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Tired and Emotional: The Life of George Brown
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August 27, 2020
"He loved his country and his country loved him"
I've always been meaning to find out more about this British political figure who, whilst now largely forgotten, in his day generated more stories and was more popular than any Labour politician in the history of the Party.
From very humble beginnings, which included at one time receiving food from the local workhouse and beating moths out of fur coats with a cane in one of his early jobs, George Brown rose from a trade union background to become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, de-facto Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in Harold Wilson's Sixties government.
What made Brown such a compelling and popular figure though weren't his undoubted gifts; they were his character flaws. He could be unpredictable, outspoken to a degree not often seen nowadays in British politicians, combative, had an explosive temper and used to shoot from the hip. As a politician he was a nightmare for his staff, who were at one stage driven to follow him to see what he got up to! Sadly, he also had a chip on his shoulder about his lack of higher education which left him with a life-long distrust and dislike of 'intellectuals'. Most significantly he was driven to distraction by his roadblock to ultimate power, the 'little man' Harold Wilson and how he operated. Wilson defeated Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party in 1963; a body-blow from which Brown's morale never recovered according to Paterson.
Two more opposite personalities it would be hard to find (Brown's 'hot potato' to Wilson's 'cold fish' as the Sunday Times put it) but Brown and Wilson's relationship in and out of Government was a marriage of convenience - they both loathed but needed each other. To overcome his frustrations Brown found solace in drink and this invariably led to inappropriate behaviour and comments. Brown's usual style as Paterson so eloquently put it was to, "call a spade a bloody shovel" and alcohol didn't help with this outspoken personality. Indeed the biograpy's title, 'Tired and Emotional' was coined by Private Eye magazine in 1967 to euphemistically describe Brown's drunkeness.
At the sharp end of his abominable behaviour was his long-suffering wife Sophie, who in effect was living with an alcoholic from 1964 and a heavy drinker before that. In her own words she recounts of her life with George, 'I'd sat on a thousand platforms for his "public life", been alone for a thousand nights for it, packed a thousand suitcases, smiled when I felt like crying, kept silent when I felt like screaming..." Her ultimate reward for such long-suffering loyalty was to be unceremoniously dumped after 40 years of marriage for a much younger model. Not George Brown's finest moment!
As Paterson so neatly puts it, 'If there is a pantheon for political wives, Sophie Brown surely deserves a place of honour within it.'
Brown's escapades over the years were the stuff of legend as he cut a swathe through the great and the good of the British establishment, insulting and berating them (no matter their station in life) and embarrassing himself in equal measure, usually fortified by copious amounts of alcohol. Oh my he was a reporter's dream! What fun he would have given political sketch-writers of today like Quentin Letts.
In his short stint as Foreign Secretary, one of the great offices of state, from 1966-68 the author summed it up best by stating: 'An element of farce was to become an inseparable feature of his tenure'. How true! In Brussels for instance he declared that the Belgian Army were frequenting brothels instead of defending Europe (surprisingly that didn't go down too well) and he wasn't averse to eating artificial grapes at formal dinners either! I was though a little disappointed to find that the most famous George Brown story of them all about asking the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima to dance to the Peruvian national anthem may not have been true.. but deliciously a different version of it may have!
However, whether it was squaring up to Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev at an infamous private dinner, being photographed apparently ogling a buxom party guest on the Queen Mary (he wasn't, but it didn't really matter) or doing television interviews the worse for wear for drink (he nearly had a brawl as he waited to be interviewed following the assassination of John F Kennedy!) the general public loved him whilst his Party despaired. I particularly liked the way Paterson sums up another raucous and chaotic episode where Brown got into a storming row with an Israeli general at a dinner party, describing it as: 'A typical convivial evening with George Brown.'
On the plus sheet he was undoubtedly a gifted man with enormous public appeal. He was described by some of his contemporaries as having very great courage and a natural intelligence. Others described how he was imaginative and could grasp situations very quickly, instinctively sensing the key evidence buried in documents. He was also a formidable electioneer, a robust anti-heckler and compelling speaker ("the most stirring orator I'd ever heard" according to Paterson) who was in no small measure responsible for Harold Wilson achieving such a large majority in the 1966 General Election.
Partly responsible for drawing up UN Resolution 242 it remained for many years the basis of a "just and lasting" Middle East peace settlement. He was also a passionate and consistent advocate of Britain joining the European Economic Community (the forerunner of the EU) which at the time of writing Britain is still tied to.
However, George Brown's tragedy was that a man so capable, who dragged himself up by his bootstraps and who had the ability to achieve so much, was ultimately brought down by a combination of an inferiority complex and alcohol.
Peter Paterson's biography pulls no punches in detailing the raw side of Brown and his many failings but it is also a somewhat sympathetic portrait of a man who fascinated and enraged in equal measure. Paterson apparently procrastinated before writing his biography due to Brown's 'attitude problem' but I'm glad he persevered and whilst many biographers become disenchanted with their subjects, he began to admire Brown's courage and astonishing consistency.
When he thought about the totality of Brown's career Paterson summed it up nicely by simply stating: 'He loved his country and his country loved him'. George Brown, I salute you... for all your failings!
I've always been meaning to find out more about this British political figure who, whilst now largely forgotten, in his day generated more stories and was more popular than any Labour politician in the history of the Party.
From very humble beginnings, which included at one time receiving food from the local workhouse and beating moths out of fur coats with a cane in one of his early jobs, George Brown rose from a trade union background to become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, de-facto Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in Harold Wilson's Sixties government.
What made Brown such a compelling and popular figure though weren't his undoubted gifts; they were his character flaws. He could be unpredictable, outspoken to a degree not often seen nowadays in British politicians, combative, had an explosive temper and used to shoot from the hip. As a politician he was a nightmare for his staff, who were at one stage driven to follow him to see what he got up to! Sadly, he also had a chip on his shoulder about his lack of higher education which left him with a life-long distrust and dislike of 'intellectuals'. Most significantly he was driven to distraction by his roadblock to ultimate power, the 'little man' Harold Wilson and how he operated. Wilson defeated Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party in 1963; a body-blow from which Brown's morale never recovered according to Paterson.
Two more opposite personalities it would be hard to find (Brown's 'hot potato' to Wilson's 'cold fish' as the Sunday Times put it) but Brown and Wilson's relationship in and out of Government was a marriage of convenience - they both loathed but needed each other. To overcome his frustrations Brown found solace in drink and this invariably led to inappropriate behaviour and comments. Brown's usual style as Paterson so eloquently put it was to, "call a spade a bloody shovel" and alcohol didn't help with this outspoken personality. Indeed the biograpy's title, 'Tired and Emotional' was coined by Private Eye magazine in 1967 to euphemistically describe Brown's drunkeness.
At the sharp end of his abominable behaviour was his long-suffering wife Sophie, who in effect was living with an alcoholic from 1964 and a heavy drinker before that. In her own words she recounts of her life with George, 'I'd sat on a thousand platforms for his "public life", been alone for a thousand nights for it, packed a thousand suitcases, smiled when I felt like crying, kept silent when I felt like screaming..." Her ultimate reward for such long-suffering loyalty was to be unceremoniously dumped after 40 years of marriage for a much younger model. Not George Brown's finest moment!
As Paterson so neatly puts it, 'If there is a pantheon for political wives, Sophie Brown surely deserves a place of honour within it.'
Brown's escapades over the years were the stuff of legend as he cut a swathe through the great and the good of the British establishment, insulting and berating them (no matter their station in life) and embarrassing himself in equal measure, usually fortified by copious amounts of alcohol. Oh my he was a reporter's dream! What fun he would have given political sketch-writers of today like Quentin Letts.
In his short stint as Foreign Secretary, one of the great offices of state, from 1966-68 the author summed it up best by stating: 'An element of farce was to become an inseparable feature of his tenure'. How true! In Brussels for instance he declared that the Belgian Army were frequenting brothels instead of defending Europe (surprisingly that didn't go down too well) and he wasn't averse to eating artificial grapes at formal dinners either! I was though a little disappointed to find that the most famous George Brown story of them all about asking the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima to dance to the Peruvian national anthem may not have been true.. but deliciously a different version of it may have!
However, whether it was squaring up to Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev at an infamous private dinner, being photographed apparently ogling a buxom party guest on the Queen Mary (he wasn't, but it didn't really matter) or doing television interviews the worse for wear for drink (he nearly had a brawl as he waited to be interviewed following the assassination of John F Kennedy!) the general public loved him whilst his Party despaired. I particularly liked the way Paterson sums up another raucous and chaotic episode where Brown got into a storming row with an Israeli general at a dinner party, describing it as: 'A typical convivial evening with George Brown.'
On the plus sheet he was undoubtedly a gifted man with enormous public appeal. He was described by some of his contemporaries as having very great courage and a natural intelligence. Others described how he was imaginative and could grasp situations very quickly, instinctively sensing the key evidence buried in documents. He was also a formidable electioneer, a robust anti-heckler and compelling speaker ("the most stirring orator I'd ever heard" according to Paterson) who was in no small measure responsible for Harold Wilson achieving such a large majority in the 1966 General Election.
Partly responsible for drawing up UN Resolution 242 it remained for many years the basis of a "just and lasting" Middle East peace settlement. He was also a passionate and consistent advocate of Britain joining the European Economic Community (the forerunner of the EU) which at the time of writing Britain is still tied to.
However, George Brown's tragedy was that a man so capable, who dragged himself up by his bootstraps and who had the ability to achieve so much, was ultimately brought down by a combination of an inferiority complex and alcohol.
Peter Paterson's biography pulls no punches in detailing the raw side of Brown and his many failings but it is also a somewhat sympathetic portrait of a man who fascinated and enraged in equal measure. Paterson apparently procrastinated before writing his biography due to Brown's 'attitude problem' but I'm glad he persevered and whilst many biographers become disenchanted with their subjects, he began to admire Brown's courage and astonishing consistency.
When he thought about the totality of Brown's career Paterson summed it up nicely by simply stating: 'He loved his country and his country loved him'. George Brown, I salute you... for all your failings!
Displaying 1 of 1 review