Bernard Levin
Encyclopedia
Henry Bernard Levin CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (19 August 1928 – 7 August 2004) was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...

 and went on to the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

, graduating in 1952. After a short spell in a lowly job at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 selecting press cuttings for use in programmes, he secured a post as a junior member of the editorial staff of a weekly periodical, Truth
Truth (British periodical)
Truth was a British periodical publication founded by the diplomat and Liberal politician Henry Labouchère after he left a virtual rival publication The World. Truth was noted for its exposures of many kinds of frauds, and was at the centre of several civil lawsuits...

, in 1953.

Levin reviewed television for The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and wrote a weekly political column noted for its irreverence in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

. During the 1960s he wrote five columns a week for The Daily Mail on any subject that he chose. After a disagreement with the proprietor of the paper over attempted censorship of his column in 1970, Levin moved to The Times where, with one break of just over a year in 1981–82, he remained as resident columnist until his retirement, covering a wide range of topics, both serious and comic.

Levin became a well-known broadcaster, first on the weekly satirical television show That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme that was shown on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost...

in the early 1960s, then as a panellist on a musical quiz, Face the Music
Face The Music (TV series)
Face the Music was a weekly BBC television programme in the form of a classical music quiz. It began in 1966 and continued until 1979, with revivals in 1983-4 and 2007.-Format:...

, and finally in three series of travel programmes in the 1980s. He began to write books in the 1970s, publishing 17 between 1970 and 1998. From the early 1990s, Levin developed Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

, which eventually forced him to give up his regular column in 1997, and to stop writing altogether not long afterwards.

Early years

Levin was born in London, the second child and only son of Philip Levin, a tailor of Jewish Bessarabian
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

 descent, and his wife, Rose, née Racklin. Philip Levin abandoned the family and moved to South Africa when Levin was three. The two children were brought up with the help of their maternal grandparents, who had emigrated from Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

 at the turn of the 20th century. Levin wrote of his childhood, "My home was not a religious one; my grandfather read the scriptures to himself silently and struggled through a little English; my grandmother, who could read no language at all, lit a candle on the appropriate days, as did my mother, though for her it was not really a religious sign. My uncles were quite secular … and had hardly anything to do with the religion of their father and grandfathers". In The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

after Levin's death, Quentin Crewe wrote, "His illiterate grandparents' stories about life in Russia must have instilled in him the passionate belief in the freedom of the individual that lasted his whole life. In return, as he grew older, he used to read to them. Bernard could not read Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, but he could get by in Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

".

Rose Levin was a capable cook, and, though the household was not well off, Levin was well fed and acquired an interest in food that in adult life became one of the regular themes of his journalism. The cuisine was traditional Jewish, with fried fish as one cornerstone of the repertoire, and chicken as another – boiled, roast, or in soup with lokshen (noodles), kreplach
Kreplach
Kreplach are small dumplings filled with ground meat, mashed potatoes or another filling, usually boiled and served in chicken soup. They are similar to Italian tortellini and Chinese wontons. The dough is traditionally made of flour, water and eggs, kneaded and rolled out thin...

 or kneidlach. As an adult Levin retained his love of Jewish cookery along with his passion for French haute cuisine.

The Levin household was not especially musical, though it had a piano which Judith was taught to play; Rose Levin bought her son a violin and paid for lessons, convinced that he was "destined to be the next Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...

 or Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...

". Levin persevered ineptly for two and a half years and then gave up with relief. The experience put him off music for some time, and it was only later that it became one of his passions, a frequent topic in his writing.

Levin was a bright child, and, encouraged by his mother, he worked hard enough to win a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...

 in the countryside near Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...

, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...

. His housemaster
Housemaster
In British education, a housemaster is a member of staff in charge of a boarding house, normally at a boarding school . The housemaster is responsible for the supervision and care of boarders in the house and typically lives on the premises...

 was D.S. ("Boom") Macnutt
Derrick Somerset Macnutt
Derrick Somerset Macnutt was a British crossword compiler who provided crosswords for The Observer newspaper under the pseudonym Ximenes. He was one of the principal influences on the modern style of cryptic crossword.- Career :...

, the school's head of Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

. Macnutt was a strict, even bullying, teacher, and was feared rather than loved by his pupils, but Levin learned Classics well, and retained a lifelong love of Latin tags and quotations in his writing. He battled on many fronts at Christ's Hospital: he was a Jew at a Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 establishment; he was from a poor family; he was slight of stature; he was utterly indifferent to sport; he adopted a Marxist stance, hanging the Red Flag from a school window to celebrate the Labour victory in 1945. In the local streets, the school's conspicuous uniform, including a cloak and tight stockings, attracted unwanted attention. Levin's biographer Belle Mooney writes of this period, "Jeers put iron in his soul". Among the consolations of Christ's Hospital was its thriving musical life. At concerts by the school orchestra (whose members included Levin's contemporary, Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....

), Levin listened seriously to music for the first time. The food at the school was no such consolation; according to Levin it was so appalling that there must be something better to be found, and from his late teens he sought out the best restaurants he could afford.
Levin hoped to go to the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

, but, as his obituarist in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

wrote, he "was not considered Oxbridge
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...

 material". He was accepted by the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 (LSE), where he studied from 1948 to 1952. His talents were recognised and encouraged by LSE tutors including Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...

 and Harold Laski
Harold Laski
Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950....

; Levin's deep affection for both did not prevent his perfecting a comic impersonation of the latter. Levin became a skilled debater; he wrote for the student newspaper The Beaver
The Beaver
The Beaver is the weekly newspaper of the London School of Economics Students' Union at the LSE.Despite being published by the Students' Union, The Beaver is independent in its reporting....

, on a range of subjects, not least opera, which became one of his lifelong passions.

Having graduated from the LSE in 1952, Levin worked briefly as a tour guide, and then joined the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's North American Service. His job was to read all the newspapers and weekly magazines, selecting articles that might be useful for broadcasting.

Journalism

In 1953, Levin applied for a job on the weekly periodical Truth
Truth (British periodical)
Truth was a British periodical publication founded by the diplomat and Liberal politician Henry Labouchère after he left a virtual rival publication The World. Truth was noted for its exposures of many kinds of frauds, and was at the centre of several civil lawsuits...

. The paper had recently been taken over by the liberal publisher Ronald Staples who together with his new editor Vincent Evans was determined to cleanse it of its previous right-wing racist reputation. Levin's noticeably Jewish surname, together with such skills as he had acquired in shorthand and typing, gained him immediate acceptance. He was offered the post of "general editorial dogsbody, which was exactly what I had been looking for". After a year, Evans left and was succeeded by his deputy, George Scott; Levin was promoted in Scott's place. He wrote for the paper under a variety of pseudonyms, including "A.E. Cherryman".

While still at Truth, Levin was invited to write a column in The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

about ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

, Britain's first commercial television channel, launched in 1955. Mooney describes his television reviews as "notably punchy" and The Times wrote, "Levin took out his shotgun and let loose with both barrels". Levin gave the opening programmes a kindly review, but by the fourth day of commercial television he was beginning to baulk: "There has been nothing to get our teeth into apart from three different brands of cake-mix and a patent doughnut". Thereafter, he did not spare the network: "cliché succeeded to cliché"; "a mentally defective aborigine who was deaf in both ears would have little difficulty in leaving 'Double Your Money
Double Your Money
Double Your Money was a British quiz show hosted by Hughie Green. Originally broadcast on Radio Luxembourg, it transferred to ITV in 1955, a few days after the commercial channel began broadcasting. It was produced by Associated-Rediffusion until 1964 and then by Rediffusion London, and it finished...

' £32 richer than when he entered"; and after the network's first hundred days he attributed its viewing figures to the "number of people who are sufficiently stupid to derive pleasure from such programmes".

The Spectator

In 1956, Levin found himself in irreconcilable disagreement with Truth's support of the Anglo-French military action in the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

. The proprietor and editor of the long-established weekly The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

, Ian Gilmour
Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar
Ian Hedworth John Little Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, PC, was a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom. He was styled Sir Ian Gilmour, 3rd Baronet from 1977, having succeeded to his father's baronetcy, until he became a life peer in 1992. He served as Secretary of State for...

, invited Levin to join his staff. Levin left Truth and became the political correspondent of The Spectator. He declared that he was no expert in politics, but Gilmour advised him, "review it as you would review television". Levin wrote his column under the pseudonym "Taper", from the name of a corrupt political insider in Disraeli's 1844 novel Coningsby
Coningsby (novel)
Coningsby, or The New Generation, is an English political novel by Benjamin Disraeli published in 1844.-Background:The book is set against a background of the real political events of the 1830s in England that followed the enactment of the Reform Bill of 1832...

. He followed Gilmour's advice, becoming, as The Guardian's Simon Hoggart
Simon Hoggart
Simon David Hoggart is an English journalist and broadcaster. He writes on politics for The Guardian, and on wine for The Spectator. Until 2006 he presented The News Quiz on Radio 4...

 said, "the father of the modern parliamentary sketch":

Levin made no pretence of even-handedness. There were politicians he liked and politicians he did not like. For those in the latter category, "Taper's lacerations wounded". He invented unflattering nicknames; he wrote later, "I did not (though I wish I had) think of calling Sir Hartley Shawcross
Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross
Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, GBE, PC, KC was a British barrister and politician and the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal.- Early life :...

 Sir Shortly Floorcross, but I did call Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller
Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne
Reginald Edward Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne PC, QC , known as Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, Bt, from 1954 to 1962 and as The Lord Dilhorne from 1962 to 1964, was an English lawyer and Conservative politician...

 Sir Reginald Bullying-Manner". When the latter was elevated to the peerage as Lord Dilhorne, Levin renamed him Lord Stillborn.

Taper was not Levin's only work for The Spectator. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, from a campaign for the release of three Arabs imprisoned by the British authorities, to supporting publication of the banned novel Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published in 1928. The first edition was printed privately in Florence, Italy with assistance from Pino Orioli; it could not be published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960...

, and denunciation of the retired Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard
Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard
Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and "Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner...

. The last led to a secret meeting of more than 20 senior judges to see whether Levin could be prosecuted for criminal libel; there was no prosecution, and his accusations about Goddard's vindictiveness, deceit and bias were later acknowledged to be justified. In 1959, Gilmour, while remaining as proprietor, stepped down as editor and was succeeded by his deputy, Brian Inglis
Brian Inglis
Brian Inglis was an Irish journalist, historian and television presenter. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and retained an interest in Irish history and politics....

; Levin took over from Inglis as assistant editor. Later in that year, after the general election victory
United Kingdom general election, 1959
This United Kingdom general election was held on 8 October 1959. It marked a third successive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, led by Harold Macmillan...

 of another of his bêtes noires, Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

, Levin gave up the Taper column, professing himself to be in despair.

Concurrently with his work at The Spectator, Levin was the drama critic of The Daily Express from 1959, offending many in theatrical circles by his outspoken verdicts. He modelled his reviewing style on that of Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's musical reviews of the late 19th century. He gave a fellow-critic an edition of Shaw's collected criticism, writing inside the cover, "'In the hope that when you come across the phrases I have already stolen you will keep quiet about it".

Gilmour discouraged any hopes Levin might have had of succeeding Inglis as editor and in 1962, Levin left both The Spectator and The Daily Express, becoming drama critic of The Daily Mail. He remained there for eight years, and for the last five of them also wrote five columns a week on any subject of his choice.

Television and The Pendulum Years

Although by the early 1960s Levin was becoming a well-known name, his was not yet a well-known face. Meeting him in London the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis
Rupert Hart-Davis
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd...

 did not immediately recognise him: "He looks about sixteen, and at first I thought he was someone’s little boy brought along to see the fun – very Jewish, with wavy fairish hair, very intelligent and agreeable to talk to". In 1963 Levin was invited to appear regularly on BBC television's new weekly late-night satirical revue, That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme that was shown on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost...

, where he delivered monologues to camera about his pet hates and conducted interviews, appearing as "a tiny figure taking on assorted noisy giants in debate". The programme, which had a short but much-discussed run, was transmitted live; this added to its edginess and impact, but also made it prone to disruption. Levin was twice assaulted on air, once by the husband of an actress whose show Levin had reviewed severely, and once by a woman astrologer who squirted him with water.

In 1966 BBC television screened a new musical quiz, Face the Music
Face The Music (TV series)
Face the Music was a weekly BBC television programme in the form of a classical music quiz. It began in 1966 and continued until 1979, with revivals in 1983-4 and 2007.-Format:...

presented by Joseph Cooper
Joseph Cooper
Joseph Elliott Needham Cooper, OBE , pianist and broadcaster, best known as the chairman of the BBC's long-running television panel game Face the Music.- Early career :...

. It ran intermittently until 1984. Levin was a frequent panel member along with, among others, Robin Ray
Robin Ray
Robin Ray was an English actor, musician and broadcaster, the son of comedian Ted Ray and the brother of actor Andrew Ray.-Career:...

, Joyce Grenfell
Joyce Grenfell
Joyce Irene Grenfell, OBE was an English actress, comedienne, diseuse and singer-songwriter.-Early life:...

, David Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...

 and Richard Baker
Richard Baker (broadcaster)
Richard Baker OBE is a British broadcaster best known as a newsreader for the BBC News from 1954 to 1982. He was a contemporary of Kenneth Kendall and Robert Dougall and was the first person to read the BBC Television News in 1954. At one time he lived in Barnet, North London...

.

Levin published his first book in 1970. Called The Pendulum Years, its subtitle, Britain and the Sixties, summed up its subject. In 22 self-contained chapters, Levin considered various aspects of British life during the decade. Among his topics were prominent people including Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

 – dubbed the Walrus and the Carpenter
The Walrus and the Carpenter
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" is a narrative poem by Lewis Carroll that appeared in his book Through the Looking-Glass, published in December 1871. The poem is recited in chapter four, by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice. The poem is composed of 18 stanzas and contains 108 lines, in an...

 by Levin – and institutions such as the monarchy, the churches and the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 in its last days. Among the individual events examined in the book were the 1968 student riots
Protests of 1968
The protests of 1968 consisted of a worldwide series of protests, largely participated in by students and workers.-Background:Background speculations of overall causality vary about the political protests centering on the year 1968. Some argue that protests could be attributed to the social changes...

 and the prosecution for obscenity of the publishers of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Levin's interest in indexes developed from his work on The Pendulum Years. He compiled his own index for the book, "and swore a mighty oath, when I had finished the task, that I would rather die, and in a particularly unpleasant manner, than do it again". He contrived to include in his index an obscene joke at the expense of the hapless prosecutor in the Chatterley trial, but found the difficulty of indexing so great that he became a champion of the Society of Indexers
Society of Indexers
The Society of Indexers is a professional society based in the UK, with its offices in Sheffield, England, but has members worldwide.It exists to promote indexing, the quality of indexes and the profession of indexing. It provides a distance training course in indexing leading to its qualification...

. He wrote several articles on the subject, and when reviewing books made a point of praising good indexes and condemning bad ones.

The Times

In June 1970, during the general election campaign
United Kingdom general election, 1970
The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...

, Levin fell out with the proprietors of The Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere
Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere
Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere was a British Conservative politician and press magnate.Harmsworth's father, Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, had been the financial wizard behind the creation of the Daily Mail in partnership with his brother Alfred Harmsworth,...

 and his son Vere Harmsworth
Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere
Vere Harold Esmond Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere became the 3rd Viscount Rothermere in 1978, having been widely known as Vere Harmsworth. He controlled large media interests in the United Kingdom and United States...

. Levin's contract guaranteed him absolute freedom to write whatever he chose, but Harmsworth, an unswerving Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

, attempted to censor Levin's support for the other major party, Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

. Levin resigned, and immediately received offers from The Guardian and The Times to join them as a columnist. He found both tempting, and at one point "even had a wild notion of suggesting that I should write for both simultaneously". In the end, he chose The Times, giving as his reason that though the liberal Guardian was more in line with his own politics than the conservative Times, "I wrote more comfortably against the grain of the paper I worked for rather than with it". His obituarist in The Times adds that the decision may also have been swayed by the better remuneration offered by the paper.
Among the perquisites of the Times appointment were a company car and a large and splendid office at the paper's building in Printing House Square
Printing House Square
Printing House Square is a London court, so called from the former office of the King's Printer which occupied the site. For many years, the office of The Times stood on the site, until it relocated to Gray's Inn Road and later to Wapping....

, London. Levin accepted neither; he could not drive and he hated to be isolated. He commandeered a desk in the anteroom to the editor's office, a location that kept him closely in touch with the daily affairs of the paper. It also gave him ready access to the editor, William Rees Mogg, with whom he developed a good friendship. Levin's brief was to write two columns a week (later three) on any subject that he wished. His range was prodigious; he published nine volumes of his selected journalism of which the first, Taking Sides, covered subjects as diverse as the death watch beetle
Death watch beetle
The death watch beetle, Xestobium rufovillosum, is a woodboring beetle. The adult beetle is long, while the xylophagous larvae are up to long....

, Field Marshal Montgomery
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC , nicknamed "Monty" and the "Spartan General" was a British Army officer. He saw action in the First World War, when he was seriously wounded, and during the Second World War he commanded the 8th Army from...

, Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

, censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

, Eldridge Cleaver
Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...

, arachniphobia
Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia or arachnephobia is a specific phobia, the fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions. It is a manifestation of zoophobia, among the most common of all phobias. The reactions of arachnophobics often seem irrational to others...

, theatrical nudity, and the North Thames Gas Board
North Thames Gas Board
The North Thames Gas Board was a state-owned utility providing gas for light and heat to industries and homes in part of England. The Board's area included parts of the County of London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Surrey...

.

Within weeks of joining The Times Levin provoked a lawsuit and a strident controversy. The first was in March 1971, in an article titled "Profit and dishonour in Fleet Street", accusing Rothermere of underhand conduct and personal avarice during the merger of The Daily Mail and The Daily Sketch. The libel action brought by Rothermere was settled out of court, at substantial cost to the proprietor of The Times, Lord Thomson
Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet
Roy Herbert Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet GBE was a Canadian newspaper proprietor and media entrepreneur.-Career:...

. Two months later, controversy followed Levin's renewed condemnation of Lord Goddard immediately after the latter's death in May 1971. The legal profession closed ranks and defended Goddard's reputation against Levin's attacks. Among those denouncing Levin were Lords Denning
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning
Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning, OM, PC, DL, KC , commonly known as Lord Denning, was a British soldier, mathematician, lawyer and judge. He gained degrees in mathematics and law at Oxford University, although his studies were disrupted by his service in the First World War...

, Devlin
Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin
Patrick Arthur Devlin, Baron Devlin, PC was a British lawyer, judge and jurist. He wrote a report on Britain's involvement in Nyasaland in 1959...

, Hodson
Charles Hodson, Baron Hodson
Francis Lord Charlton Hodson, Baron Hodson PC, KC, MC , always known as Charles Hodson, was a British judge.The son of Reverend Thomas Hodson, he was educated in Cheltenham College...

, Parker
Hubert Parker, Baron Parker of Waddington
Hubert Lister Parker, Baron Parker of Waddington PC was a British Judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1958 to 1971...

, Shawcross
Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross
Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, GBE, PC, KC was a British barrister and politician and the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal.- Early life :...

 and Stow Hill. After Levin's death The Times published an article reporting that information made public since 1971 "strongly supported" his criticisms of Goddard. At the time, the lawyers took revenge on Levin by ensuring that his candidacy for membership of the Garrick
Garrick Club
The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in London.-History:The Garrick Club was founded at a meeting in the Committee Room at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on Wednesday 17 August 1831...

, a London club much favoured by lawyers and journalists, was blackballed.

At The Daily Mail, Levin had generally been restricted to 600 words for his articles. At The Times he had more licence to spread himself. He appeared in The Guinness Book of Records for the longest sentence ever to appear in a newspaper – 1,667 words. He was proud of this, and affected to be outraged when "some bugger in India wrote a sentence very considerably longer". He maintained that he could construct impromptu a sentence of up to 40 subordinate clauses "and many a native of these islands, speaking English as to the manner born, has followed me trustingly into the labyrinth only to perish miserably trying to find the way out".

Sometimes Levin wrote about frivolous, even farcical matters, such as a series of mock-indignant articles about the sex-lives of mosquitoes. At other times he wrote about matters of grave moral importance, unfailingly denouncing authoritarian regimes whether of the left or the right. He observed, "I am barred by the governments concerned from entering the Soviet Union and the lands of her empire on the one hand and South Africa on the other. These decrees constitute a pair of campaign medals that I wear with considerable pleasure and I have a profound suspicion of those who rebuke me for partisanship while wearing only one". He wrote regularly about the arts. Music was a recurrent theme; he was notorious for his addiction to Wagner, and other favourite composers included Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

. He wrote about performers he admired, including Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...

, Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...

, and Kiri Te Kanawa
Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, ONZ, DBE, AC is a New Zealand / Māori soprano who has had a highly successful international opera career since 1968. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved sopranos in both the United States and Britain she possesses a warm full lyric soprano voice, singing a wide array...

. He turned less regularly to the visual arts, but when he did his views were clear-cut and trenchantly expressed. He wrote of a Pre-Raphaelite
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

 exhibition in 1984, "Never, in all my life, not even at the exclusively Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

 exhibition in 1967, have I seen so much sickening rubbish in one place at one time". His knowledge and love of literature were reflected in many of his writings; among his best-known pieces is a long paragraph about the influence of Shakespeare on everyday discourse. It begins:

Arianna Stassinopoulos (Huffington)

In 1971, Levin appeared in an edition of Face the Music
Face The Music (TV series)
Face the Music was a weekly BBC television programme in the form of a classical music quiz. It began in 1966 and continued until 1979, with revivals in 1983-4 and 2007.-Format:...

along with a new panellist, Arianna Stassinopoulos
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...

 (later known as Arianna Huffington). He was 42; she was 21. A relationship developed, of which she wrote, after his death: "He wasn't just the big love of my life, he was a mentor as a writer and a role model as a thinker".

Although Levin had rejected Judaism when a youth, he quested after spirituality. Such religious sympathies as he had, he said, were "with quietist faiths, like Buddhism, on the one hand, and with a straightforward message of salvation, like Christianity, on the other". With the help of Stassinopoulos he continued to search after spiritual truth. She later wrote, "He tried therapy, he tried Insight, a self-awareness seminar that I had helped to bring to London, he tried a stint in an ashram
Ashram
Traditionally, an ashram is a spiritual hermitage. Additionally, today the term ashram often denotes a locus of Indian cultural activity such as yoga, music study or religious instruction, the moral equivalent of a studio or dojo....

 in India. Lesser souls would have avoided the ridicule that was heaped on him for his spiritual 'search' by simply keeping it to himself. But he didn't, because anything he was touched by he had to write about". In 1980 he wrote extensive accounts in his column about his visit to the Indian commune of the meditation teacher Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Osho , born Chandra Mohan Jain , and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.A professor of philosophy, he travelled...

.

Levin was commissioned by the BBC to visit musical festivals around the world, broadcasting a series of talks about them. Together with Stassinopoulos, he visited festivals in Britain, Ireland, continental Europe and Australia. He later wrote a book, Conducted Tour (1982) on the same subject. By the time it was published he and Stassinopoulos were no longer together. At the age of 30, she remained deeply in love with him but longed to have children; Levin never wanted to marry or be a father. She concluded that she must break away, and moved to New York in 1980.

1980s

In 1981 Levin took a sabbatical from The Times after Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

 bought the paper and Harold Evans
Harold Evans
Sir Harold Matthew Evans is a British-born journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism...

 succeeded Rees-Mogg as editor. Evans and Levin were friends, but Levin had publicly stated his preference that Charles Douglas-Home should be appointed. Within a year Evans and Murdoch fell out and Evans left in 1982; Douglas-Home became editor, and coaxed Levin back, to write two columns a week. On returning to the paper in October 1982, he began his column with the words, "And another thing". This mirrored his opening gambit when publication of The Times resumed in 1979 after a printers' strike lasting nearly a year: his first column then had begun with the word "Moreover". By the 1980s Levin was sufficiently well known to be the subject of satire himself. The satirical ITV show Spitting Image
Spitting Image
Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....

caricatured him in high-flown discussion with another well-known intellectual in a sketch entitled "Bernard Levin and Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...

 Talk Bollocks". By now, Levin's political views were moving to the right, and he was no longer writing so much against the grain of his newspaper. He had come to admire Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

, though not the rest of her party: "But there is one, and only one, political position that, through all the years and all my changing views and feelings, has never altered, never come into question, never seemed too simple for a complex world. It is my profound and unwavering contempt for the Conservative Party".

Levin never published an autobiography, but his book Enthusiasms, published in 1983, consists of chapters on his principal pleasures: books, pictures, cities, walking, Shakespeare, music, food and drink, and spiritual mystery. The book is dedicated "To Arianna, with much more than enthusiasm" – they remained loving friends for the rest of his life. It contains a sentence that far outdoes his earlier 1,667 word effort in The Times, starting on page 212 and ending four pages later; it lists the restaurants most esteemed by Levin in Europe, Asia and America.

In the 1980s, Levin made three television series for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

. The first, Hannibal's Footsteps, screened in 1985, showed Levin walking the presumed route taken by Hannibal when he invaded Italy in 218 B.C.. The programme followed Levin's 320-mile journey from Aigues-Mortes
Aigues-Mortes
Aigues-Mortes is a commune in the Gard department in southern France.The medieval city walls surrounding the city are well preserved.-History:...

 to the crossing into Italy in the Queyras
Queyras
The Queyras is a valley located in the French Hautes-Alpes, of which the geographical extension is the basin of river Guil, a tributary of the Durance...

 valley. He remained true to his declared intention of eschewing all forms of vehicular transport, and walked all the way, with the exception of his crossing the Rhone
Rhône
Rhone can refer to:* Rhone, one of the major rivers of Europe, running through Switzerland and France* Rhône Glacier, the source of the Rhone River and one of the primary contributors to Lake Geneva in the far eastern end of the canton of Valais in Switzerland...

, rowing himself in a small boat. He followed this with To the End of the Rhine in 1987, following the Rhine from its two sources, the Hinterrhein
Hinterrhein (river)
The Hinterrhein is one of the initial tributaries of the Rhine in the Canton of Graubünden in Switzerland, flowing from the village Hinterrhein near the San Bernardino pass through the Rheinwald valley into a gorge called Roflaschlucht...

 and the Vorderrhein
Vorderrhein
The Vorderrhein is one of the two sources of the Rhine. Its catchment area of is located predominantly in the Canton of Graubünden . The Vorderrhein is about long, thus more than 5% longer than the Hinterrhein...

, in Switzerland, to its estuary at Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, 1233 km (766.2 mi) to the north. In between he joined the Swiss citizen army on manoeuvres, visited Liechtenstein bankers, zig-zagged the Swiss–German border at Lake Constance
Lake Constance
Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...

, attended the Schubertiade
Schubertiade
A Schubertiade is an event held to celebrate the music of Franz Schubert.-History:During Schubert's lifetime, these events were generally informal, unadvertised gatherings, held at private homes...

 at Hohenems and the opera at Bregenz
Bregenzer Festspiele
Bregenzer Festspiele is a performing arts festival which is held every July and August in Bregenz, Austria.Founded in 1946, the festival presents a wide variety of musical and theatrical events in several venues:...

, took the waters at Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...

, visited the manufacturers of eau de Cologne
Eau de Cologne
Eau de Cologne or simply Cologne is a toiletry, a perfume in a style that originated from Cologne, Germany. It is nowadays a generic term for scented formulations in typical concentration of 2-5% essential oils. However as of today cologne is a blend of extracts, alcohol, and water...

, and paid tribute to Erasmus at Basle. The last of the three series was in 1989, A Walk up Fifth Avenue in New York, from Washington Square
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...

 to the Harlem River
Harlem River
The Harlem River is a navigable tidal strait in New York City, USA that flows 8 miles between the Hudson River and the East River, separating the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx...

. In this series he encountered extremes of wealth and poverty, and met a wide variety of people, some famous (such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...

 and Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...

) and some not (including a sword-swallowing unicyclist, and a bag lady in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

). He wrote books based on each of the three series, published in 1985, 1987 and 1989.

Last years

Levin began to have difficulty with his balance as early as 1988, although Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

 was not diagnosed until the early 1990s. From September 1995 his Times column appeared once weekly instead of twice, and in January 1997 the editor, Peter Stothard
Peter Stothard
Sir Peter Stothard is a British newspaper editor. He currently edits the Times Literary Supplement, and edited The Times from 1992 to 2002....

, concluded, despite a great admiration for Levin, that the weekly column should cease. Levin retired, though he continued to write for the paper occasionally over the next year.

In his last decade, Levin's partner was the journalist Liz Anderson, who took care of him during the long degenerative phase of his illness. He died in Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...

, London, aged 75. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery is located near Earl's Court in South West London, England . It is managed by The Royal Parks and is one of the Magnificent Seven...

, London. A memorial service was held at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is an Anglican church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Its patron is Saint Martin of Tours.-Roman era:Excavations at the site in 2006 led to the discovery of a grave dated about 410...

 at which Sir David Frost
David Frost
Sir David Frost is a British broadcaster.David Frost may also refer to:*David Frost , South African golfer*David Frost , classical record producer*David Frost *Dave Frost, baseball pitcher...

 delivering the eulogy described Levin as "a faithful crusader for tolerance and against injustice who had declared, 'The pen is mightier than the sword – and much easier to write with'".

Honours and commemorations

Levin was appointed CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 for services to journalism in 1990. The Society of Indexers
Society of Indexers
The Society of Indexers is a professional society based in the UK, with its offices in Sheffield, England, but has members worldwide.It exists to promote indexing, the quality of indexes and the profession of indexing. It provides a distance training course in indexing leading to its qualification...

 has instituted an award in Levin's name; it is given to "a journalist and author whose writings show untiring and eloquent support for indexers and indexing". He was president of the English Association
English Association
The English Association is a British association dedicated to furthering the study of English language and literature in schools, higher education institutes and amongst the public in general....

, 1984–85, and vice-president 1985–88. He was an honorary fellow of the LSE from 1977, and a member of the Order of Polonia Restituta, conferred by the Polish Government-in-Exile in 1976. In its obituary tribute to him, The Times described Levin as "the most famous journalist of his day".
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