It was not until both Rothermere (obituary, September 3 1998) and his editor David English (obituary, June 11 1998) died within a short space of time that Dempster became inevitably less secure under the younger Lord Rothermere and Mail editor Paul Dacre.He also survived numerous writs from people who were less than charmed by what he wrote about them. And he kept his readers updated on the Duchess of York’s crumbling marriage and her unwise friendship with the Texan Steve Wyatt, as well as fingering chef Marco Pierre White for his tardiness in paying maintenance to his ex-wife.The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.Published by Associated Newspapers LtdHigh society: Daily Mail diarist Nigel Dempster with Princess Michael of KentIllness: Dempster's former girlfriend Tessa Dahl remembers thinking 'he wasn't quite right' when she telephoned Dempster 'and he kept pausing, then repeating himself'Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group
Get this from a library! His page appeared every day in the Daily Mail. "I learnt from an early age to fend for myself," he said at the peak of his later fame. Nigel Dempster and the Death of Discretion [Willis, Tim] on Amazon.com.
Nigel Dempster and the death of discretion.
From 1969 to 1985 he also wrote the Grovel gossip column in Private Eye, whose then editor, Richard Ingrams, dubbed him the Greatest Living Englishman despite, or because of, more writs.Dempster, whose gossip column appeared in the Daily Mail from 1971 to 2003, a remarkable innings, knew his core market: Middle England moralists who loved a lord, panted over a princess, doted on a duchess and became horny over an heiress - especially when any of these social gadflies flattered the readers' own lives by having disastrous affairs, getting divorced, taking drugs, fighting in nightclubs, going to jail, and generally provoking self-satisfied tut-tuts.Until then he had made few big mistakes - although launching, in 1977, a magazine of his own called Dempsters, covering similar material as he did in the Mail, was one. Nigel Dempster and the Death of Discretion *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
His mother visited him annually, but he saw his father only twice in the next five years.
As well as his newspaper columns, Nigel Dempster was a regular broadcaster, and wrote several books.
Columnist Nigel Dempster dies at 65 Legendary gossip columnist Nigel Dempster has died after a long illness, the Daily Mail said. My wife's father was the Queen Mother's brother-in-law." Most of his exclusive paragraphs reported more pleasant things like coming engagements and some of them touched on matters of genuine public interest - as distinct from what was of interest to the public - such as the exclusive revelation in 1976 that the Labour leader Harold Wilson was thinking of resigning as prime minister (denied at the time but soon to be vindicated).The detachment he showed when writing about "friends" and acquaintances in his column is less surprising as he was not really an English public schoolboy of noble birth but an Australian - the son of a rough and ready, though prosperous, mining engineer, who was managing director of the Indian Copper Corporation near Calcutta and descended from a family of entrepreneurs from Dumfries.