The Pendulum Years: Britain in the Sixties

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A decade ago, Bernard mentioned to his friends that he was suffering from some unidentifiable illness. Indeed, it was plain to see. Five years passed before he revealed what many had suspected, that he had Alzheimer's disease. The fates could never have devised a more cruel torment for a man who prided himself on his memory, who could without fail dredge up the most apt quotation from his prodigious store of reading.

This embracing of odd ideas led him on to writing articles in praise of the spurious guru Bagwan Rajneesh. It was part of a recurring pattern which led him to support figures he should have detested such as Richard Nixon and his vice-president Spiro Agnew. The obituarist of The Daily Telegraph, however, wrote that "Colin Welch, in The Telegraph, had already set a new style for the Parliamentary sketch, treating the view of the Commons from the Press Gallery as though he were looking on to the stage from the stalls and reviewing a performance which was part high drama and part cabaret". [12] For a man of such erudition who took so passionate an interest in literature and had so consuming a feeling for music, he had surprisingly little visual taste, most noticeable in his clothes. He loved dressing up in the evening, always wearing to the opera a swirling cloak lined with bright-coloured silk and imposed this taste on the women he took with him.

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When this did not happen, he decided to move on, at first going to the Daily Express as theatre critic, and from 1962 to 1965 working at the Daily Mail in the same capacity. He then became a Mail feature writer and in 1969 What The Papers Say columnist of the year. His contract specified that he should have complete freedom and that no one should change anything he wrote, either for opinion or style, without his consent. Levin became a broadcaster, first on the weekly satirical television show That Was the Week That Was in the early 1960s, then as a panellist on a musical quiz, Face the Music, 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, which eventually forced him to give up his regular column in 1997, and to stop writing altogether not long afterwards. I still feel like my mother's daughter. She had that Greek tribal sense. Whoever would come into the house, whether it was the FedEx man or the father of a play date, she would bring them into the kitchen and force food on them. I'm the same. Thus did he invite some 80 members of his circle to an evening at the Cafe Royale, at which he encouraged us to enrol. It was a strange experience to hear this paragon of logic, sceptical of all humbug trotting out stories that normally he would have scoffed at. At the end of it my neighbour turned to me and said, "I feel I have lost a friend tonight." Similarly he is good on unions. Levin has been personally active in the freelance branch of the journalists’ union, the NUJ, where by his energies he has done a lot to frustrate the plans of those giftless radicals who wait around at meetings until there is no one left to interfere with a unanimous vote. Levin published lists which helped write-in voters to support sane candidates. He did the same with regard to the actors’ union, Equity, thereby materially helping to stop that organisation passing into the control of the zanier members of the Redgrave family. For a writer it is not a very exalted level on which to be politically effective, but it counts, especially when you consider how few writers are politically effective on any level.

Obituary of Joseph Cooper", The Daily Telegraph, 6 August 2001, and Barker, Dennis. "Joseph Cooper", The Guardian, 9 August 2001 Bernard’s enthusiasms were the most infectious of anyone I have ever known. To listen to Bernard talking about music or literature was inspiring. He was a terribly funny man and I am honoured to have been his friend for 40 years. He faced his illness with great courage and didn’t know the meaning of self-pity.”

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You moved to England, from Greece, when you were 16. And then you left England for America when you were 30. What impact did your time in the UK have on you? On 7 August 2004, he died in Westminster, London, aged 75. [5] He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. [2] A memorial service was held at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields at which Sir David Frost 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'". [67] Honours and commemorations [ edit ]

The greatest tribute one could pay Levin is that it is doubtful The Times would survived the suspension in the late 70's without him as a columnist. On the paper's return he was the principal reason to but the paper once again. Your life has gone through many incarnations - biographer, Republican wife, aspiring politician, campaigner, internet mogul. Do you ever wish it had been less complicated? Prolific, controversial, passionate, versatile, maddening, enthusiastic, sometimes irresponsible, always courageous, he was recognised instantly in the street by people of all ages. In 1971 he began a regular column for The Times, and said he was looking forward to his left-wing views going "against the grain" of the paper. The Times called him "savage, clever, cunning, witty and brilliant".He was the best columnist of his time - a wonderfully imaginative phrasemaker ("Tony Benn and Enoch Powell: the tassels dangling at each end of the lunatic fringe"), very funny (his mother versus British Gas was a classic of deadpan humour) and brave and perceptive: he foresaw that the rise of the violent wing of the animals rights movement and other 'single issue' fanaticism would be one of the major problems facing society in the coming century - and unlike many people in the public eye he wasn't afraid to say so. Levin wrote for a large array of different newspapers during his career, including the Manchester Guardian and the Observer. a b c d Levin, Bernard. "Now 'Truth' can be told about my early days", The Times, 24 June 1977, p. 14