Who, Me?

Two extraordinary comments last night. First this one, submitted anonymously:

People dredging up the Martin Miller fantasy should be bloody careful. That made it into print once. On the day that Mr. Lindsay was undergoing one of his bouts of major surgery the people who wrote and published it were visited by both the police and the social services on two unrelated but extremely serious charges. Mr. Lindsay has some very powerful friends and they obviously act to protect him with [I assume that this means "without"] him having to ask them or being in any position to do so. Those were just kids by the way. Imagine what they would do to grownups. Don't go there. Mr. Lindsay is off limits.

Leading to this, by one "RON":

I am glad that someone is finally saying these things, Anon.

We seasoned Lindsay watchers have marvelled for years at the strangely stunted careers of people lined up for great things until they fell out with him and were shunted into obscure sidelines for years on end. For that to happen once or a few times would be understandable, but it is a real recurring theme across a quite wide range of fields. [Does it not occur to "RON" that that says something, not directly about me, but rather about the sort of people who "fall out with" me?] I hope the editor of the Northern Cross enjoys being nothing more than the editor of the Northern Cross until he retires. [What's wrong with that?]

There have been the positions handed to him on a plate at unnaturally early ages, less likely to happen now that he is getting on a bit but very remarkable in his youth. Two school governorships while still a student, that sort of thing. Distinguished people have been moved without explanation to make room for him and least one proper, day job career has never recovered. Collateral damage?

Then there is how rich and powerful institutions and organisations always make peace with him in the end. it is never the other way round, he never needs to make the move. They always do in the end, too. Somehow they feel compelled to. This will not apply to the Telegraph because both sides give every impression that relations are still more than cordial. [Whoever said otherwise?] As so often with David Lindsay, it is all very complicated but all entirely in his favour.

The student newspaper that crossed him is now being taken over by his protégés although he will deny all knowledge of a plot. He is probably telling the truth when he says that he does not read it but that is not the question. He has a long and ridiculous history of incredulously denying that he cultivates protégés but who else do you know who kept a court of them at all of 20?

You are right about how protective his friends are and how "uncompromising" some of the most protective are. One of my favourite David Lindsay stories (I did not hear this from him) concerns someone now in the House of Lords who once said to him "You don't only dress like the Mafia, do you?" [All right, that one really happened. I am naming no names. You would be very surprised...] That was when he was still at school! Within about four years he was a governor of that school [an institution wholly unconnected to this anecdote]. Plus another one.

I have always been immensely and intensely proud of my enemies...