February 2006

Editor's Page

. . . a little touch of Harry in the night

by Lindsay Thompson

If this is dying, then I don't think much of it.
— Lytton Strachey, 1932

Harry's watch says 11:40 p.m.

It was a termly dinner/party for Cherwell, the university weekly, in 1979. We were both editors. We shared a surname; a tendency to say what we thought; an appreciation of eccentricity; and a rattling-sticks-in-cages, cringe-inducing sense of humor (though he spelled it with a "u"). I wrote silly articles about things like American fraternity initiations. Harry illustrated them.

Harry's other passion was cricket. He led the Captain Scott XI. The week before finals they played eight matches in 11 days. It showed. "Everyone got a Third, except for one man sent down before the exams for not paying his bar bill," Harry recalled.

I came home to be a lawyer. Harry joined the BBC. He produced The News Quiz on radio; it flourishes to this day. Later he took it to TV as Have I Got News For You. It was a big hit. When Labour Party MP Roy Hattersley canceled his appearance at the last minute — for the third time — Harry found a substitute, and revenge. "We were looking for someone with the same wit, sparkle, and influence as Hattersley," Harry said. "The tub of lard was a natural choice."

His mordant wit made for a remarkable career, but a shambolic personal and business life. Harry got crosswise with everyone sooner or later, it seemed. When his first wife discovered an affair, she settled accounts in a nationally published series of articles. "As a person, he was rather louche," one colleague wrote, "and wouldn't have struck you as especially organized" (but he still wanted Harry to produce his next show).

His perverse streak extended to holidays. Harry consulted the Foreign Office List of Places You Might Not Want To Visit, and vacationed there. He won a travel-writing award for those tales.

All of Harry's TV shows made the top five in UK ratings. One even made the jump to American screens: he thought up, and wrote, Da Ali G Show.

He had biographies of Richard Ingrams, Peter Cook, and Hergé (creator of the French comic book character Tintin) to his name. Last year his first novel, an account of Darwin's voyage called This Thing of Darkness, was listed for the Booker Prize.

Then, having never smoked, Harry got inoperable lung cancer. He said it was "like a really big hard bastard has invited me outside the pub and when I get there I find he's brought along two of his mates who want a fight as well." But he enjoyed imagining the rage of the other Booker nominees at the publicity his illness got his book.

Harry died last November. In his last half year, he finished another book, completed a sitcom set in a brothel, and traveled to six more countries with his girlfriend. His health suddenly failed. They married the day he died. Harry left her, his two children, and millions of fans and friends who adored his brilliance, his wit, his sardonic smile, and how he always carried a brolly on sunny days. He'd have turned 46 this month.

"He did things entirely his own way," a friend told The Guardian. "It was as if he had formed his world view at an early age and was damned if he was going to make any revisions."

What joy it was, being present at the creation. 

For personal correspondence, Lindsay Thompson can be reached at tradelaw@hotmail.com. E-mail letters to the editor to letterstotheeditor@wsba.org or mail to WSBA, Attn: Letters to the Editor, 2101 Fourth Ave., Ste. 400, Seattle, WA 98121-2330.