Farewell, Alexander

The editor of The Oldie, Alexander Chancellor, died on 28th January. Craig Brown pays tribute to his great friend, the natural journalist who retained a child’s sense of mischief.

No more that laugh, that wonderful, infectious laugh, that laugh that told you that life was essentially a comedy, and nothing mattered quite as much as people thought it did.

People keep calling it inimitable, but that never stops them trying to imitate it. Gyles Brandreth described it as a giggle, Taki as a screech. Charles Moore thought it was like a schoolboy imitating a machinegun, the journalist Jemima Lewis like a duck being tickled. It reminded the Oldie publisher, James Pembroke, of Muttley’s laugh from Wacky Races.

It was always unwise to take Alexander at his own estimation – he was almost clinically self-deprecating – but, if it’s true that he never quite grew up, then the rest of us were the beneficiaries. And, to the very last day of his life, Alexander retained a child’s capacity for delight, a child’s sense of mischief, a child’s curiosity.

There has been a lot of talk since his death about what made him such a great editor, but I think those three qualities lay at its heart. And, like a child, he had a restless need to be entertained, a dread of being bored.

‘I hope this isn’t too boring,’ he would say to Simon Courtauld as he handed in his own piece for that week’s Spectator, usually a second before the printing presses were due to roll.

And, of course, it was never boring. He had a beautiful style, relaxed and mellifluous, yet also taut, so that, for all its easy-going, conversational feel, there was never a word wasted.

He also possessed that God-given gift, rare in anyone, let alone a writer, a gift that can’t be taught: the gift of charm.