Ebook: Ruling Passions: Autobiography

In this candid and deliciously gossipy memoir, Britain's well-known journalist and Labour MP recalls in beautifully drawn vignettes his encounters with the flamboyant members of the artistic, social, and political elite of our time. A talented writer with a taste for the low life, Tom Driberg had a knack for making friends. The names he drops have a gratifyingly rich ring—Waugh, the Sit- wells, Auden, Nijinsky, Khrushchev, Hitchcock—and his revelations are intriguingly offbeat. Moreover, he shows a genius for being with the right people, at the right place, at the right time. Because of his keen eye for the illuminating detail, he is able to bring to life Spain after the Civil War; Chicago on Pearl Harbor Day; the coronation of Pope Pius XII; Buchenwald just after its liberation; a twenty-three-day wartime trip to the U.S. on a Norwegian cargo ship dodging German subs; a visit to newly released prisoners of war in Singapore with Mountbatten; America greeting Lindbergh in New York. He recounts with equal care his sexual encounters; a quarrel among his eccentric relatives; a day spent with a povertyridden Welsh coal-mining family; or lunch with Lady Astor at Cliveden. An avowed
promiscuous homosexual and once an active Communist, Tom Driberg paints an
entirely personal and honest picture of a period that will long continue to fascinate —and perhaps shock some—readers.