b.
6 June 1913 - d. 9 November 1980
Lord Glenavy started
as a journalist for the Irish Times under the tutelage of Robert
Smyllie, the larger than life editor of the newspaper, his right
of passage was a thousand word article on the zoo which appeared
in its entirety on the 23 August 1932. In his own words, "I'd
stumbled into the only job that required no degrees, no diplomas,
no training and no specialised knowledge of any kind......journalism
might have been designed for my special benefit."
While his body of
eclectic writings is interminably vast, this article concentrates
on his golf related exploits, short stories and books many of
which have been received to great acclaim. A master seanchai
or storyteller with a knack for self-deprecation, good-hearted
derision and an ability to take the banal and mould it to his
own advantage with a liberal application of humour and lateral
vision. His ability at self-derision is very noticeable in his
golf articles where at all times it should be borne in mind
that he played off a handicap of plus two and whom Bernard Darwin
had described as, "the big man with the velvet putting
touch'.
In his articles for
the Irish Times which were reprinted in book form entitled Round
Ireland with a Golf Bag he would recount his travails as he
circumnavigated the island in his 'red fire engine' during which
he would take in the West of Ireland Championship, as a player,
and represented "one of the dead bodies over which the
probable winner [John Burke] of the West of Ireland title 1936,
had to pick his way". Early in the articles he relates
the troubles he's having with the fire engine which all seems
at odds with it sweeping by one of the new 100 mile an hour
Bentleys with a roar until he explains in his own inimitable
way: "If he had been going in the same direction as
ourselves we might have given him quite a race."
Between
1945-1947 Campbell wrote An Irishman's Diary, for The
Irish Times under the name Quidnunc and recalled an incident
with a caddie, at Baltray whom Campbell referred to as the original
Old Man of the Sea whose philosophy on the game Campbell precised
into: "Golf to him was a monumentally silly game and golfers,
by extension, madmen" and by the end of the article, if
not the game, he felt the caddie's view was, perhaps, not without
merit.
Campbell's
progression in the 1949 Amateur Championship at Portmarnock
is well chronicled in his short story, "The Big, Big Time"
which was reprinted in the 1991 Walker Cup programme and appears
in both of his own golf books and Ulick O'Connor's book together
with the compendium of stories in the Donald Steel edited, The
Golfer's Bedside Book. After taking his biggest scalp, Billy
O'Sullivan, he proceeds to get "sloshed" in order
to lose to his next opponent and, presumably, appease his own
sense of natural justice by ending his involvement in the tournament.
Campbell's
career progressed as a writer from the Irish Times, the Sunday
Dispatch, the Spectator, Liliput and on to the Sunday Times
to become as one reviewer described him: 'the funniest displaced
Dublin journalist at large in Fleet Street today'. For, the
Times, he wrote a story entitled The Small, Trembling Voice
describing a trip to Sunningdale to play in the Bowmaker Golf
Tournament where he would meet the cream of the golfing and
entertainment world (the "most socially glittering"
of the pro-amateur tournaments) and while he talked his game
up, a little voice was telling him to get to the practice fairway
before he does someone a serious injury.
In
1963 he published his classic "How To Become A Scratch
Golfer" which when reprinted by the Classics of Golf they
stated: "This famous Irish humorist produced a rarity in
golf literature: a genuinely funny book". Part of the 'How
to become' series of books, a bluffer's guide if you will, unlikely
to fulfil the promise of its title still contains witty insights
into the journey. "Don't
attempt to find out how to do it by yourself, or you'll build
loops, lurches and ..contortions..that will remain with you
to your grave." ..Where to buy your clubs ..."left
unreservedly in the hands of the club professional" otherwise
his opinion of them "is liable to be so low" as to
compromise the teacher/pupil relationship. Advice
from using ghost-written instructional, the fultility of offering
swing tips to the older generation, how to look like a scratch
golfer (for which he provides twelve useful tips) and the excuses
to use to keep the ruse believable. A free-handed, open-shouldered
golfer should not take instruction from purist golfers whose
"paucity of effort" is there to keep the golf ball
on the course, the height of their ambition. All this together
with the the restraint required when practising golf and being
too dogmatic while espousing the rules of the game are all backed
up with plausible case studies even if some of the characters
stretch credulity but there a more than a smidgen of truth in
his writings in fact with my limited knowledge of the subject
I believe it is fact laced with truisms. So much so that Joe
Carr who was playing in Killarney at the time (presumably adding
another Close championship to his trophy cabinet) wrote in his
Irish Times review that: "You have no option but to laugh
your way through it - I was still chuckling long after my normal
times for lights out during the week at Killarney." The
final chapter details his own venture into the "The Big,
Big Time" playing in the 1949 Amateur Championship at Portmarnock.
Patrick
Campbell achieved even more fame than his books afforded him
when in 1962 he delved into the world of television, with one
programme, "Call My Bluff", making him a household
name in Great Britain and Ireland, a part he played until not
long before his death.
In
1968 Paddy Campbell moved with his second wife Vivienne Knight
to the South of France and old farmhouse in Grasse but would
continue to write for the Sunday Times for a further decade.
On the 9th November 1980 he died after contracting pneumonia
in University College Hospital in London while reportedly joking
with his nurse. So he probably died laughing or least while
he was making someone else laugh.
More information available
at thePeerage.com.
Bibliography
Patrick Campbell:
My Life and Easy Times [1967]
- Patrick Campbell: How to become a Scratch Golfer [1963 - Anthony
Blond] - Patrick
Campbell: Patrick Campbell's Golfing Book [1972 - Blond &
Briggs] - Ulick
O'Connor (edited): The Campbell Companion [1987]
- The Irish Times Archive
Books by Patrick
Campbell
The P-P-Penguin Patrick
Campbell
35 years on the job; The best of Patrick Campbell, 1937-1973
Patrick Campbell: My Life and Easy Times
Feast of True Fandangles
All ways on Sundays
The Campbell Companion
Patrick Campbell's Golfing Book
How to Become a Scratch Golfer
Brewing Up in the Basement
Life In Thin Slices
Gullible travels
Call my bluff: Frank Muir versus Patrick Campbell
A Short Trot with a Cultured Mind
A Long Drink of Cold Water
Waving all excuses
A Bunch of New Roses
Rough Husbandry
