You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The Thoroughly Disgraceful Life and Times of Willie Donaldson. Donaldson's third marriage, in 1986, was to Cherry Hatrick, who survived him; they separated six months after their marriage. Donaldson's biographical survey of roguish Britons through the ages, Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics (2002), has been described as "a breathtaking triumph of misdirected scholarship".

If further recommendation be needed, then surely there is none finer than Glenda Slagg/Linda Lee Potter: "About as funny as pushing somebody fully clothed into a swimming pool. The phenomenal success of the Henry Root books, especially the first, enabled Donaldson to resume his earlier chaotic lifestyle, and in the mid-1980s he began using crack cocaine. It consists of real correspondence between an apparently wealthy and eccentric retired fish-merchant, and many public figures to whom he wrote, requesting support for bizarre right-wing proposals. This book is a compendium of actual letters which the author wrote to all kinds of people of note - all from his persona of some kind of hard core petite bourgeoise British citizen.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. He established himself as a central player in the British satire boom of the early 1960s, as co-producer, with Donald Albery, of Beyond the Fringe (1960), and of dramatisations of J. Supposedly a wet fish merchant from Fulham, he is an avatar for a lot of the to-the-right-of-Attila-the-Hun, Thatcher-supporting, mildly racist, entitled, liberal-baiting mansplaining that was de rigeur and absolutely unchallenged in the Spectator/Private Eye yachts and casinos circles that Donaldson frequented. His heroes were few, but those who were, to Root's mind, "sound" - principally Mrs Thatcher, the Dowager Lady Birdwood and James Anderton, "God's Cop", the self-appointed guardian of Greater Manchester's morals. You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson.

He was educated at Winchester College (where he first met Julian Mitchell) and Magdalene College, Cambridge.

The sender of these letters – a cantankerous crusader against pornography and modernity, and for hanging and Mrs.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. When he hits a target full on, or when the target responds with good grace or a sense of humour, it's hilarious, however. His experiences there formed the basis of his first novel, Both the Ladies and the Gentlemen (1975).

Donaldson lived at 139 Elm Park Mansions on Park Walk, Chelsea, London SW10, from which address all the Root letters were sent. This single volume brings together "The Henry Root Letters" and "The Further Letters of Henry Root". The millions who enjoyed the original 'Root' will no doubt have assumed that such a public and hysterical scam could never be repeated. By the way , reading the Private Eye magazine I can't help comparing it's "styles" with those incredible originals scripts, written by Henry Moor. The cheek and audacity of Henry Root leaps off the page and each anecdote is funnier and more preposterous than the last.

The letters aren’t really dated, with the exception of certain BBC television stars and the one to the South African Ambassador. You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This: The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson, Terence Blacker, Ebury Press, 2007, pp. His letters, full of alleged scandals and hanky panky, are taken perfectly seriously by their recipients whose responses are as funny as Root's own rantings.Root wrote the BBC – I think Monty Python had his number, the Queen, Prince Charles, various publishing houses.