A Scribbler in Soho – A Celebration of Auberon Waugh
Kate Kellaway
I found it impossible to read this book without thinking of Auberon Waugh – ‘Bron’ – at his untidy desk in the offices of Literary Review, at 51 Beak Street in Soho and picturing his reaction to it. There would have been embarrassed laughter (he did do embarrassment) and a perhaps slightly incredulous but amused pleasure that the magazine’s publisher, Naim Attallah, should dedicate a book to him. He would have been touched, that is for sure. Bron died in January 2001, aged 61, and the reason I can imagine his reaction so clearly is that for nine happy months (1986-87) that exist in my memory more as a literary party than a job, I was his deputy on Literary Review and watched him across the room – relishing his company and his reactions to (almost) everything.
Attallah uncorks his festschrift by describing Waugh as ‘my cherished friend, my mentor in many ways and, above all, my hero’. And if praise prevails, this is fitting, for what is seldom noted about Bron is that praise was often the best joke of all, effusion entertainment. There is an amusing extract here in which he enthuses over Maria Attallah’s sex shop in Mayfair, Aphrodisia, which opened in 1989, listing its contents and adding absurd embellishments of his own. If he is to be believed, she was selling ‘silk damask copes with gold fringes for those with religious fantasies’.
I swiftly learned that what Bron most feared was boredom. If he had commissioned a piece (as sometimes happened) from a pretty girl he had met on a train who turned out not to be able to write, or from an unspeakable bordering-on-fascist acquaintance, the only way to be sure it would not appear would be to yawn and pronounce it ‘dull’.
Politically, we were miles apart. I didn’t share his view of poetry either (though it made me laugh). He would bang on about how all poetry must rhyme yet continued to employ Carol Rumens as an accomplished poet and editor whose views broke all his rules. He rejoiced in saying one thing while, sometimes, subversively tolerating another. I loved his generosity (‘You’re looking a bit peaky, Kate. Let’s lunch at Wheelers. Fish is good for the brain’) and his loathing of self-importance. This is evident in several of his ‘From the Pulpit’ columns in Literary Review (they occupy almost half of this book). What is most striking is the loyal persistence of his efforts to rustle up money for the magazine and the Academy Club. Even his duty-doing writing entertained.
Attallah’s book starts off with a charming yet more or less superfluous extract from Arthur Ransome’s Bohemia in London (1907). We then hang about in court for a lengthy chapter which resuscitates the old libel cases with which Waugh was obsessed. It is amazing to learn that several of Waugh’s enemies were persuaded to contribute to Literary Review. But there were exceptions. One lunchtime, Bron asked me to ring Anthony Powell to ask him to review a book about cats. Innocent of the feud between the two men and a Powell devotee myself – I was doubtful as to whether this was a good idea. But I did as I was told and got an earful – what was I doing phoning at lunchtime? And no, he would not like to review a book about cats. I was mortified. Bron was vastly amused.