Malcolm Muggeridge
Malcolm Muggeridge (
March 24,
1903–
November 14,
1990) was a
British journalist,
author, media personality, soldier, spy and Christian scholar.
His father,
H.T. Muggeridge, was a
Labour councillor in
Croydon,
South London and, for a short time, a
Member of Parliament in Ramsey MacDonald's second labour government. His mother was Annie Booler.
Malcolm attended
Selwyn College at
Cambridge University, graduating in
1924 with a third class science degree, and went to
India to teach. While still a student he had taught for brief periods in
1920,
1922 and
1924 at the
John Ruskin Central School,
Croydon, where his father was Chairman of the Governors.
Returning to England in
1927, he married Katherine Dobbs (
1903–
1994), also called Kathleen or Kitty, whose mother Rosalind Dobbs was a younger sister of
Beatrice Webb. He worked as a supply teacher, before moving to teach in
Egypt six months later. Here he met
Arthur Ransome who was visiting Egypt as a journalist for the
Manchester Guardian. Ransome recommended Muggeridge to the editors of the Guardian and he was employed as a journalist for the first time.
Muggeridge and his wife travelled to
Moscow in
1932, where Malcolm was to be a correspondent for the
Manchester Guardian, standing in for William Chamberlin who was about to take leave of absence; at the time the Manchester Guardian was sympathetic to Stalin's
Soviet regime. During Muggeridge's early time in Moscow, his main journalistic concentration was writing a novel Picture Palace about his experiences at the Manchester Guardian, completed and submitted to publishers in January 1933. Unfortunately, the publishers were concerned with potential libel claims and the book was not published causing some financial embarrassment to Muggeridge who was not actually employed at the time, being paid only for articles which he could get accepted. Malcolm then decided to investigate at first hand reports of the
famine in Ukraine, travelling there and to the
Caucasus. Reports he sent back to the Guardian in the diplomatic bag, thus evading censorship, were not fully printed; furthermore, contradictory stories were being written by
Walter Duranty. Having come directly into conflict with the paper's editorial policy, Muggeridge turned back to novel writing, starting
Winter In Moscow (
1934), describing real conditions in the socialist utopia and satirizing Western journalists uncritical of the Stalin regime. He called Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism." Later, he began a writing partnership with
Hugh Kingsmill. Muggeridge's politics changed as he moved from a socialist, possibly
fellow-traveller position, to a right-wing stance that was no less destructive in its criticism, as it was hard to locate in party-political terms.
During the war he was part of the MI6 operation in Brussels which was headed by Richard Barclay, a weak man whom Muggeridge and his colleague Donald McLachlan bullied. Muggeridge's vainglorious attempt to claim credit for the dismantling of the German spy network in Antwerp, in which he played no part, provoked furious protests from those involved (
Richard Gatty and
Charles Arnold-Baker), to Barclay.He was later sent to neutral Lorenco Marques in East Africa where he is reputed to have been responsible for the capture of a German U Boat, but also spoke later of an attempt at suicide.Shortly after the liberation of Paris by the Allies, Muggeridge was assigned to make an initial investigation into
P.G. Wodehouse's five infamous broadcasts from Berlin during the war. Though he was prepared initially to dislike Wodehouse, the interview became the start of a lifelong friendship and publishing relationship.
He worked on other papers, including the
Calcutta Statesman,
Evening Standard, and
Daily Telegraph. He was editor of
Punch magazine from
1953 to
1957, a challenging appointment for one who claimed to have no sense of humour. In 1957 he received much public approbrium for criticism of the British Monarchy in a US magazine, coinciding with a Royal State Visit to Washington. Sacked for a short period from the BBC, his infamy propelled him to becoming a very well-known broadcaster and tough interviewer, and also increasingly a figure of some ridicule as he pompously denounced the sexual lassitude of the swinging sixties on radio and television. It was a period in which his own spiritual beliefs began to become more significant in his career.
Muggeridge became known as the "discoverer" of
Mother Teresa, whom he first interviewed in London in
1968. He told the world about her deeds through a television documentary filmed in Calcutta called
Something Beautiful for God, and through a best-selling book of the same name. He was well-known for his wit and profound writings (e.g., "Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream"). He wrote two volumes of an autobiography called
Chronicles of Wasted Time, published in 1972. A projected third volume
The Right Eye was started but never completed.
Having professed publicly to being an agnostic for most of his life, he found his Christian faith, publishing
Jesus Rediscovered in 1969 and
Jesus: The Man Who Lives in 1976. In
A Third Testament, he profiles seven spiritual thinkers, or God's Spies as he called them, who influenced his life:
Augustine of Hippo,
William Blake,
Blaise Pascal,
Leo Tolstoy,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Søren Kierkegaard, and
Fyodor Dostoevsky. In this period he also produced several important BBC documentaries with a religious theme, including "In the Footsteps of St. Paul".
In 1982, he surprised many people by converting to
Roman Catholicism at the age of 79 along with his wife, Kitty. This was largely due to the influence of Mother Teresa. His last book was
Conversion, published in 1988, and describes his life as a pilgimage - a spiritual journey.
Muggeridge was a controversial figure - known as a drinker and womaniser in early life. However, his best work came as a result of finding his faith late in life and fighting energetically for moral issues. He is affectionately remembered as St. Mugg. From his book,
Jesus: The Man Who Lives, he says, "If the greatest of all, Incarnate God, chooses to be the servant of all, who would wish to be the master?"
A Literary Society in his name was established on March 24th 2003, the occasion of his centenary and publishes a quarterly newsletter called
The Gargoyle*
Malcolm Muggeridge's Conversion Story* McCrum, Robert.
Wodehouse, A Life, W.W. Norton, London, New York, 2004.
*
UK topics
