On David Hart in Alexandria

From an excellent obituary in Saturday's Financial Times, purchased a day late in Alexandria in a process going back to before the internet age, I discover that my old friend, David Hart, has died. I look forward to comparing other obits of the man whom the FT headlines as 'the flamboyant libertarian who helped Thatcher defeat the miners'. I particularly liked the line by Brian Groom that David was 'an extrovert ex-hippy who lived the life of the English establishment too extravagantly to be part of it'.  He was assuredly a man who saw nuance and bias in newspapers as an artform of especially exquisite sensibility, whether it was practised for or against the causes in which he believed. It will be hard in reading the accounts of his life to avoid imagining him reading them too, or imagining that in some way he wrote some of them.

I cannot find it in me to reminisce too much now (maybe later) except to recall a strange Suffolk garden afternoon in the early eighties with Edward Teller of the H-bomb, Ronnie Millar the playwright who wrote speeches for Thatcher, a Russian dissident recently freed from the Gulag and a local farmer or two. The conversation on what he always called 'soul politics'  went around and round for hours, just as my daughter did on one of the Hart family bicycles.

And then to remember the smudgy letter on a bathroom wall which 'showed', in Russian, that Mr Gorbachev was funding Arthur Scargill

And the early morning that Diana died when I woke in his house in Scotland and had to scurry back to london to edit The Times and write our leading article on a British Airways breakfast menu.

And the squares of Cadbury's dairy Milk which came in silver bowls after dinner, exactly the same each time like every other dining and drinking tradition which he kept alive in his life long after his form of Motor Neurone Disease would have destroyed the impetus for niceties in most.

His series of Christmas cards, showing himself in surreal guises, ended in one with a crooked smile that arived, as usual, three weeks ago,

'Single-mindedness in a cause' does not begin to do justice to his attitude to living.

All fondest thoughts from here to the extended family, of mothers, children and idealists, of which he was so proud to be a part.

 

 

 

Comments

[Clayton Burns]

I had imagined that a leading article in The Times would have been on a more important subject than "a British Airways breakfast menu:"

[And the early morning that Diana died when I woke in his house in Scotland and had to scurry back to london to edit The Times and write our leading article on a British Airways breakfast menu.]

I would have chosen to write on Diana instead. Still, an honest accounting, even if somewhat ambiguous.

[PStothard]

sorry, clayton, but many leading articles in the days before laptops etc had to be written on some form of paper, often whatever was to hand. . as for your generous hopes for the future sale of the TLS in the US, Alexandria is perhaps not the place from which to discuss the details. . our new distribution system is doing well and the best thing that friends like you can do for us is to persuade another like-minded friend to take a new year subscription. . .happy new year to you too. . .

[truthlord]

What are you doing in Alexandria?
The usual I suppose.......
And where is my poem?
In four lines it brilliantly sums up everything one needs to know about fingers....

[David Martin]

Although I'd assumed the relatively recent adoption by weekly magazines of a double 'Christmas issue' was partly a stategy to enable journalists to enjoy longer holidays, I'd also assumed they remained avid readers of the press. It was therefore mildly disillusioning that Sir Peter read of David Hart's death only on the Sunday after the Daily Telegraph's obituary had appeared on the Thursday (and was seeming posted online the evening of the day before). The notice was not only ready for publication but also detailed in a way that revealed a very close knowledge of the subject. I now wonder, following Sir Peter's remark that he would find it hard to avoid imagining that "in some way he [Hart] wrote some of them", that such could indeed have been the case.

As for Hart's longer-term importance, at most he'll be lumped with the likes of Woodrow Wyatt and Alfred Sherman whose functions were to oversimplify great issues and act as Margaret Thatcher's sounding boards. On the miners' strike specifically, the prevailing view - also oversimplified - seems to be "Scargill said the Tories wanted to destroy the coal industry, and that's what happened". But maybe those half-promised further reminiscences would suggest otherwise.

[Peter Stothard]

Apologies to David Martin for being an insufficiently 'avid reader' of the press. Of course, if I had been in this creaking part of Egypt with my eye ever out for wifi, I could probably have ensured that the relevant Daily Telegraph did not pass me by. Instead I have been working on the basis - unfashionable I know but not at the TLS - that some subjects and some times are still best understood by older methods. I don't know whether David Hart will have 'longer-term importance' or not and, remembering him still as a highly unusual friend, I do not much care.

[Clayton Burns]

Nothing to be sorry about, Sir Peter. My comment was not at all meant to be taken seriously.

It seems to me that The TLS's comment practices are extremely robust, and would be a good model for the exceptionally debased discourse in America. Some evidence of that has emerged recently.

If I were to say that you had probably seen a crow instead of a moorhen, I would not expect you to take that literally.

However, enough of "I," even if it is a fascinating subject. Sometimes I wonder how Americans must puzzle over some of The TLS letters, but no doubt that is a subject for a later marketing study.

[David Martin]

And certainly no apologies should be offered to me. In fact, to opine (if mildly in comparison with, say, Hugh Muir's Guardian diary or readers' comments on today's Independent obituary) on the reputation of someone whom the owner of this blog is mourning was crass rather than robust.

And yet it is very likely that Hart was one of the people Harold Macmillan had in mind when he spoke in the Lords during the miners' strike: "This terrible strike, by the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's and Hitler's armies and never gave in. [...] We used to have battles and rows but they were quarrels. Now there is a new kind of wicked hatred that has been brought in by different types of people."

[Terence Hale]

Hi,
On David Hart in Alexandria:
Like the "Divan" debate. a never ending lyric.
The description of a dogmatic who carried the
power of words.
Regards Dr. Terence Hale