Auberon Waugh's death at the age of 61 is more sad than surprising. His immediate heredity wasn't promising - his father died at 62, his mother at 57 - and he suffered from ill-health all his life, partly resulting from severe wounds sustained during National Service at the age of 18. That may, in part, have accounted for the acidic personality which made him the most verbally brutal journalist of his age. Everyone who met him remarked on the contrast between his ferocity in print and his personal geniality, but this was hard to explain to those who didn't know him, especially if they had been on the rough end of his pen. Apart from health, his background shaped his career in one other respect. He spent much of his life trying to escape from the shadow of his father, the greatest English novelist of his age. This provided an obvious weapon for Auberon's enemies. Philip Larkin joked about "my projected series, Talentless Sons of Famous Fathers - Waugh, Amis, Fuller...", and for … [Read more...] about Auberon Waugh