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Editor Richard Ingrams Assistant editor Sonali Chapman

Sub-editor Deborah Asher

Art editor Joe Buckley Commissioning editor Jeremy Lewis Editorial assistant Charlotte Fairbairn Advertising sales manager Lisa Martin

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Sales executive Jack Watts Publisher James Pembroke

At large Richard Beatty Our quiet American David Kowitz

Sir Alan John Brown

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Cover illustration by: Robert Geary

Ed’s letter…

I S S U E 2 8 4 • J U ly 2 0 1 2

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O NT E NTS

46 Still with us… RAY BELISARIO The first royal paparazzo talks to Sarah Shannon With this issue, we commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee while bearing in mind that an even more significant milestone looms – the 20th anniversary of the founding of The Oldie in 1992. Several commemorative events are being planned, the most auspicious being a special luncheon at Simpson’s on August 21st to celebrate the publication of a bumper book The Best of the Oldie 1992–2012 with a brief history of the magazine by Jeremy Lewis.

THE BEST OF

etails are to be found on page 60. RICHARD INGRAMS

1992 – 2012

THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS With an introduction by Jeremy Lewis riendship through the fence Ursula Holden remembers her neighbour 34

Painter of place Andrew Lambirth on Roland Collins

Paddy HITLER John McEntee reveals Hitler’s Irish connection 42

24 A GRAVE ERROR in passy Trader Faulkner’s mission to sex up Debussy’s burial plot 32 i once met... Christine Edney lived every Sixties schoolgirl’s dream when she met George Harrison 44 the old word order John Torode asks whether the politically incorrect language of yesteryear did any harm

58 the vodo trail Travel off the beaten track: Jonathan Fryer on the voodoo trail in Togo

Come to a taste of VENETO or salzburg See page 60

Having a laugh: Virginia Ironside, page 23