Alexander Waugh: Times Newspaper Obituary

The Times newspaper has also posted a thoughtful obituary of Alexander Waugh:

“Alexander Waugh had few illusions about the antecedents of his vast literary clan. In his irreverent family memoir, Fathers and Sons (2004), the son of Auberon Waugh and grandson of Evelyn revealed that the family traced their origins back to the 17th century. However, rather than possessing aristocratic connections, Waugh said they were of yeoman stock from the Scottish Borders, where “I suspect they ate their porridge with their fingers”.

Furthermore, he added, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, Waugh meant “tasteless, insipid; unpleasant to the smell or taste, sickly, faint, weak, etc”, while as a noun it was “an exclamation indicating grief, indignation or the like. Now chiefly as attributed to N American Indians and other savages”.

His memoir detailed the perennially difficult relationships he, along with his father, grandfather and even great-grandfather, had with their fathers. Given that three of these were professional writers, “I would be absolutely amazed if there was any other family in the world which could produce such a huge documentation of the relations between fathers and sons”.

The cycle began with his great-great-grandfather Dr Alexander Waugh, who was known in the family as “the Brute”. Evelyn Waugh went on to have an unhappy relationship with his father, Arthur Waugh, but more from neglect in favour of his elder brother, Alec. Evelyn himself had little time for his own children, writing in 1946 that “the presence of my children affects me with deep weariness and depression”, and adding that five-year-old Auberon “is clumsy and dishevelled, sly, without intellectual, aesthetic or spiritual interest”. Auberon, equally, had little time for his father, remarking that such was his indifference, he would have gladly exchanged him for a tin whistle.

Alexander Waugh’s relationship with his father, Auberon, the indefatigable satirist and columnist, was at times challenging. Throughout his childhood, his father never called him by his Christian name, preferring “Fat Fool”, “Nige” or “Wilf”, and never had serious conversations with him, cared about his schoolwork or how he did at cricket, or recommended books for him to read.

However much he may have been hurt by this indifference, Alexander concluded: “He provided a more stable upbringing to his four children than he himself had ever received, and left more goodwill towards the name than he had inherited … I adored my father, more, I suppose, than he adored me, or at least I thought about him much more than he thought of me — but I do not repine, as the Wavian saying goes, for that is the nature of any father–son relationship. A father may have many children to add to his many concerns but a son has only one father.”

Apart from Fathers and Sons, which was written at the suggestion of the author Sir VS Naipaul (obituary August 12, 2018), he wrote a number of highly regarded books, including a history of the Wittgenstein family, and others on music and specifically on time and God. He also had a varied career, ranging from record producer to cartoonist and opera critic. In 2000, he wrote the music for Bon Voyage! — a “musical farce”. He also amassed a considerable archive on his grandfather Evelyn, discovering the yet to be published correspondence between the writer and his unrequited love, Teresa “Baby” Jungman (obituary June 15, 2010), who died aged 102.

Evelyn Waugh scholars who contacted him were often invited to stay at his farmhouse in Somerset, where he housed the archive. He was general editor of the definitive 43 volumes of Oxford University Press’s The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh, of which nearly half have been published.

However, he was far better known to the public at large for his passionate advocacy of the questionable belief that the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, was in fact the true author of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. Until this controversy arose, Lord Oxford was better known for a reference in John Aubrey’s Brief Lives. While making low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth I, he accidentally broke wind, so went into self-imposed exile in Europe for several years. On welcoming him home, the first thing the queen said was: “My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.”

A large part of the argument appeared to be that a provincial like Shakespeare never had the learning or access to material that would enable him to write such works, whereas an aristocrat such as the Earl of Oxford would. Leading Shakespearean scholars, such as Sir Jonathan Bate, completely dismiss this notion. Since 2016, Alexander Waugh was chairman of the De Vere Society, which promotes this belief. Waugh also asserted that a number of obscure codes and cryptic clues proved it.

In a celebrated debate in 2017 with Waugh, Bate said in essence that Waugh’s arguments were based on a series of coincidences, conspiracies and cryptograms, which while adding to the gaiety of nations, were specious, and perhaps could be explained because Waugh came from a family of contrarians who all loved aristocrats, with his father and grandfather both marrying them.

Dr Paul Edmondson, another Shakespearean scholar, declared: “These theories just seem to get more and more fantastic and take us into the realms of science fiction and fantasy novels. This has always been part of the fascination of those who are seeking to disprove authenticated history.” Another difficulty with this theory is that more than 12 of Shakespeare’s plays were likely to have been written and performed after De Vere’s death in 1604, including Macbeth, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest. However, apologists for the so-called “Oxfordian theory” simply say the dating of these plays is open to question.

Alexander Evelyn Michael Waugh was born in 1963, the son of Auberon Waugh and the former Lady Teresa Onslow. He was brought up in Combe Florey, the Somerset house that had passed to Auberon on the death of Evelyn in 1966. There were nine wine cellars in the house, filled to capacity by Auberon. In his oration at the Saintsbury Club in 2015, Alexander explained how his father kept extensive wine lists in the lavatory for casual reading. “His [Auberon Waugh’s] fee for ad hoc journalism was 24 bottles per thousand words, so that when commissioning editors telephoned, in the name of tax efficiency he ran to the lavatory, to choose two cases from the lists. If he found the door locked from the inside, he became quite hysterical: ‘Get out of there, you bugger. Someone’s on the phone and needing to know which wine I want.’ ”

Alexander explained that they were first introduced to wine at the table from the age of five, graduating to full glasses at 12. “Throughout my teenage years I was deputed to catalogue his cellar, to carry cases down and bring the bottles up, to uncork and decant for every meal, and I spent many afternoons destroying empty boxes or re-racking according to his latest caprice. I was in effect his cellarer, his editor, his yeoman and his sommelier.”

Even more trying was his father’s insistence that they describe the taste of the wines: “If we said the wine was ‘jolly good’ or ‘absolutely delicious’ we were censured. ‘Words,’ he said, ‘are there to be called upon; do please try harder.’ I felt the pressure to conjure colourful epithets keenly and resented the fortnightly three-line whips to engage in his Spectator Wine Club tastings.”

Alexander went to Manchester University, where he met and later married Eliza Chancellor, daughter of the editor and journalist Alexander Chancellor. He graduated in musical studies and later worked as an impresario and concert agent as well as producing a series of award-winning recordings of classical music.

After Alexander went to university, his father’s wine arrangements fell into disarray, so Auberon developed the notion that his son would return to live in the gatehouse of Combe Florey and become an independent wine merchant. Apprenticeships were arranged with a London wine merchant and even with Steven Spurrier (obituary March 20, 2021) in Paris, but this came to naught as Alexander feared he would go bankrupt with such a venture. Instead, he developed his interest in music and in the early Nineties became an opera critic for The Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard. He remained popular with his fellow critics but never excelled in this pursuit. One leading critic recalled that whenever the conductor raised his baton at the commencement of the opera, Alexander would repeat quite audibly: “Ready, steady … go!”

He enjoyed a busy social life with his family at their farmhouse in rural Somerset. Life centred around the kitchen with life-sized portraits of Queen Charlotte and King George III overlooking an oversized dining table. Guests would later gather around the grand piano for sessions playing popular music from the 1930s. He took considerable delight in cooking elaborate meals with serious wines to accompany them. In 2011, like his father before him, he was elected to the exclusive Saintsbury Club of 50 oenophiles who met twice annually in Vintners Hall to drink vintage bordeaux and burgundy. However, he resigned in 2020, along with several other members, when a motion to allow female members was narrowly defeated.

With his wife Eliza, whom he married in 1990, he had three children: Mary, a teacher, Sally, a lawyer, and Auberon (Bron), a comedian and writer. All survive him.

Last year, he revealed during yet another debate on Shakespeare’s origins that he was suffering from inoperable prostate cancer, and in his final weeks at home moved his bed into the library to make it easier for his many friends to gather around. He bore his imminent demise with resigned equanimity and was especially heartened to have lived long enough to meet his first grandchildren, twin girls.

In a postscript to his son in Fathers and Sons, he urged him: “Bear the name of Waugh with pride. The Waugh name is not a satchel of rocks, or a blotchy birthmark, or a tuxedo with medals for you to swank about in. Do not let it browbeat you into thinking you have to become a writer, that it is your destiny or your duty to do so. It isn’t. There is no point in writing unless you have something to say and are determined to say it well.” He ended with some words of advice: “Beware of seriousness: it is a form of stupidity. Fear boredom. Never use the word ‘ersatz’.”

Alexander Waugh, author, was born on December 30, 1963. He died of cancer on July 22, 2024, aged 60″