Low Life: The Spectator Columns

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June 18, 2005: “My friends told me that halfway through the ball they’d gone to look for me and found me unconscious outside, flat on my face on the lawn, next to the naked girl. Someone had taken off my shoes, arranged them neatly side-by-side and set fire to them.” Lower living Am I just too PC to get the jokes? No. I'll allow any taboo to be broken if the observation is honest enough to be funny – and the best humour is always deeply rooted in honesty. Perhaps the fact that I didn't believe in the characters is why most of it didn't really work for me. After his love for Catriona and his family came West Ham United. In his younger days he was an active supporter, relishing the intense fanaticism of a football hooligan. He occasionally referred to the odd punch-up in his column with an almost wistful sense of nostalgia. He remained a loyal supporter to the end, seeking out bars in and around Cotignac to watch the games. Even Jeremy’s great optimistic spirit was becoming severely tested by his aggressive cancer. The French health service was remarkable in its support for him, greatly assisted by Catriona who had been a nurse herself. He was in severe pain and became increasingly restricted in his daily habits. Yet every week he produced a searing, often moving, column. Lesser mortals would have thrown the towel in a long time before Jeremy. His readers followed his demise with a mixture of admiration for his courage and sadness at the impending conclusion. He was greatly touched by the messages of support sent by many. He was especially proud of a librarian from Oxford who revelled in the literary references in his articles.

Jeremy became a friend of mine soon after he had established himself as essential weekly reading. For over fifteen years he would join a party of “rogues and funsters” for the annual Racing Festival at Cheltenham in March. It was an eclectic group who somehow managed to gel over a three, then four, day festival of drinking, gambling, storytelling and, of course, enjoying the racing too. For twenty-three years his Low Life column proved that any life, no matter how humble, can be riveting if the writing is good enough. He poured his heart and soul into what he wrote; it read effortlessly but was written with incredible thought and effort. He was able to magnify his own life in a way that makes you reflect upon your own. To say that I was his editor for fourteen years would be to vastly exaggerate my role. I didn’t edit a single word of his: he filed word perfect every week. When I became editor, I actually wondered if he exaggerated his stories. He’d begin by saying: “I woke up on a Leicester Square pavement at 4 a.m.” and you’d think, “No, he couldn’t possibly have done that; he’s using artistic license.” Then you’d meet him and realize: yes, it’s all for real. Hence the unmatched power of his writing. From time to time Clarke slips updates on his condition into Low Life, a weekly diary he writes for The Spectator magazine. These bulletins — witty, erudite, self-effacing, and rigorously unsentimental — are about prostate cancer as a tragicomedy. April 2023: ‘I’m going downhill fast. The numb fingers of my left hand are barely strong enough to unscrew the cap from a tube of toothpaste. And the morphine dose occasionally still fails to mask the pain, which achieves an unsurmised, unimaginable, unsupportable level. It makes one wonder what role in nature that level of pain is supposed to be playing.“Treena,”I say.“I don’t think I want to live any more.”Then I swallow a big short-acting morphine dose and after half an hour the pain subsides slightly, and I have a sip of tea, and I can hear a choir of village children singing over at the school, and a soppy dove almost flies in through the open window, and life has interest once more.’ On loveJuly 30, 2022: “And I think: is this how it ends? Lying in bed watching TikTok videos? At the weekend I had planned a retreat in a nunnery. Three days of silent prayer and contemplation. But two of the nuns have caught Covid and the technical nun thought it best that we postponed. And at the weekend the tumor pain in my armpit, shoulder and shoulder blade intensified alarmingly. For the first time, the usual dose of the usual painkillers didn’t touch it. An escalation. I have always imagined that when it was time for me to die I would make a serious effort to prepare myself. And now that the warning light is flashing, what do I do? I tap the TikTok app and there’s Bernard Manning saying, ‘A man walks into a pub with a crocodile under his arm.’ Shoot me.” Spectator readers There will be a memorial service for him, the details of which will be arranged in due course. The Spectator will be paying tribute to him in next week’s magazine. For now, we have his columns to treasure: a legacy that has enriched, and will continue to enrich, the lives of everyone who comes across them. His column was not a study in ‘low life’ drink and debauchery, although there was certainly plenty of that. The theme that I drew from them, especially in his references to Catriona, was about the role and power of love: its ability to magnify and transform the smallest, most seemingly insignificant parts of life. This morning I woke early paralysed with worse pain than ever and I said to Catriona that we couldn’t go on like this. So she trotted down early to discuss my future with Dr Biscarat. My future is this. I will be cared for at home until I die. France will supply nurses capable of hospital-level care. If the pain continues to overcome the oral morphine, I will be fitted with this fabled morphine ‘syringe driver’, which can be turned up to 11 and put an end to it whenever I like. Splendid. November 1, 2008: “The bottom half of the bed was sodden. Further investigation told me that, although the sheets were soaked, the duvet and the suit trousers I’d slept in were perfectly dry. Strange.” Short relationships He passed only two O-levels, however, and his next phase of development was neatly summarised on the flyleaf of a Low Life anthology published in 2011:

For 23 years his Low Life column proved that any life, no matter how humble, can be riveting if the writing is good enough. He poured his heart and soul into what he wrote; it read effortlessly but was written with incredible thought and effort. He was able to magnify his own life in a way that makes you reflect upon your own. To say that I was his editor for 14 years would be to vastly exaggerate my role. I didn’t edit a single word of his: he filed word perfect every week. When I became editor, I actually wondered if he exaggerated his stories. He’d begin by saying: ‘I woke up on a Leicester Square pavement at 4 a.m.’ and you’d think, ‘No, he couldn’t possibly have done that; he’s using artistic licence’. Then you’d meet him and realise: yes, it’s all for real. Hence the unmatched power of his writing. Although based in France he kept closely in touch with his family in Britain, especially his grandsons on whom he doted. His spirits rose when he met up with them either in France or in Britain.May 2023: ‘When Marketa leaves, Treena supervises the cleaning of my gob. On the bed table she lays out a hand towel, a tooth mug with warm water in it, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and three paper towels to spit into. She also places upon the table an anti-fungal mouthwash. Mouth fungus, apparently, is an inevitable side result of these cancer treatments. Unfortunately, by kissing her too frequently and too passionately, and vice versa, I have passed mine on to Catriona. He is survived by Catriona, his son Mark, grandsons Oscar and Klynton, to whom he was especially devoted, and three stepdaughters from Catriona’s first marriage. So why am I? Mainly because life can be stressful and sometimes I want to read something light and frivolous and funny. The magic colouring book feel of the cover with its scattered sketches of an isolated house, fag-smoking car crashed into a lamp-post, open bottle and spilled glass of vino suggested this was about as frivolous as it gets. It also promised some humour.

December 2013:‘I couldn’t believe it: 3 a.m.in the bohemian quarter of the greatest city on earth and you can’t get a reasonably priced drink anywhere? What was I supposed to do next? Go home? Boris! Are you listening! It’s an absolute disgrace!’ On grandsons If any kind of social commentary is intended, I simply failed to spot it. Or perhaps I'm just on the wrong side of the political divide to appreciate it. Either way, if a point is being searched for, it won't be found among these covers. There are few I know just what you mean moments, and yet nothing obnoxious enough to be offensive. In those years Clarke lived between Devon and the Provençal village of Cotignac, to where Catriona had decamped, to a house built into a cliff, following her separation. But after his mother’s death in 2019 Clarke moved permanently to France, offering British readers a revealing account of the opulence of French state health provision.October 24, 2014: “But what do I know about art? I don’t even know what I like. And I was feeling so good, so alive, and so in love with London, that I mentally apologized to myself, God and the universe for slipping into judgmental nitwit mode again, and I headed on up the road towards the drumming and the tumults in Trafalgar Square.” My year of drugs April 15, 2023: “I’m going downhill fast. The numb fingers of my left hand are barely strong enough to unscrew the cap from a tube of toothpaste. And the morphine dose occasionally still fails to mask the pain, which achieves an unsurmised, unimaginable, unsupportable level. It makes one wonder what role in nature that level of pain is supposed to be playing. ‘Treena,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I want to live any more.’ Then I swallow a big short-acting morphine dose and after half an hour the pain subsides slightly, and I have a sip of tea, and I can hear a choir of village children singing over at the school, and a soppy dove almost flies in through the open window, and life has interest once more.” The end