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All Done From Memory
This is the first volume of memoirs by Osbert Lancaster (the second volume is With an Eye to the Future.
118 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
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About the author
Osbert Lancaster
127 books5 followersBorn in London, Osbert Lancaster was educated at St Ronan's School, and then at Charterhouse and Lincoln College, Oxford.
He graduated with a fourth-class degree in English after an extra year beyond the normal three years of study. Intending a career in law, he failed his bar exams and instead entered the Slade School of Art in London.
Lancaster initially worked alongside Betjeman at 'The Architectural Review'. In 1936 he published 'Progress at Pelvis Bay', the first of his many books of social and architectural satire.
In 1939 he became cartoonist at the Daily Express, where he pioneered the Pocket Cartoon, a single-panel, single-column topical drawing appearing on the front page, since imitated in several British newspapers. In these he sympathetically mocked the British upper classes, personified by his characters William (8th Earl of Littlehampton, formerly Viscount Draynflete) and his wife Maudie.
During his Express career Lancaster drew some 10,000 cartoons over a period of 40 years.
During World War II, he worked in press censorship, then in Greece as a Foreign Office press attaché. During the war years his cartoons provided comic relief from the privations of rationing and bombing raids.
He received a knighthood and his other honours included a CBE in 1953 and an honorary DLitt from Oxford, as well as honorary degrees from Birmingham (1964), Newcastle upon Tyne (1970), and St Andrews (1974).
He was married twice, first, to Karen Elizabeth Harris, daughter of Sir Austen Harris, with whom he had a son, William and a daughter and second, after Karen died in 1964, to the journalist Anne Scott-James, whom he married in 1967 and who became his widow.
He died of natural causes, aged 77, in Chelsea. The obituary in The Times summed up his career with "The most polite and unsplenetic of cartoonists, he was never a crusader, remaining always a witty, civilized critic with a profound understanding of the vagaries of human nature." He is buried at West Winch, Norfolk.
His drawings and cartoons were the subject of an exhibition marking the centenary of his birth, entitled 'Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster' at The Wallace Collection from October 2008 to January 2009. Curated by James Knox and supported by the John R. Murray Charitable Trust of John Murray (publisher), it coincided with the publication of a new biography with the same title as the exhibition.
He graduated with a fourth-class degree in English after an extra year beyond the normal three years of study. Intending a career in law, he failed his bar exams and instead entered the Slade School of Art in London.
Lancaster initially worked alongside Betjeman at 'The Architectural Review'. In 1936 he published 'Progress at Pelvis Bay', the first of his many books of social and architectural satire.
In 1939 he became cartoonist at the Daily Express, where he pioneered the Pocket Cartoon, a single-panel, single-column topical drawing appearing on the front page, since imitated in several British newspapers. In these he sympathetically mocked the British upper classes, personified by his characters William (8th Earl of Littlehampton, formerly Viscount Draynflete) and his wife Maudie.
During his Express career Lancaster drew some 10,000 cartoons over a period of 40 years.
During World War II, he worked in press censorship, then in Greece as a Foreign Office press attaché. During the war years his cartoons provided comic relief from the privations of rationing and bombing raids.
He received a knighthood and his other honours included a CBE in 1953 and an honorary DLitt from Oxford, as well as honorary degrees from Birmingham (1964), Newcastle upon Tyne (1970), and St Andrews (1974).
He was married twice, first, to Karen Elizabeth Harris, daughter of Sir Austen Harris, with whom he had a son, William and a daughter and second, after Karen died in 1964, to the journalist Anne Scott-James, whom he married in 1967 and who became his widow.
He died of natural causes, aged 77, in Chelsea. The obituary in The Times summed up his career with "The most polite and unsplenetic of cartoonists, he was never a crusader, remaining always a witty, civilized critic with a profound understanding of the vagaries of human nature." He is buried at West Winch, Norfolk.
His drawings and cartoons were the subject of an exhibition marking the centenary of his birth, entitled 'Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster' at The Wallace Collection from October 2008 to January 2009. Curated by James Knox and supported by the John R. Murray Charitable Trust of John Murray (publisher), it coincided with the publication of a new biography with the same title as the exhibition.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 1, 2023
Damned funny, if a little stiff-upper-lip and colonialist. The illustrations (also done by Lancaster) are a mixed lot but some very vivid interior scenes and a dilapidated house during The Blitz are the highlights.
If nothing else, dig this anecdote about his childhood aversion about using the earth closet (read: fancy rich people outhouse):
“(A)ll the masculine members of the party, provided they were in good health, were expected to go to the earth closet which was housed in a tasteful neo-classic building discreetly surrounded by laurels, adjoining the stables.
Unfortunately this structure was of wood and in the course of time a plank had worked loose at the back allowing the chickens, which were constantly straying into the stable yard, free access at ground level.
Originally this had intrigued rather than worried me, but ever since I had received a sharp nip on the tenderest, and at the time the most exposed, portion of my anatomy, my daily visits had been rendered hideous by fear and apprehension.”
No kidding, Ozzie! Getting hen-pecked is probably traumatic at any age.
If nothing else, dig this anecdote about his childhood aversion about using the earth closet (read: fancy rich people outhouse):
“(A)ll the masculine members of the party, provided they were in good health, were expected to go to the earth closet which was housed in a tasteful neo-classic building discreetly surrounded by laurels, adjoining the stables.
Unfortunately this structure was of wood and in the course of time a plank had worked loose at the back allowing the chickens, which were constantly straying into the stable yard, free access at ground level.
Originally this had intrigued rather than worried me, but ever since I had received a sharp nip on the tenderest, and at the time the most exposed, portion of my anatomy, my daily visits had been rendered hideous by fear and apprehension.”
No kidding, Ozzie! Getting hen-pecked is probably traumatic at any age.
Displaying 1 of 1 review