38 Facts About Auberon Waugh

Auberon Alexander Waugh was a British journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh.

Auberon Waugh went on to study for a year at Oxford University.

Auberon Waugh was born at Pixton Park, near Dulverton in Somerset, his mother's ancestral home.

Auberon Waugh was the eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh, grandson of the author and publisher Arthur Waugh and nephew of Alec Waugh.

Auberon Waugh's mother was Laura Herbert, his father's second wife, a daughter of Colonel Aubrey Herbert of Pixton, diplomat and traveller, a younger son of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, of Highclere Castle in Hampshire, a leading member of the Conservative Party, by his second wife Elizabeth Howard, a great-niece of Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk, and a sister of Esme Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Penrith, ambassador to the United States.

Auberon Waugh was named after Auberon Herbert, his mother's brother, a landowner and advocate of Eastern European causes after World War II, himself named after Auberon Herbert, a son of the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon.

Auberon Waugh's nickname used by friends and family was "Bron".

Auberon Waugh's parents being Roman Catholics, he was educated at the Benedictine Downside School in Somerset and passed his Greek and Latin A-level exams at the early age of fifteen.

Auberon Waugh went on to begin a philosophy, politics, and economics degree at Christ Church, Oxford, where he held an exhibition in English.

Auberon Waugh was rusticated by the academic authorities, and never returned to the university, preferring to make an early start in journalism.

Auberon Waugh was first treated for his injuries at Nicosia General Hospital.

Auberon Waugh strongly criticised Harold Wilson's government, especially the foreign secretary Michael Stewart, for colluding in the use of mass starvation as a political weapon.

Auberon Waugh was sacked from The Spectator in 1970, but with the support of Bernard Levin and others, he won damages for unfair dismissal in a subsequent action.

Auberon Waugh was opposed to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and criticised the Church that emerged from it.

Auberon Waugh was often critical of Archbishops Basil Hume and Derek Worlock.

Auberon Waugh wrote for the New Statesman, British Medicine and various newspapers.

Auberon Waugh became known for his Private Eye diary, which ran from the early 1970s until 1985, and which he described as "specifically dedicated to telling lies".

Auberon Waugh fitted in well with the Eye, although he made clear his particular dislike of the Labour government of the 1970s.

Auberon Waugh was himself a candidate at the 1979 election, indulging another of his pet hates, former Liberal Leader Jeremy Thorpe, who was about to stand trial for conspiracy to murder in a scandal that Auberon Waugh had helped to expose.

Auberon Waugh stood against Thorpe for the Dog Lovers' Party in North Devon, and Thorpe obtained an injunction against the distribution of Auberon Waugh's election literature; but despite this The Spectator and The Guardian both printed it in full.

Auberon Waugh polled only 79 votes, but Thorpe lost his seat.

Auberon Waugh left Private Eye in 1986 when Ian Hislop succeeded Richard Ingrams as editor.

Auberon Waugh tended to be identified with a defiantly anti-progressive, small-c conservatism, opposed to "do-gooders" and social progressives.

Auberon Waugh has been called a nostalgist and a romantic, with a strong tendency towards snobbery, although his anarchistic streak ensured that he retained the admiration of a number of people whom he would have considered "progressive" or "leftish", including Francis Wheen, who vociferously disagreed with Toynbee's obituary comments.

Auberon Waugh confesses that he immensely enjoyed torturing Pound in the madhouse with letters asking what passages in The Cantos might mean.

Auberon Waugh broadly supported Margaret Thatcher in her first years as prime minister, but by 1983 he became disillusioned by the government's economic policy, which he felt used the destructive economics and cultural ideas of the New Right.

When Thatcher became a strong public opponent of his friend and Sunday Telegraph editor Peregrine Worsthorne, Auberon Waugh became a staunch opponent of Thatcher.

Auberon Waugh had a house in France and, despite his conservatism, was a fervent supporter of European integration and the single currency, which he saw as a means of de-Americanising the UK.

Auberon Waugh said that his ideal government would be a "junta of Belgian ticket inspectors".

Auberon Waugh opposed anti-tobacco smoking legislation and in his later years he was highly critical of Labour attempts to ban fox hunting.

Auberon Waugh held that while the dangers of smoking and drinking were exaggerated, the dangers of hamburger eating were seriously under-reported; he frequently referred to "hamburger gases" as a serious form of atmospheric pollution and even made references to the dangers of "passive hamburger eating".

Auberon Waugh claimed that computer games "produce all the symptoms and most known causes of cancer".

Auberon Waugh posed for photos with a cigarette in his hand.

In 1961, Auberon Waugh married Lady Teresa Onslow, daughter of the 6th Earl of Onslow.

Auberon Waugh wrote five novels before giving up writing fiction, partly in protest at the inadequate money authors received from public lending rights at libraries and partly because he knew he would always be compared unfavourably to his father.

Auberon Waugh wrote a book about the Thorpe case, The Last Word, and a book about Biafra, Biafra: Britain's Shame, co-written with Suzanne Cronje.

Auberon Waugh made several programmes for ATV in the 1970s.

Auberon Waugh's health declined considerably throughout the final months of his life, and died from heart failure at Combe Florey House on 16 January 2001, at the age of 61.