Max Mosley 1940-2021 R.I.P.

The death was announced yesterday of Max Mosley, best remembered as the head of Formula One racing, who sorted it out during his tenure. He is also well known as the son of Diana Mitford and her second husband Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists. Max was also a battler against invasion of privacy by the British press. He contributed to the demise of News of the World against whom he prevailed in a privacy case stemming from a 2008 story. It may have helped that he was a qualified barrister.

The Daily Mail, not a friend of Mosley, runs two obituaries. The briefer (and less unkind) by Jonathan McAvoy carries the following description of his mother and his career:​

Mosley died on Sunday night, aged 81, after one of the most significant and controversial contributions to [Formula One’s] history […] His mother was described by Evelyn Waugh as possessing a beauty that rang through a room like a peal of bells. […] In Formula One circles, he was a central figure. Tall, taut, clever with words, he never lost an argument. He delivered his every line with precision and never ducked a fight. His whole demeanour was dressed up in punctilious politesse.

The reference from Waugh is taken from his novel fragment Work Suspended (Penguin, p. 173). The heroine in that novel, Lucy, is a thinly disguised portrait of Diana Mitford, Max Mosley’s mother. See previous post.

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