRAPHY is a revealing and absorbing account of a remarkable and unforgettable man.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2009

  $3.33

  Although Alan Clark died in 1999 his reputation lives on - a TV series (John Hurt as Alan) gave BBC4 its first million+ audience. His diaries (3 vols) sold more than half a million copies. A noted historian, he was Tory MP for Plymouth Sutton and controversial minister under Mrs Thatcher; later MP for Kensington & Chelsea. His biographer has drawn on an Aladdin's cave of papers at the Clarks' Saltwood Castle home in Kent. Ion Trewin tells an enthralling story of the life that Clark himself chose not to discuss: an unhappy childhood with neglectful parents (his art historian father Kenneth Clark, best known for his 'Civilisation' TV series). Fire destroyed his first school; he endured wartime Eton, at Oxford he read history under Hugh Trevor-Roper and drove large cars (he was known as 'Klaxon' Clark). His parents insisted he read law; passing his exams at the 3rd attempt, he never practised. His first novel - accepted on the 13th submission - was pulped because of libel, but went on to gain praise. The Donkeys, his first work of history, brought down the wrath of military historians. Clark changed course and into politics in his forties. Readers may think they know Clark's political life from his diaries, but Clark himself neglected to tell all, about Mrs T's downfall, the Matrix Churchill arms to Iraq scandal and much more. He adored women - Trewin has tracked down his first great love, a ballet dancer, and his last infatuation - and courted a schoolgirl he first met when she was 16 and he 30. This was Jane, to whom he remained married - if not faithfully - until his death from a brain tumour in 1999. The extent of his extra-marital escapades is now revealed. Here for the first time the unknown Alan Clark stands revealed.