Clark, Alan ___ 1928-1999 ___ British ___ politician, writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Alan was the eldest son of the art historian Kenneth Clark. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied law, but turned instead to military history. His first book, The Donkeys (1961), was a revisionist history of British involvement in the First World War. He entered Parliament as MP for Plymouth Sutton in 1974 and served in various junior ministerial posts during the Thatcher governments of the 1980s. Following Thatcher's fall, he left politics, but then played a crucial role in undermining - by telling the truth about government practices - the Matrix Churchill trial. He first published his, now famous, political and personal diaries in 1993. In the late 1990s, he made a successful return to politics by being elected MP for Kensington and Chelsea. He died two years later.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - They are real diaries

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1972-1999 ___ political society love/sex people historyeye self

WEB TEXT LINKS
about and a few quotes
a few pages
googlebooks

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Diaries: Into Politics 1972-1982
Diaries: In Power 1983-1992
Diaries: The Last Diaries 1993-1999
 

May 2006, August 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.