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{{Short description|English writer and journalist}}
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'''Harold Alaric Jacob''' (8 June 1909 – 26 January 1995) was an English writer and journalist. He was a [[Reuters]] correspondent in Washington in the 1930s, and a war correspondent during [[World War II]] in North Africa, Burma, and Moscow.
'''Harold Alaric Jacob''' (8 June 1909 – 26 January 1995) was an English writer and journalist. He was a [[Reuters]] correspondent in Washington in the 1930s and a war correspondent during [[World War II]] in North Africa, Burma and Moscow.


==Early life==
==Early life==


Jacob was the son of Ellen Hoyer, the daughter of a Danish missionary, and Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Fenton Jacob, a member of the Indian Army and once a [[Political Resident|Political Agent]] in [[Aden]]. He was born in [[Edinburgh]] and brought up in Scotland. As a child, he spent time in India and Arabia but was educated in England. He had a childhood friend, [[Kim Philby]], while in Arabia and [[Eastbourne]], where they were educated at different [[preparatory school (UK)|prep school]]s. Jacob developed a stammer, which he believed came from his association with Philby, which was cured in time by singing lessons.<ref name="ReferenceA">Alaric Jacob ''Sharing Orwell's Joys – but not his fears'' in Christopher Norris ''Inside the Myth'' Lawrence and Wishart 1984</ref>
Alaric Jacob was the son of Ellen Hoyer, the daughter of a Danish missionary, and Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Fenton Jacob, a member of the Indian Army and former [[Political Resident|political agent]] in [[Aden]]. Jacob was born in [[Edinburgh]] and brought up in Scotland. As a child, he spent time in India and Arabia, but was educated in England. He was a childhood friend of Soviet spy [[Kim Philby]]. Jacob developed a stammer, which he believed came from his association with Philby. This was managed over time by singing lessons.<ref name="ReferenceA">Alaric Jacob ''Sharing Orwell's Joys – but not his fears'' in Christopher Norris ''Inside the Myth'' Lawrence and Wishart 1984</ref>

⚫
Like several other promising children from Anglo-Indian or military families, Jacob attended [[St Cyprian's School]] for reduced fees. English novelist [[George Orwell]] left the school the year before Jacob started, and was presented as an inspiration to the students.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Jacob's first term at St Cyprian's overlapped with English writer and literary critic [[Cyril Connolly]]'s last year there. Connolly gave a lesson in Jacob's last year.<ref>Cyril Connolly ''Enemies of Promise'' 1938</ref><ref>St Cyprian's Chronicle 1917, 1922</ref> For Jacob it was "an age of friendships, of excitement on the cricket fields and in school plays, of singing to a receptive audience at concerts, of having a sonnet printed in the school magazine, of winning the [[Harrow History Prize|Townsend Warner History Prize]]." Jacob struggled with the [[classic]]s and did not enter for a scholarship to [[public school (UK)|public school]]. He instead studied at [[The King's School, Canterbury]];{{Clarify|date=April 2024|reason=King's School Canterbury is a public school}} however, unimpressed with what he was learning, he left school and moved to France to pursue a career in journalism.


==Career==
⚫
Like several other promising children from Anglo-Indian or military families, Jacob was able to attend [[St Cyprian's School]] for reduced fees. The English novelist [[George Orwell]] had left the school the year before Jacob started, and was presented as an inspiration for Jacob to follow.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Jacob's first term at St Cyprian's also overlapped with English writer and literary critic [[Cyril Connolly]]'s last year there. Connolly later visited and gave a lesson in Jacob's last year.<ref>Cyril Connolly ''Enemies of Promise'' 1938</ref><ref>St Cyprian's Chronicle 1917, 1922</ref> For Jacob it was "...an age of friendships, of excitement on the cricket fields and in school plays, of singing to a receptive audience at concerts, of having a sonnet printed in the school magazine, of winning the [[Harrow History Prize|Townsend Warner History Prize]]." Jacob, however, struggled with the [[classic]]s and therefore did not enter for a scholarship to [[public school (UK)|public school]]. He went on to [[The King's School, Canterbury]], where he was unimpressed with the standard of teaching and foresaw that he was unlikely to achieve a scholarship to university. Realizing he was a skillful writer, he decided to become a journalist. With the encouragement of his father, who had problems paying his school fees, he left school and went to France.


==Writing and journalism==
===Writing and journalism===


While in France Jacob began writing, returning to England after the [[UK General Strike of 1926|General Strike]]. When he was seventeen, his first play was produced in [[Plymouth]] where he started his career as a journalist on the [[Western Morning News]]. His second play, ''The Compleat Cynic'', was also produced in Plymouth the following year. In 1930, at the age of 21, he published his first novel ''Seventeen'', a fictionalized account of his school days in Canterbury. By then he had become a close friend of [[Margot Asquith]], forty years his senior, who was to become his mentor and decisive literary influence. At her house, he met editors as well as other important figures. She introduced him to [[Roderick Jones (Reuters)|Sir Roderick Jones]], the head of Reuters, and at the age of 21 he was offered a position as diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in London.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
While in France, Jacob began writing, returning to England after the [[UK General Strike of 1926|General Strike]]. When he was seventeen, his first play was produced in [[Plymouth]], where he started his career as a journalist on the ''[[Western Morning News]]''. His second play, ''The Compleat Cynic'', was produced in Plymouth the following year. In 1930, ''Seventeen'', his first novel was published. It is a fictionalized account of his school days in Canterbury. By then, he had become a close friend of [[Margot Asquith]], forty years his senior, who became his mentor and literary influence. She introduced him to editors and important literary figures, including [[Roderick Jones (1877–1962)|Sir Roderick Jones]], the head of Reuters, and was offered a position as diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in London.<ref name="ReferenceA" />


During his time in London, with his charm and wit, Jacob moved in high social and intellectual circles. He wrote a play in which the hero was a communist and as a result, decided to read ''[[Das Kapital]]''. In 1934, he married [[Iris Morley]], daughter of Lieut-Col Chartres Morley.<ref>{{cite web|title=NASSAU ANCESTORS |url=http://www.geocities.com/myjacobfamily/nassau.html |archiveurl=https://www.webcitation.org/5kmFOQuif?url=http://www.geocities.com/myjacobfamily/nassau.html |archivedate=25 October 2009 |url-status=dead |df=dmy }}</ref> She was a historical novelist and journalist for ''[[The Observer]]'' and the ''[[Yorkshire Post]]''. This was the time of the depression and hunger marches and these stirred up socialist sentiments in the couple. He felt a rapport with the marchers, and concluded that [[Karl Marx|Marx]] was about 90% right.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> In 1936 the Jacobs went to Washington whereas a foreign correspondent he was in regular and close contact with US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. They stayed in Washington until the outbreak of World War II, when they returned to London.
During his time in London, Jacob moved in high social and intellectual circles. He wrote a play in which the hero was a communist and as a result, decided to read ''[[Das Kapital]]''. In 1934, he married [[Iris Morley]], daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Chartres Morley.<ref>{{cite web|title=NASSAU ANCESTORS |url=http://www.geocities.com/myjacobfamily/nassau.html |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091022070026/http://geocities.com/myjacobfamily/nassau.html |archivedate=22 October 2009 |url-status=dead |df=dmy }}</ref> She was a historical novelist and journalist for ''[[The Observer]]'' and the ''[[Yorkshire Post]]''. Early in their marriage, they bonded amidst the [[Great Depression]] and hunger marches. This period stirred up socialist sentiments in the couple.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> In 1936, the Jacobs went to Washington where he was in regular and close contact with US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. They stayed in Washington until the outbreak of World War II, when they returned to London.


==War correspondent==
===War correspondent===
[[File:Scenes from a Bourgeois Life.jpg|thumb|First edition]]
⚫
Jacob remained in London until May 1941 when became a war correspondent for the ''[[Daily Express]]''. He sailed to [[Cairo]], taking the long sea route via [[Cape Town]]. He spent the next two years with the 8th Army in North Africa, initially covering the [[Siege of Tobruk]] and [[Operation Crusader]]. He was withdrawn from [[Tobruk]] shortly before it fell to the Germans and was posted to [[Tehran]] where he received permission from the Soviet Embassy to visit the [[Red Army]] in Azerbaijan. He returned to Egypt for the [[First Battle of El Alamein|first]] and [[second Battle of El Alamein]], before traveling to India. He covered [[Orde Wingate|Wingate]]'s first '[[Chindits|Chindit]]' expedition in [[Burma]], and the circumstances of [[Gandhi]]'s fast. In the Soviet Union for four months, he covered the [[Battle of Kursk]] and Stalin's counterattack. He described his experiences in ''A Traveler's War'' published in 1944.<ref>Alaric Jacob ''A Traveller's War'', Collins 1944</ref>


⚫
After Christmas leave in England in 1943, Jacob and Iris sailed to the Soviet Union in January 1944 on board a ship of the Arctic Convoy. They spent the remainder of the war in Moscow, covering the advances of the Red Army in Odessa, the Crimea, and through [[Vitebsk]], [[Minsk]], Poland, and on to the fall of [[Berlin]]. He published ''A Window in Moscow'' in 1945.<ref>Alaric Jacob ''A Window in Moscow'', Collins, 1946</ref> His experiences made him sympathetic towards the Soviet regime and he stayed in the [[Soviet Union]], on and off, until the start of the cold war in late 1947. Iris had become a [[Communist]] and her ideas strongly influenced him. He suspected that her membership of the [[Communist party|Communist Party]] worked against him even when they were separated, and that he was blacklisted by the BBC and put on their [["Christmas tree" list]] of potential political subversives as a result.<ref name="Blacklist:The Inside Story of Political Vetting">Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor [http://www.bilderberg.org/mi5bbc.htm ''Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting''], London: The Hogarth Press, 1988 {{ISBN|0-7012-0811-2}}]</ref>
⚫
Jacob was in London until May 1941 when he set out as a war correspondent for the ''[[Daily Express]]''. He sailed to Cairo, taking the long sea voyage via [[Cape Town]]. He spent the next two years with the 8th Army in North Africa, initially covering the [[Siege of Tobruk]] and [[Operation Crusader]]. He was withdrawn from [[Tobruk]] shortly before it fell to the Germans, and was posted to [[Tehran]] where he received permission from the Soviet Embassy to visit the [[Red Army]] in Azerbaijan. He returned to Egypt for the [[First Battle of El Alamein|first]] and [[second Battle of El Alamein]], then going to India. In India, he covered [[Orde Wingate|Wingate]]'s first '[[Chindits|Chindit]]' expedition in [[Burma]], and the circumstances of [[Gandhi]]'s fast. From Persia he went on to Russia for four months, covering the [[Battle of Kursk]] and Stalin's counter-attack. He described his experiences in ''A Traveller's War'' published in 1944.<ref>Alaric Jacob ''A Traveller's War'', Collins 1944</ref>


In 1949, Jacob published ''Scenes from a Bourgeois Life'', a semi-autobiographical novel and an [[apologia]] for the paradoxes and anomalies of his career.
⚫
After Christmas leave in England in 1943, Jacob set out with his wife for the Soviet Union in January 1944 on board a ship of the Arctic Convoy. They spent the remainder of the war in Moscow, covering the advances of the Red Army in Odesa, the Crimea, and through [[Vitebsk]], [[Minsk]], and Poland, and on to the fall of [[Berlin]]. He published ''A Window in Moscow'' in 1945.<ref>Alaric Jacob ''A Window in Moscow'', Collins, 1946</ref> His experiences made him sympathetic towards the Soviet regime and he stayed in the [[Soviet Union]], on and off, until the start of the cold war in late 1947. His wife, Iris, had become a [[Communist]] and her ideas strongly influenced him. He suspected that her membership of the Communist Party worked against him even when they were separated.<ref name= "Blacklist:The Inside Story of Political Vetting">Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor [http://www.bilderberg.org/mi5bbc.htm ''Blacklist:The Inside Story of Political Vetting''], London: The Hogarth Press, 1988 {{ISBN|0-7012-0811-2}}]</ref>
In 1949, Jacob published ''[[Scenes from a Bourgeois Life]]'', a semi-autobiographical novel and an [[apologia]] for the paradoxes and anomalies of his career. As an English traditionalist, he disapproved of "[[ribbon development]]" and the displacement of the old order by the ''[[nouveaux riches]]''. He also showed contempt for the pursuit of wealth through industrial capitalism and his appreciation for what he saw as the achievements of the Soviet Union.{{Awkward|reason=|date=August 2019}} It also detailed his amorous adventures and his marked contempt for [[Cyril Connolly]], wallowing in self-pity in ''[[The Unquiet Grave (book)|The Unquiet Grave]],'' and other "stay-at-home intellectuals with comfortable jobs in the BBC" while Soviet heroes fought the [[Battle of Stalingrad]].


==BBC career==
===BBC===
[[File:Eminent Nonentities.jpg|thumb|First edition]]
⚫
In August 1948, Jacob joined the [[BBC]] monitoring service in Caversham, Reading, but in February 1951 he was "suddenly refused establishment rights, which meant he would receive no pension".<ref name="Blacklist:The Inside Story of Political Vetting" /> He complained unsuccessfully to his cousin [[Ian Jacob|Sir Ian Jacob]], who was a senior figure in the BBC and later became the organization's Director-General. Some have attributed Jacob's problems to the fact that his name was on [[Orwell's list]], a list of people with pro-communist leanings, prepared in March 1949 by Orwell for his friend Celia Kirwan at the [[Information Research Department]], a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government.<ref>John Ezard [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/21/books.artsandhumanities ''Blair's babe Did love turn Orwell into a government stooge?''] ''The Guardian'', 21 June 2003</ref> Jacob's establishment and pension rights were restored shortly after Iris (also on Orwell's list) died in 1953.<ref>Timothy Garton Ash [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16550 "Orwell's List"], ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', 50:14. 25 September 2003</ref> By the time he retired in 1972, Jacob had become a senior editor at [[Bush House]], then the base of the [[BBC World Service]].


In 1971, Jacob published ''Eminent Nonentities'', a book of short stories about the unknown characters he encountered as a war correspondent.
⚫
In August 1948, Jacob joined the [[BBC]] monitoring service in Caversham, Reading, but on February 1951 he was "suddenly refused establishment rights, which meant he would receive no pension".<ref name= "Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting"/> He complained unsuccessfully to his cousin [[Ian Jacob|Sir Ian Jacob]], who was prominent in the BBC and later became the organisation's Director-General. Some have attributed Jacob's problems to the fact that his name was on [[Orwell's list]], a list of people with pro-communist leanings, prepared in March 1949 by George Orwell for his friend Celia Kirwan at the [[Information Research Department]], a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government.<ref>John Ezard [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/21/books.artsandhumanities ''Blair's babe Did love turn Orwell into a government stooge?''] ''The Guardian'', 21 June 2003</ref> Jacob's establishment and pension rights were restored shortly after his wife Iris Morley, who was also included on Orwell's list, died in 1953.<ref>Timothy Garton Ash [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16550 "Orwell's List"], ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', 50:14. 25 September 2003</ref> By the time he retired in 1972, Jacob had become a senior editor at [[Bush House]], then the base of the [[BBC World Service]].


==Personal life==
==Personal life==


After Iris died in 1953, Jacob married the British actress [[Kathleen Byron]]. He had a daughter by his first wife and a son and daughter by his second wife.
After Iris died in 1953, Jacob married British actress [[Kathleen Byron]]. He had one daughter with Iris Morley, and a son and daughter with Byron.


Journalist [[Paul Hogarth]] described Jacob, in an obituary notice, as the quintessential English journalist; urbane yet modest, with a bone-dry sense of humor and a razor intelligence. "He possessed the grand manner of an Edwardian foreign correspondent with an [[Alan Clark|Alan-Clark-like]] taste for vintage claret, a good cigar and fine brandy".<ref>Richard Jones and Paul Hogarth [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/alaric-jacob-1572017.html Obituary: Alaric Jacob], ''The Independent'' (London), 8 February 1995</ref>
Journalist [[Paul Hogarth]] described Jacob in his obituary as the quintessential English journalist; urbane yet modest, with a bone-dry sense of humor and a razor intelligence. "He possessed the grand manner of an Edwardian foreign correspondent with an [[Alan Clark|Alan-Clark-like]] taste for vintage claret, a good cigar and fine brandy".<ref>{{cite news|last1=Jones|first1=Richard|last2=Hogarth|first2=Paul|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/alaric-jacob-1572017.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305221912/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/alaric-jacob-1572017.html |archive-date=2016-03-05 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|title=Alaric Jacob|work=The Independent|location=London|date=8 February 1995|access-date=3 January 2021}}</ref>


Jacob died in [[London Borough of Lambeth|Lambeth]], London,<ref>[http://www.findmypast.com/BirthsMarriagesDeaths.jsp Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006]</ref> aged 85. Byron survived him, dying in January 2009.<ref>Tom Vallance [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/kathleen-byron-actress-who-played-sister-ruth-in-black-narcissus-1451427.html ''Kathleen Byron: Actress who played Sister Ruth in "Black Narcissus"''] ''The Independent'', 20 January 2009, accessed 21 January 2009</ref>
Jacob died in [[London Borough of Lambeth|Lambeth]], London,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.findmypast.com/BirthsMarriagesDeaths.jsp |title=Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006 |access-date=19 January 2009 |archive-date=4 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151104084417/http://www.findmypast.com/BirthsMarriagesDeaths.jsp |url-status=dead }}</ref> aged 85 on 26 January 1995. Byron survived him; she died in January 2009.<ref>{{cite news|last=Vallance|first=Tom|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/kathleen-byron-actress-who-played-sister-ruth-in-black-narcissus-1451427.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090122041614/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/kathleen-byron-actress-who-played-sister-ruth-in-black-narcissus-1451427.html |archive-date=2009-01-22 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|title=Kathleen Byron: Actress who played Sister Ruth in 'Black Narcissus'|work=The Independent|date=20 January 2009|access-date=21 January 2009}}</ref>


==Publications==
==Publications==


* ''Seventeen'' (1930)
* ''Seventeen'' (1930)
* ''[[A Traveller's War]]'' (1944)
* ''A Traveller's War'' (1944)
* ''A Window in Moscow'' (1946)
* ''A Window in Moscow'' (1946)
* ''[[Scenes from a Bourgeois Life]]'' (1949)
* ''Scenes from a Bourgeois Life'' (1949)
* ''Two Ways in the World'' (1962)
* ''Two Ways in the World'' (1962)
* ''A Russian Journey''
* ''A Russian Journey''
* ''[[Eminent Nonentities]]'' (1971)
* ''Eminent Nonentities'' (1971)


==Unpublished books==
==Unpublished books==
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{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}


{{DEFAULTSORT: Jacob, Alaric}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacob, Alaric}}
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:1909 births]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category: British expatriates in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:British expatriates in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category: English male journalists]]
[[Category:English male journalists]]
[[Category: English people of Danish descent]]
[[Category:English people of Danish descent]]
[[Category: People educated at The King's School, Canterbury]]
[[Category:People educated at The King's School, Canterbury]]
[[Category: People educated at St Cyprian's School]]
[[Category:People educated at St Cyprian's School]]
[[Category: Western writers about Soviet Russia]]
[[Category:Writers about the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:English expatriates in the United States]]

Latest revision as of 22:04, 11 November 2024

Harold Alaric Jacob (8 June 1909 – 26 January 1995) was an English writer and journalist. He was a Reuters correspondent in Washington in the 1930s and a war correspondent during World War II in North Africa, Burma and Moscow.

Early life

[edit]

Alaric Jacob was the son of Ellen Hoyer, the daughter of a Danish missionary, and Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Fenton Jacob, a member of the Indian Army and former political agent in Aden. Jacob was born in Edinburgh and brought up in Scotland. As a child, he spent time in India and Arabia, but was educated in England. He was a childhood friend of Soviet spy Kim Philby. Jacob developed a stammer, which he believed came from his association with Philby. This was managed over time by singing lessons.[1]

Like several other promising children from Anglo-Indian or military families, Jacob attended St Cyprian's School for reduced fees. English novelist George Orwell left the school the year before Jacob started, and was presented as an inspiration to the students.[1] Jacob's first term at St Cyprian's overlapped with English writer and literary critic Cyril Connolly's last year there. Connolly gave a lesson in Jacob's last year.[2][3] For Jacob it was "an age of friendships, of excitement on the cricket fields and in school plays, of singing to a receptive audience at concerts, of having a sonnet printed in the school magazine, of winning the Townsend Warner History Prize." Jacob struggled with the classics and did not enter for a scholarship to public school. He instead studied at The King's School, Canterbury;[clarification needed] however, unimpressed with what he was learning, he left school and moved to France to pursue a career in journalism.

Career

[edit]

Writing and journalism

[edit]

While in France, Jacob began writing, returning to England after the General Strike. When he was seventeen, his first play was produced in Plymouth, where he started his career as a journalist on the Western Morning News. His second play, The Compleat Cynic, was produced in Plymouth the following year. In 1930, Seventeen, his first novel was published. It is a fictionalized account of his school days in Canterbury. By then, he had become a close friend of Margot Asquith, forty years his senior, who became his mentor and literary influence. She introduced him to editors and important literary figures, including Sir Roderick Jones, the head of Reuters, and was offered a position as diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in London.[1]

During his time in London, Jacob moved in high social and intellectual circles. He wrote a play in which the hero was a communist and as a result, decided to read Das Kapital. In 1934, he married Iris Morley, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Chartres Morley.[4] She was a historical novelist and journalist for The Observer and the Yorkshire Post. Early in their marriage, they bonded amidst the Great Depression and hunger marches. This period stirred up socialist sentiments in the couple.[1] In 1936, the Jacobs went to Washington where he was in regular and close contact with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They stayed in Washington until the outbreak of World War II, when they returned to London.

War correspondent

[edit]
First edition

Jacob remained in London until May 1941 when became a war correspondent for the Daily Express. He sailed to Cairo, taking the long sea route via Cape Town. He spent the next two years with the 8th Army in North Africa, initially covering the Siege of Tobruk and Operation Crusader. He was withdrawn from Tobruk shortly before it fell to the Germans and was posted to Tehran where he received permission from the Soviet Embassy to visit the Red Army in Azerbaijan. He returned to Egypt for the first and second Battle of El Alamein, before traveling to India. He covered Wingate's first 'Chindit' expedition in Burma, and the circumstances of Gandhi's fast. In the Soviet Union for four months, he covered the Battle of Kursk and Stalin's counterattack. He described his experiences in A Traveler's War published in 1944.[5]

After Christmas leave in England in 1943, Jacob and Iris sailed to the Soviet Union in January 1944 on board a ship of the Arctic Convoy. They spent the remainder of the war in Moscow, covering the advances of the Red Army in Odessa, the Crimea, and through Vitebsk, Minsk, Poland, and on to the fall of Berlin. He published A Window in Moscow in 1945.[6] His experiences made him sympathetic towards the Soviet regime and he stayed in the Soviet Union, on and off, until the start of the cold war in late 1947. Iris had become a Communist and her ideas strongly influenced him. He suspected that her membership of the Communist Party worked against him even when they were separated, and that he was blacklisted by the BBC and put on their "Christmas tree" list of potential political subversives as a result.[7]

In 1949, Jacob published Scenes from a Bourgeois Life, a semi-autobiographical novel and an apologia for the paradoxes and anomalies of his career.

BBC

[edit]
First edition

In August 1948, Jacob joined the BBC monitoring service in Caversham, Reading, but in February 1951 he was "suddenly refused establishment rights, which meant he would receive no pension".[7] He complained unsuccessfully to his cousin Sir Ian Jacob, who was a senior figure in the BBC and later became the organization's Director-General. Some have attributed Jacob's problems to the fact that his name was on Orwell's list, a list of people with pro-communist leanings, prepared in March 1949 by Orwell for his friend Celia Kirwan at the Information Research Department, a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government.[8] Jacob's establishment and pension rights were restored shortly after Iris (also on Orwell's list) died in 1953.[9] By the time he retired in 1972, Jacob had become a senior editor at Bush House, then the base of the BBC World Service.

In 1971, Jacob published Eminent Nonentities, a book of short stories about the unknown characters he encountered as a war correspondent.

Personal life

[edit]

After Iris died in 1953, Jacob married British actress Kathleen Byron. He had one daughter with Iris Morley, and a son and daughter with Byron.

Journalist Paul Hogarth described Jacob in his obituary as the quintessential English journalist; urbane yet modest, with a bone-dry sense of humor and a razor intelligence. "He possessed the grand manner of an Edwardian foreign correspondent with an Alan-Clark-like taste for vintage claret, a good cigar and fine brandy".[10]

Jacob died in Lambeth, London,[11] aged 85 on 26 January 1995. Byron survived him; she died in January 2009.[12]

Publications

[edit]
  • Seventeen (1930)
  • A Traveller's War (1944)
  • A Window in Moscow (1946)
  • Scenes from a Bourgeois Life (1949)
  • Two Ways in the World (1962)
  • A Russian Journey
  • Eminent Nonentities (1971)

Unpublished books

[edit]
  • A Snob's Guide to Socialism
  • Lovers of the Lost

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d Alaric Jacob Sharing Orwell's Joys – but not his fears in Christopher Norris Inside the Myth Lawrence and Wishart 1984
  2. ^ Cyril Connolly Enemies of Promise 1938
  3. ^ St Cyprian's Chronicle 1917, 1922
  4. ^ "NASSAU ANCESTORS". Archived from the original on 22 October 2009.
  5. ^ Alaric Jacob A Traveller's War, Collins 1944
  6. ^ Alaric Jacob A Window in Moscow, Collins, 1946
  7. ^ a b Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, London: The Hogarth Press, 1988 ISBN 0-7012-0811-2]
  8. ^ John Ezard Blair's babe Did love turn Orwell into a government stooge? The Guardian, 21 June 2003
  9. ^ Timothy Garton Ash "Orwell's List", The New York Review of Books, 50:14. 25 September 2003
  10. ^ Jones, Richard; Hogarth, Paul (8 February 1995). "Alaric Jacob". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
  11. ^ "Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006". Archived from the original on 4 November 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2009.
  12. ^ Vallance, Tom (20 January 2009). "Kathleen Byron: Actress who played Sister Ruth in 'Black Narcissus'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 22 January 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2009.
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