The Complete Henry Root Letters

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a b c "William Donaldson – Womanising satirist and novelist who squandered several fortunes on wild living". Jean Rook's reply "I am certainly not a thinking man's Anna Raeburn, so you must solve your own problems. Esther Rantzen doesn't come out quite so well - there's a disagreement about whether the BBC should pay Root for some unusable script material, and Rantzen sends the same response to two different letters - the first from Root praising the show, the second, again thanking him and saying how much they appreciate viewer contributions is in response to his missive which says simply, "Dear Esther, You're a fat idiot and your show's a disgrace.

It is very non PC and there is a wave of guilt that I should find it amusing, but nevertheless it is a good read.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The phenomenal success of the Henry Root books, especially the first, enabled Donaldson to resume his earlier chaotic lifestyle, and in the mid-1980s he began using crack cocaine. The letters aren’t really dated, with the exception of certain BBC television stars and the one to the South African Ambassador. Donaldson lived at 139 Elm Park Mansions on Park Walk, Chelsea, London SW10, from which address all the Root letters were sent. His experiences there formed the basis of his first novel, Both the Ladies and the Gentlemen (1975).

If further recommendation be needed, then surely there is none finer than Glenda Slagg/Linda Lee Potter: "About as funny as pushing somebody fully clothed into a swimming pool.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Liz Reed - another character created by William Donaldson, Reed's TV production pitches - for shows such as 'Disabled Gladiators' and 'Anglotrash' - in the guise of Heart Felt Productions were collected in the 1998 book, The Heart Felt Letters. The sender of these letters – a cantankerous crusader against pornography and modernity, and for hanging and Mrs.

I love this book and his laugh out style at trying to rankle celebrities and people in the public eye. He completed his National Service in the Royal Navy in the late 1950s, reaching the rank of Sub-Lieutenant. In short, he was the British version of Sarah Palin – but people apparently took him seriously (with the exception of Cambridge). Donaldson's ghastly creation wrote outrageous, threatening, scurrilous and outlandish letters to public figures, praising, insulting or attempting to bribe them.Supposedly a wet fish merchant from Fulham, he is an avatar for a lot of the to-the-right-of-Attila-the-Hun, Thatcher-supporting, mildly racist, entitled, liberal-baiting mansplaining that was de rigeur and absolutely unchallenged in the Spectator/Private Eye yachts and casinos circles that Donaldson frequented. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Together, they provide a powerful impression of what life must have been like in late-Seventies Britain for a retired trader in wet fish, seeing his country overrun by lesbians, lefties and other losers.

M Godding Books Ltd is an internet book business running from Wiltshire and sending books all over the world every working day. H. Rochester Sneath - the fictional headmaster of the fictional British public school Selhurst, created by Humphry Berkeley.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. When he hits a target full on, or when the target responds with good grace or a sense of humour, it's hilarious, however. It consists of real correspondence between an apparently wealthy and eccentric retired fish-merchant, and many public figures to whom he wrote, requesting support for bizarre right-wing proposals. You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson, Terence Blacker, Ebury Press, 2007, pp.