Dempster’s People: Inside the World of the Gossips’ Gossip - Softcover

Dempster, Nigel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006530893 ISBN 13: 9780006530893

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

Synopsis

To celebrate 25 years of the country’s most successful gossip column, this is both Dempster’s professional autobiography and a behind-the-scenes revelation of all the great stories the diary broke.

Dempster’s People will be a fabulously readable account of Nigel Dempster’s working life and of his famous Diary, and will include: early beginnings with the Hickey column, moving rapidly on to 13 years’ association with Private Eye, Richard Ingrams and Peter Cook, focusing on the legal struggles with Goldsmith; the world of Jonathan Aitken and his lovers; how the Playboy Club lost its gaming licence; the writ from Harold Wilson, together with famous writs over the years (‘Writs are the Diarist’s Oscars’, as he is famous for saying); his relationship with Christina Onassis and how the Royals, from Princess Margaret to Princess Diana, engaged with the Diary; how the Guinesses sought his help and how Earl Spencer became a Diary ally; how the Diary became an adjunct of the sporting world and in particular the Sport of Kings; and much, much more of the spiciest gossip column in town through twenty-five years of its history.

About this title

From the Back Cover

For twenty-five years Dempster's Diary has been a British institution, sending tingles of embarrassment through the heart of Society and frissons of delight among the public at large. Covering the intimate lives of the rich, the famous and the simply notorious, the Diary has always been required reading for all who want to know what's really going on and who's really doing what. In this book, Nigel Dempster gives the reader unfettered insight into some of the most intriguing intrigues he has covered during his lifetime.

From the 1960s and his personal slant on the Burton/Taylor marriages to the 1990s and his insider's take on the Al Fayeds, Dempster reveals himself as the world's leading gossip. From Jonathan Aitken to Earl Spencer, from James Hewitt to Sir James Goldsmith, he gives us the background to stories and lets us have the details of the loves and loathings of many others, from Sita White to Sarah Ferguson. With the spiciest snippets on how the rich try to place some stories in the Diary (and try to stop others), and the truth behind how the Diary came to take its internationally renowned place at the centre of Britain's social whirl, 'Dempster's People' Is scandalously entertaining.

”So seductive, so legendary is his reputation as the Greatest Living Englishman. . . Dempster has some indefinable quality that persuades you, utterly, of the truth of every word”
Lesley-Ann Jones, 'Good Housekeeping'

“Many of Dempster's people, the billionaires, kings and cads he walks with, have become over the last 25 years, friends and confidants as well as his source of gossip. However often impaled, his victims continue to feed him”
Anthony Blond, 'Spectator'

About the Author

Nigel Dempster has been editor of the Mail Diary since 1973 and the Mail on Sunday Diary since 1986. He has worked on the Daily Express, Queen magazine and Private Eye, and has been a broadcaster on TV-am and Thames TV. He is a keen photographer and sportsman.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0006530893
• ISBN 13: 9780006530893
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288