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John Walsh writes about the man who straddled the worlds of literature, law and politics with elan
SIR John Mortimer, Queen’s Counsel, barrister, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, author, playwright, champagne socialist, wit, defender of free speech, wine connoisseur, devoted luncher, national treasure and lord of Chiantishire, has died at the age of 85. He had been ill for some years and confined to a wheelchair, but it never prevented him from writing at a headlong pace (he published more than one book a year) or traversing the country to speak at festivals and public events. He died at his home in the village of Turville Heath, near Henley, Oxfordshire, where he had lived, on and off, since he was a child. His voice was utterly distinctive: a high, hesitant, slightly camp delivery in which he would muse on the state of the legislature or confide some shocking piece of theatrical gossip. He was funny, subversive, kind, single-minded, rather vain (despite his unorthodox looks and bottle-bottom spectacles), shockingly flirtatious with women and extremely keen on having an audience. He straddled the worlds of advocacy and showbusiness with ease, but will probably be remembered the most for creating a grouchy, middle-aged, ash-stained, poetry-quoting, henpecked defence lawyer called Horace Rumpole and pitching him into court battles on behalf of mainly under-class clients, whom he saved from perdition. Like Rumpole, Mortimer himself took on only defence cases. Although his legal work was overshadowed by his status as a bestseller, he was a stalwart fighter for freedom and against censorship. Often accused of being a "champagne socialist", he was a passionate liberal all his life. He was born in Hampstead, north London, went to Harrow School and read law at Brasenose College, Oxford. His father, perhaps the most important figure in his life, was Clifford Mortimer, a divorce barrister who went blind one day when he hit his head on a tree branch. Mortimer wrote and talked obsessively about him; his best play was A Voyage Around My Father. In his one-man show, he would reminisce about his dad’s puckish sense of humour — how, in crowded train carriages, he would demand that his wife, Kathleen, read out detailed news reports of current divorce trials, delighted to imagine his fellow travellers’ mortification at every mention of "garments", "stains" and "bloomers". During the World War II, he was attached to the Crown Film Unit at Pinewood Studios, writing propaganda documentaries. It was the making of him as a playwright. "I was given great and welcome opportunities," he wrote later, "to write dialogue, construct scenes and try and turn ideas into some kind of visual drama." His first novel, Charade (1947) was based on his experience with the unit. Mortimer was called to the Bar in 1948 and married Penelope Fletcher, a divorcee with four children, a year later. They were married for 22 years but it was stormy union, anatomised in detail in Penelope’s novel The Pumpkin Eater. The story of a serial child-bearer married to a philandering screenwriter, of their literary rivalry and endless bust-ups, set the template for the so-called Hampstead Novel for a generation. It also contained an ungenerous pen portrait of the second Mrs Mortimer — also called Penelope — whom he married in 1972 and with whom he had two more daughters (including the actress Emily Mortimer). His debut as a playwright was The Dock Brief, broadcast on BBC Radio, starring a harrumphing Michael Hordern as an ineffectual barrister. A Voyage Round My Father followed in 1963 and made Mortimer’s reputation, but he was also finding fame for his powerful advocacy in court. He appeared for the defence in the legendary Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial in 1960. When Sir Cyril Black, a Tory MP, brought a private prosecution against the publisher of Hubert Selby Jnr’s Last Exit To Brooklyn under the Obscene Publications Act in 1966, the case went to trial at the Old Bailey and the book was ruled obscene. In 1968, Mortimer appealed against the decision and his passionate defence saw the verdict overturned. Although a famous libertarian, he believed in traditions: monarchy, foxhunting, being well-dressed and polite in court. "If you are about to be sent down for life," he once said, "you don’t want someone in a T-shirt, jeans and trainers doing it. You want the whole works." His books sometimes dealt in political issues — when Rumpole is confronted by euthanasia or child abuse, or when property developers threaten to ruin Leslie Titmuss’ country home in Titmuss Regained — but he never forced home any obvious agenda. Mortimer seemed more regretful and puckishly amused by the folly of human nature than censorious about people’s behaviour. "People will go to endless trouble," he once wrote, "to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a bit poorer and a bit nastier. I don’t think anybody learns anything." Although he was knighted in 1997, he turned against Tony Blair and New Labour, taking regular shots at the Prime Minister, whom he saw as shamelessly curbing personal freedoms. He had a long and fantastically busy life, a massive network of friends, a huge capacity for creative work and an unflagging joie de vivre. What he didn’t have was much time or inclination for reflection. His authorised biographer, Valerie Grove, found hardly any letters or diaries in his possession after nearly 80 years of life. Not one of his myriad friends, she said, could show her a single letter they’d received from him since 1944. But he believed in the joys of the convivium: every summer he would decamp with his family to Tuscany, which he christened Chiantishire, and hold court at dinner every night, welcoming British friends as if to a castle en f`EAte. It is a good picture with which to remember a quintessential Englishman. — By arrangement with The Independent
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