 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Christopher Sykes" writer – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Christopher Hugh SykesFRSL (17 November 1907 – 8 December 1986) was an English writer. Born into thenorthern English landowningSykes family of Sledmere, he was the second son of the diplomatSir Mark Sykes (1879–1919), and his wife, Edith (née Gorst). His sister wasAngela Sykes, the sculptor. His politician uncle, alsoChristopher Sykes, was, for a time, a close friend ofEdward VII.[1]
Educated atDownside School andChrist Church,Oxford, Sykes was, for a time in his youth, in the Foreign Office, including a stint as an attaché (1928–29) in theBritish Embassy in Berlin, whereHarold Nicolson was then Counsellor. This was followed by a year (1930–31) at theBritish Legation in Teheran. An early hero wasAubrey Herbert, remembered now as the man who inspiredJohn Buchan's classic thrillerGreenmantle.[citation needed]
Though Sykes contemplated making politics his career, he thought that his stammer and also his artistic and imaginative disposition would tell against his success in parliamentary life.[citation needed]
In the preface to his bookCrossroads to Israel (page 8), he states that he first went to Israel in 1931, "more or less by accident".
At theSchool of Oriental Studies in London, he devoted himself to Persian studies in 1933[citation needed] before travelling inCentral Asia during 1933–34 withRobert Byron, who later wroteThe Road to Oxiana recounting their long expedition in what was then a country almost unexplored by Western Europeans. In the book, Byron states that Sykes was given an order to leave Persia, but that after negotiations had been carried out, he was able to depart freely from the country, viaAfghanistan, in Byron's company.[2]
After returning to England, Sykes and Byron wrote a novel together,Innocence and Design, published in 1935 under the pen-name of Richard Waughburton. A little later, Sykes andCyril Connolly planned a book with the title ofThe Little Voice. In common with other projects of Connolly's, the book never got beyond the planning stages. Sykes published in 1936 a biography of the German PersianistWilhelm Wassmuss; he did not, during later years, include this volume in his list of his publications. A memoir of Byron, killed at sea in 1941, was included in Sykes' best-selling book,Four Studies in Loyalty.[3]
Sykes had an eventful war. Having held, like his famous father, aTerritorial Army commission inThe Green Howards in 1927–1930, he was commissioned in 1939 as a reserve officer in the regiment's newly formed 7th Battalion. In June 1940, Sykes joinedSO1 (laterSpecial Operations Executive), where he was personal assistant to ColonelCudbert Thornhill.
During October 1941, Sykes was sent out to Tehran as Deputy Director of Special Propaganda under diplomatic cover (Second Secretary at the British Legation) in the aftermath of theAnglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, where he remained until November 1942, when he was transferred to Cairo. Out of a job because his department had been wound up, Sykes found time to write a light novel,High Minded Murder (1944), something of aroman à clef, set in wartime Cairo where Graham Greene's sister Elizabeth was living (Sykes repeatedly mentions Greene in his biography of Waugh). Meanwhile, after failing to find any position as an intelligence officer in the Middle East, Sykes returned to the UK in May 1943, volunteered for theSpecial Air Service (SAS), and was posted to the Commando Training Depot atAchnacarry Castle, Invernesshire on 1 July 1943.
As an SAS officer, Sykes, who spoke fluent French but could not pass as a native, undertook extremely hazardous work with theFrench Resistance.[4] His experiences in this regard were, like his friendship with Byron, depicted inFour Studies in Loyalty (dedicated to the town of Vosges), this time in that book's last chapter.
Sykes is known for his 1975 biography of his friendEvelyn Waugh. While both men had attendedOxford, but a few years remote from each other, Sykes and Waugh met only after the success ofVile Bodies, 1930. He introduced Waugh toLady Diana Cooper. Waugh would create one of his fictional personalities drawn from her characteristics and ways,Julia Stitch, inScoop, 1938. Sykes praisedBrideshead, Waugh's Catholic epic; the two were both Catholics, but with the notable difference – mentioned by Waugh's sonAuberon when reviewing Sykes's book in the October 1975 issue ofBooks and Bookmen[5] – that whereas Waugh converted to Roman Catholicism in his twenties, Sykes was acradle Catholic. Sykes nonetheless censured some of Waugh's writing, and admitted to a dislike of the character of Julia Flyte, noting that nobody had yet identified a model for her in contemporary society. Also Sykes makes some comparisons between scenes in Waugh's books and those ofThackeray: for instance, the fox-hunting scene inA Handful of Dust is compared to that inBarry Lyndon.
Sykes is also remembered to a lesser extent for his history of theBritish Mandate of Palestine,Crossroads to Israel (1965). Of his half-dozen novels, none attained great popularity or fame.
His non-fiction was more successful. Other biographies by him included a life ofOrde Wingate (published 1959), which drew attention to Wingate as the possible basis for Waugh's character Brigadier Ritchie-Hook inThe Sword of Honour trilogy. Sometimes Wingate was referred to as "Lawrence of Judea" (a phrase that Wingate deplored).[citation needed]
Two subsequent Sykes biographies which achieved substantial renown dealt with, respectively,Lady Astor andAdam von Trott zu Solz.
After 1945 Sykes worked for many years inBBC Radio, where he helped to get Waugh's broadcast tribute toP. G. Wodehouse (who had been captured inLe Touquet by the Germans) on the air, against considerable opposition from Waugh's enemies. Frequently Sykes wrote for several British and American periodicals, includingThe New Republic,The Spectator,Books and Bookmen,The Observer and the short-livedEnglish Review Magazine. He was invested as a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature.[citation needed]
He married Camilla Georgiana, daughter of SirThomas Wentworth Russell (great-grandson of the6th Duke of Bedford) on 25 October 1936.[1] Their son, Mark Richard Sykes (born 9 June 1937), by his second marriage, is father to six children including New York City based fashion writer and novelistPlum Sykes. Writer and photographerChristopher Simon Sykes is a nephew.[citation needed] Writer and journalist Tom Sykes is a grandson.[6]
 | This sectionlacksISBNs for books it lists. Please helpadd this information or run thecitation bot.(September 2014) |
Innocence and Design (1935; written as "Richard Waughburton", jointly with Robert Byron)
