TRIBUTES WERE paid yesterday to the broadcaster, writer and former politician Clement Freud, who died at his London home on Wednesday, nine days short of his 85th birthday.
Praise was led by the prime minister and Lord Steel, the former Liberal leader, and tributes also came from Mark Damazer, head of Radio 4, and several of Freud’s colleagues from the long-running Just a Minute quiz show.
Gordon Brown said: “Sir Clement Freud made a huge contribution to public life in many different ways and I was saddened to hear of his death. I first met [him] more than 30 years ago when he was rector of Dundee University and I was rector of the University of Edinburgh. I was proud to have known him and the whole country should recognise the achievements in his life.”
The tributes were to a man who could be irascible and difficult, but who will be remembered more for his wit, usually hidden behind a lugubrious delivery and an impassive, deadpan exterior.
Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and the estranged younger brother of the painter Lucian Freud, achieved a different sort of fame to that of his kin. As a broadcaster, it was initially with a series of dog food commercials and then through his panel game show appearances; the last of which is yet to be aired.
His five children include PR executive Matthew Freud and TV presenter Emma Freud. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, the actor Jill Freud.
Freud was born in Berlin, the son of an architect. He arrived in Britain as the family fled the Nazis in the 1930s and was educated at St Paul’s school, London.
Later, Freud worked as an apprentice chef at the Dorchester before serving in the Royal Ulster Rifles during the war and acting as a liaison officer at the Nuremberg war trials.
Back in civilian life, he worked in the hotel business and ran the Royal Court nightclub – a position which gave him contacts with celebrities and journalists – and began a long career writing on topics as diverse as food and sport. In the dog food commercials, for a product called Minced Morsels, he sat next to a series of equally lugubrious bloodhounds all known as Henry.
In 1973, Freud stood as Liberal candidate in a byelection for the traditionally Tory Isle of Ely constituency and won – a victory celebrated not least because he had backed himself with £1,000 (€10,387 in today’s money) at odds of 33-1. The winnings provided him with the equivalent of two years’ salary as an MP. Freud held his seat through four general elections until he lost out to boundary changes in 1987.
If not all his parliamentary colleagues were entirely happy with his public profile with dog food and Just a Minute, some benefited from his gambling tips, a passion for racing which continued to the end: Freud was at the Grand National 10 days ago and attended his last race meeting on Tuesday.
One of the original contestants of Just a Minute, participating in all 54 series of the 42-year-old show, Freud competed genially, though with a serious competitive edge, and could be scathing about the chairman, Nicholas Parsons.
Fellow panellist Stephen Fry said: “I was at first very afraid of him – a lot of people were. There were stories he was immensely grouchy, he was rude sometimes to people who asked for autographs. I never experienced that side of him at all.” – (Guardian service)