Malcolm Muggeridge

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Malcolm Muggeridge taking part in a BBC TV discussion programme
Malcolm Muggeridge taking part in a BBC TV discussion programme

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (March 24, 1903–November 14, 1990) was a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and Christian scholar.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

His father, H.T. Muggeridge, was a prominent Labour councillor in Croydon, South London and, for a short time, Member of Parliament for Romford in Ramsey MacDonald's second labour government. His mother was Annie Booler.

Malcolm, one of five boys, attended Selhurst Grammar School and Selwyn College at Cambridge University for four years, graduating in 1924 with a pass degree in natural sciences. He then went to India to teach. While still a student he had taught for brief periods in 1920, 1922 and 1924 at the John Ruskin Central School, Croydon, where his father was Chairman of the Governors.

Returning to England in 1927, he married Katherine Dobbs (1903–1994), also called Kathleen or Kitty, whose mother Rosalind Dobbs was a younger sister of Beatrice Webb. He worked as a supply teacher, before moving to teach in Egypt six months later. Here he met Arthur Ransome who was visiting Egypt as a journalist for the Manchester Guardian. Ransome recommended Muggeridge to the editors of the Guardian and he was employed as a journalist for the first time.

[edit] Moscow

Initially attracted by Communism, Muggeridge and his wife travelled to Moscow in 1932, where Malcolm was to be a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, standing in for William Chamberlin who was about to take leave of absence. During Muggeridge's early time in Moscow, his main journalistic concentration was writing a novel Picture Palace about his experiences at the Manchester Guardian, completed and submitted to publishers in January 1933. Unfortunately, the publishers were concerned with potential libel claims and the book was not published causing some financial embarrassment to Muggeridge who was not actually employed at the time, being paid only for articles which he could get accepted. Increasingly becoming disillusioned by communism, Malcolm decided to investigate at first hand reports of the famine in Ukraine, travelling there and to the Caucasus without permission of the Soviet authorities. Reports he sent back to the Guardian in the diplomatic bag, thus evading censorship, were not fully printed and were not published under Muggeridge's name. At the same time, rival journalist Gareth Jones who had met Muggeridge in Moscow went public with his own stories confirming the extent of the famine. Writing in the New York Times, Walter Duranty blatantly denied the existence of any famine. To his credit, Gareth Jones wrote letters to the Guardian in support of Muggeridge's articles about the famine. Having come directly into conflict with the paper's editorial policy, Muggeridge turned back to novel writing, starting Winter In Moscow (1934), describing real conditions in the socialist utopia and satirizing Western journalists uncritical of the Stalin regime. He was to later call Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism." Later, he began a writing partnership with Hugh Kingsmill. Muggeridge's politics changed as he moved from what was seen as an independent socialist point of view, to what was seen by many as a right-wing stance that was no weaker in its criticism of problems in society. Muggeridge's politics always defied easy categorization in party-political terms.

[edit] World War II

During the war he was part of the British Secret Intelligence Service operation in Brussels which was headed by Richard Barclay, a weak man whom Muggeridge and his colleague Donald McLachlan bullied. Muggeridge's vainglorious attempt to claim credit for the dismantling of the German spy network in Antwerp, in which he played no part, provoked furious protests from those involved (Richard Gatty and Charles Arnold-Baker), to Barclay. He was later sent to neutral Lourenco Marques in Portuguese East Africa where he is reputed to have been responsible for the capture of a German U Boat, but also spoke later of an attempt at suicide. Shortly after the liberation of Paris by the Allies, Muggeridge was assigned to make an initial investigation into P.G. Wodehouse's five infamous broadcasts from Berlin during the war. Though he was prepared initially to dislike Wodehouse, the interview became the start of a lifelong friendship and publishing relationship. This meeting was later to be the subject of a stage play by Roger Milner "Beyond a Joke".

[edit] Post-war period

He worked on other papers, including the Calcutta Statesman, Evening Standard, and Daily Telegraph. He was editor of Punch magazine from 1953 to 1957, a challenging appointment for one who claimed to have no sense of humour. In 1957 he received considerable public and professional opprobrium for criticism of the British monarchy in a US magazine,the Saturday Evening News. Given the provocative title "Does England Really Need a Queen?", its publication was deliberately delayed by five months by a canny publisher to coincide with the Royal State Visit to Washington, D.C.taking place later in the year. Whilst the article was little more than a rehash of views originally expressed in a 1955 article "Royal Soap Opera", its unfortunate timing caused particular outrage back in Britain and he was sacked for a short period from the BBC and a contract with Beaverbrook newspapers cancelled. His infamy helped propel him to becoming an even better known broadcaster with a reputation as a tough interviewer. But by the 1960's, he was at a period in which his own spiritual beliefs began to become more significant in his professional career. He increasingly became a figure of some ridicule and satire as he took to frequently denouncing the new sexual lassitude of the swinging sixties on radio and television. He particularly railed against "Pills and Pot" - birth control pills and cannabis. His 1966 book, Tread softly for you tread on my jokes, was published during this time of spiritual search, and though acerbic in its wit, also revealed a serious view of life. The title is an allusion to the last line of the poem He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats – " Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." In 1967, he preached at Great St Mary's, Cambridge, and again in 1970.

Muggeridge became known as the "discoverer" of Mother Teresa, whom he first interviewed in London in 1968. He told the world about her deeds through a television documentary filmed in Calcutta called Something Beautiful for God, and through a best-selling book of the same name. He was well-known for his wit and profound writings (e.g., "Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream"). He wrote two volumes of an autobiography called Chronicles of Wasted Time. The first volume (1972) was The Green Stick. The second volume (1973) was The Infernal Grove. A projected third volume The Right Eye covering the post-war period was started but never completed.

[edit] Conversion to Christianity

Having professed publicly to being an agnostic for most of his life, he found his Christian voice, publishing Jesus Rediscovered in 1969, a collection of essays, articles and sermons on faith. It became a best seller. Jesus: The Man Who Lives followed in 1976, a more substantial work describing the gospel in his own words. In A Third Testament, he profiles seven spiritual thinkers, or God's Spies as he called them, who influenced his life: Augustine of Hippo, William Blake, Blaise Pascal, Leo Tolstoy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Søren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. In this period he also produced several important BBC documentaries with a religious theme, including In the Footsteps of St. Paul.

In 1979 he publicly attacked John Cleese and Michael Palin during a television debate concerned with the perceived blasphemy of the film Monty Python's Life of Brian.

[edit] Subsequent conversion to Roman Catholicism

In 1982, he surprised many people by converting to Roman Catholicism at the age of 79 along with his wife, Kitty. This was largely due to the influence of Mother Teresa. His last book was Conversion, published in 1988 and recently republished, describes his life as a 20th century pilgrimage - a spiritual journey.

Muggeridge was a controversial figure - widely known as a drinker, heavy smoker and womaniser in earlier life. However, his best work came as a result of finding his faith late in life, eloquently expressed both in broadcast and in writing, and fighting energetically on moral issues. He is now affectionately remembered as St. Mugg. From his book, Jesus: The Man Who Lives, he says, "If the greatest of all, Incarnate God, chooses to be the servant of all, who would wish to be the master?"

A Literary Society in his name was established on March 24th 2003, the occasion of his centenary, and publishes a quarterly newsletter called The Gargoyle. The society, based in Britain is progressively republishing Muggeridge's works. Muggeridge's papers are lodged in the Special Collections at Wheaton College, Illinois, USA.

[edit] Works

[edit] Books

[edit] Sermons

  • Ultimate concern. 'Am I a Christian?', etc., Cambridge, (1967)
  • Living water, Aberdeen, (1968), ISBN 0-7152-0016-X
  • Still I believe: nine talks broadcast during Lent and Holy Week, (1969), ISBN 0-563-08552-5
  • Light in our darkness, Edinburgh, (1969), ISBN 0-7152-0069-0
  • Fundamental questions : what is life about?, Cambridge, (1970)

[edit] References

  • Ingrams, Richard, Muggeridge : the biography, London : HarperCollins (1995), ISBN 0-00-638467-6
  • Wolfe, Gregory, Malcolm Muggeridge : a biography, London : Hodder & Stoughton, (1995), ISBN 0-340-60674-6
  • Hunter, Ian, Malcolm Muggeridge : a life, London : Collins, (1980), ISBN 0-241-12048-9
  • Muggeridge, ancient & modern / edited by Christopher Ralling and Jane Bywaters ; with drawings by Trog, London, BBC, (1981), ISBN 0-563-17905-8. This is a revised edition of Muggeridge through the microphone (1967)
  • Porter, David, A disciple of Christ : conversations with Malcolm Muggeridge, Basingstoke : Marshalls, (1983), ISBN 0-551-01059-2
  • Malcolm Muggeridge's Conversion Story
  • McCrum, Robert. Wodehouse, A Life, W.W. Norton, London, New York, 2004
  • Kuhne, Cecil. Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith Ignatius Press (2006), ISBN 978-1-58617-068-4

[edit] See also

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