GONE TO THE DOGS, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

The last Diaries: In and Out Of The Wilderness by Alan Clark(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (pounds) 20)

THE less Alan Clark had to do, the more he turned to his diary. He did not regard this as a blessing. Having left the House of Commons in 1991 at his own volition, he was at a loose end; in his seventh decade, a former MP, his children flown, his powers - sexual, physical, intellectual - fading. Always inclined to hypochondria, the valedictory volume of his diaries catalogues his decline with percipient accuracy. Vain to the point of narcissism, he peers into the mirror and is dismayed by what he sees: liver spots, bulging veins, wrinkles. The refrain is how long he has left. Five years? Ten? In his darkest hours he seems near suicidal.

It is, of course, a trick of diarists to make immediate their miseries. But as Clark notes, his moods, whether flat or soaring, are fleeting. A word of praise or denegration can transform him. For someone so famously rude he is incontinently sensitive. Above all he wants to be loved, as indeed he is. In the first sentence of the first entry he refers to "X", a young woman with whom he is infatuated and who remains unidentified. Like one of Balzac's roues, he is an incorrigible philanderer, unable to rein himself in. But he retains a sense of humour. Compared by a Tory constituency chairman to Lloyd George he presumes it's because of their shared "goat-like tendencies".

At the beginning of this third collection of diaries, Clark none too convincingly contemplates a retirement spent counting pennies in one of his several homes, including Saltwood Castle. Having made their money in the thread mills of Paisley in the 19th century, the Clarks proceeded to fritter it away. It was Kenneth Clark, author of Civilisation and Alan's father, who remarked that his family belong to a class known as the idle rich, of whom his parents were more idle than most. His son does not strike one as indolent - quite the reverse - but he worries about money almost as much as he does about his health. Yet he keeps half a dozen houses, numerous classic cars and any number of great paintings and artefacts. In the circumstances it is hard to feel sorry for a man who can wipe out his debts by selling off a Degas.

All of which is perhaps symptomatic of someone whose qualities never quite matched his ambition. In comparison to Pepys - with whom he has been ludicrously compared - Clark never attained high political office, nor was he ever likely to. Even in a party full of fall guys, Clark was in a class of his own, an accident waiting to happen. Having inherited his snobbery from his father, he had an entree into the upper reaches of the Tory party, but he was never destined to become its leader, not because of his affairs but because he was too much of a dilettante, too clever by half for his own good. At one point he even listens to a London taxi driver and contemplates the possibility of becoming Prime Minister, to the extent of picking his government. How badly he would have fared can be gauged by his proposal to make Eric Forth Secretary of State for Scotland. Heaven forfend.

His chief interest in Scotland is his estate in the northwest at Eriboll, which he finds recuperative and about which he writes with lyrical fondness. Unlike others with his background, he does not hunt or shoot. Among his most endearing traits is a fondness for animals.

Often portrayed as a cad, he does not strike one as wilfully cruel. Rather he is in thrall to his desires and cannot resist ogling a pretty girl or remarking on her attributes. His long-suffering wife Jane, however, is the one constant in his life and she is there at the end, in 1999, keeping a diary when a brain tumour finally rendered him incapable of writing his own. Nevertheless, he left instructions for the press release announcing his death: "Suddenly at Saltwood on 5 September. He wanted it to be known that he'd gone to join Tom and the other dogs." And so to his final rest.

Copyright 2002
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