31 Facts About Alan Clark

Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative Member of Parliament, author and diarist.

Alan Clark served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade and Defence.

Alan Clark became a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1991.

Alan Clark was born at 55 Lancaster Gate, London, the elder son of art historian Kenneth Clark, who was of Scottish parentage, and his wife Elizabeth Winifred Clark, who was Irish.

Alan Clark's sister and brother, fraternal twins Colette and Colin, were born in 1932.

Alan Clark was one of the seventy boys rescued when the school building was destroyed by fire in May 1939.

Alan Clark then went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Modern History under Hugh Trevor-Roper, obtaining a third-class honours degree.

Alan Clark was called to the bar in 1955 but did not practise law.

Alan Clark's first book, The Donkeys, was a revisionist history of the British Expeditionary Force's campaigns at the beginning of the First World War.

Alan Clark describes the battle scenes, and criticises the actions of several of the generals involved in the heavy loss of life that occurred.

Alan Clark was unable to find the origin of the expression.

Alan Clark prefaced the book with a supposed dialogue between two generals and attributed the dialogue to the memoirs of German general Erich von Falkenhayn.

In developing his work, Alan Clark became close friends with historian Basil Liddell Hart, who acted as his mentor.

Field Marshal Montgomery later told Alan Clark it was "A Dreadful Tale: You have done a good job in exposing the total failure of the generalship".

Alan Clark went on to publish several more works of military history through the 1960s, including Barbarossa in 1965 examining the Operation Barbarossa offensive of the Second World War; he tried his hand at novel writing, but none of the subsequent books were as commercially successful or drew the same attention as The Donkeys had achieved, and he abandoned the path of military history in the mid-1970s to pursue a professional career in national politics.

Alan Clark unsuccessfully sought the Conservative selection for Weston super-Mare in 1970, missing out to Jerry Wiggin.

Alan Clark subsequently became MP for Plymouth Sutton at the February 1974 general election with a majority of 8,104, when Harold Wilson took over from Edward Heath as prime minister of a minority Labour government.

At the General Election in October 1974, when Labour gained a small overall majority, Alan Clark's vote fell by 1,192 votes, but he still had a comfortable majority with 5,188.

Alan Clark was still a member of the Monday Club in May 1975.

Alan Clark received his first ministerial posting as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Employment in 1983, where he was responsible for moving the approval of regulations relating to equal pay in the House of Commons.

In 1986, Alan Clark was promoted to Minister for Trade at the Department of Trade and Industry.

Alan Clark left Parliament in 1992 following Margaret Thatcher's fall from power.

Alan Clark became bored with life outside politics and returned to Parliament as member for Kensington and Chelsea in the election of 1997, becoming critical of NATO's campaign in the Balkans.

Alan Clark held strong views on British unionism, racial difference, social class, and was in support of animal rights, nationalist protectionism and Euroscepticism.

Alan Clark once declared: "It is natural to be proud of your race and your country", and in a departmental meeting, allegedly referred to Africa as "Bongo Bongo Land".

Alan Clark described the National Front chairman, John Tyndall, as "a bit of a blockhead".

Alan Clark was a passionate supporter of animal rights, joining activists in demonstrations at Dover against live export, and outside the House of Commons in support of Animal Liberation Front hunger-striker Barry Horne.

Alan Clark kept a regular diary from 1955 until August 1999 when he was incapacitated due to the onset of the brain tumour which was to be the cause of his death a month later.

Alan Clark died at Saltwood Castle on 5 September 1999, aged 71, after suffering from a brain tumour.

Alan Clark's body was buried in the grounds of the castle.

In 2004, John Hurt portrayed Clark in the BBC's The Alan Clark Diaries, reigniting some of the controversies surrounding their original publication and brought his name into the British press and media.