'I am Trimmer, you know...' Lord Lovat in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour

Abstract

[Extract]Call me foolhardy, but I am resolved to boldly go where Paul Johnson has already been threatened with violence. Some years ago Mr Johnson recounted a conversation he had with Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat in which Lord Lovat said that he had 'kicked Evelyn Waugh out' of the Special Service Brigade 'for the Brigade's good.' This, of course, had aroused Waugh's 'undying fury.' Nor had Lovat mellowed. 'By kicking [Waugh] out,' he explained, 'I saved his life.' Lovat was alluding to very silly gossip that Waugh's men would have shot him if he went into action. 'But no good deed goes unpunished. He survived to write [Sword of Honour (1)] portraying me as a horrible hairdresser. For I am Trimmer, you know.' In reply to Johnson, Lord Lovat's doughty nephew, Sir Charles Maclean (son of Sir Fitzroy), virtually accused him of lying. Doubting that the conversation 'actually took place,' he promised Johnson a 'Glasgow kiss' if he 'showed his florid mug north of the border.'