The Pendulum Years: Britain in the Sixties

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Now things have gone to the opposite extreme, with sketch-writing derivative from Levin's all the rage and hardly any straight reporting of Parliament. In its obituary tribute to him, The Times described Levin as "the most famous journalist of his day".

He had the rather menial task of having to read all the newspapers and weekly journals, cutting out pieces that might be useful to quote on the air. Music was a recurrent theme; he was notorious for his addiction to Wagner, [n 12] and other favourite composers included Schubert and Mozart. Gilmour discouraged any hopes Levin might have had of succeeding Inglis as editor and in 1962, Levin left both The Spectator and The Daily Express, becoming drama critic of The Daily Mail. Levin occupied a desk in the editor's outer office and the pair were in constant touch throughout the day.He appeared in The Guinness Book of Records for the longest sentence ever to appear in a newspaper – 1,667 words. The first was in March 1971, in an article titled "Profit and dishonour in Fleet Street", accusing Rothermere of underhand conduct and personal avarice during the merger of The Daily Mail and The Daily Sketch. If you wish to license an image, select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Use this image button, or contact our Rights and Images service. As political correspondent of The Spectator under the pseudonym "Taper", he became "the father of the modern parliamentary sketch," as The Guardian's Simon Hoggart put it. He explains in captivating prose his understanding and love for various experiences of humanity, such as Shakespeare, or taking long walks.

Levin became famous for his long, sentences, full of clauses, subclauses, parentheses, semi-colons and diversions. He told Brien one morning that at dinner in a restaurant the night before, he had been so engrossed in the story he was telling that he did not notice that a man at the opposite table had had a stroke and died until ambulance men came to gather him up. And the reason is that it offers, in addition to great technical skill and great cinematic excitement, a view, and a view, moreover, of great richness and plausibility. He compiled his own index for the book, "and swore a mighty oath, when I had finished the task, that I would rather die, and in a particularly unpleasant manner, than do it again".Bernard Levin takes us on an entertaining voyage of what enthuses him, taking us from books, music, Shakespeare to walking, cities and the meaning of life.