Clement Freud | |
|---|---|
 Freud in 1970 | |
| Born | Clemens Rafael Freud (1924-04-24)24 April 1924 |
| Died | 15 April 2009(2009-04-15) (aged 84) London, England |
| Occupations |
|
| Political party | Liberal |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5, includingMatthew andEmma |
| Parent | Ernst L. Freud (father) |
| Relatives | Freud family |
| Member of Parliament North East Cambridgeshire Isle of Ely (1973–1983) | |
| In office 27 July 1973 – 18 May 1987 | |
| Preceded by | Henry Legge-Bourke |
| Succeeded by | Malcolm Moss |
| Lord Rector of the University of St Andrews | |
| In office November 2002 – October 2005 | |
| Preceded by | Andrew Neil |
| Succeeded by | Kevin Dunion |
| Military service | |
| Years of service | 1942–1947 |
| Rank | Second lieutenant |
Sir Clement Raphael Freud (24 April 1924 – 15 April 2009)[1][2][3] was a Britishbroadcaster,writer,politician andchef. The son ofErnst L. Freud and grandson ofSigmund Freud, Clement moved to the United Kingdom fromNazi Germany as a child and later worked as a prominent chef and food writer.
He became known to a wider audience as a television and radio personality. Freud was the longest serving panellist on theBBC Radio 4 panel showJust a Minute, appearing in each of the first 143 episodes, and making subsequent regular appearances up until his death in 2009.[4]
Freud was elected as aLiberalMember of Parliament in 1973, retaining his seat until 1987, when he received aknighthood. In 2016, seven years after his death, three women made public allegations ofchild sexual abuse andrape by Freud, which led to police investigations.[5]
Clement Freud was bornClemens Rafael Freud inBerlin,[2][6][7] the son of Jewish parentsErnst L. Freud (an architect) and Lucie Freud (née Brasch). He was a grandson of psychoanalystSigmund Freud and the brother of artistLucian Freud. His family fled to the United Kingdom fromNazi Germany and his forenames wereanglicised to Clement Raphael.[8] He spent his later childhood inHampstead, where he attended theHall School, aprep school.[9] He was then educated at twoindependent schools: atDartington Hall School, where he boarded, and atSt Paul's School in London.[8] He was naturalised as a British subject on 4 September 1939, three days after the outbreak of theSecond World War.[6]
During the war, Freud joined theRoyal Ulster Rifles and served in the ranks, acting as an aide toField Marshal Montgomery. He later worked at theNuremberg Trials, and in 1947 was commissioned as an officer.[10] Freud marriedJune Flewett (the inspiration forLucy Pevensie inC. S. Lewis's children's seriesThe Chronicles of Narnia)[11] in 1950, and the couple had five children. Flewett had taken the stage name Jill Raymond in 1944, and after her husband'sknighthood, was known as Lady Freud.[11] Freud became anAnglican at the time of his marriage.[12]
Freud was one of Britain's firstcelebrity chefs.[13] He worked at theDorchester Hotel and went on to run his own restaurant inSloane Square at a relatively young age. Freud appeared in a series ofdog food television advertisements (at first Chunky Meat, later Chunky Minced Morsels) in which he co-starred with abloodhound called Henry (played by a number of dogs) which shared his trademark "hangdog" expression. In 1964 he appeared inStrictly for the Birds. In 1968 he wrote the children's bookGrimble, followed by a sequel,Grimble at Christmas, six years later. Whilst running anightclub, Freud met a newspaper editor who gave him a job as asports journalist. From there he became an award-winning food and drink writer,[14] writing columns for many publications.
Freud stood in the1973 Isle of Ely by-election, becoming theLiberalMember of Parliament for that constituency (laterNorth East Cambridgeshire) from 1973 to 1987. In 1983, to support employment in his constituency, he assisted the management buy-out of a concrete pipe manufacturer inMarch,Cambridgeshire, led byTom Moore, and became an investor in the resulting March Concrete Ltd.[15] His departure fromParliament was marked by the award of a knighthood.
In his column in theRacing Post of 23 August 2006, Freud wrote about his election to Parliament in a by-election: "Politically, I was an anti-Conservative unable to join aLabour party hell-bent on nationalising everything that moved, so when a by-election occurred inEast Anglia, where I lived and live, I stood as a Liberal and was fortunate in getting in.Ladbrokes quoted me at 33–1 in this three-horse contest, so Ladbrokes paid for me to have rather more secretarial and research staff than other MPs, which helped to keep me in for five parliaments."
His autobiography,Freud Ego, recalls his election win, and shortly after, when asked by his wife June, "Why aren't you looking happier?", he wrote, "It suddenly occurred to me that after nine years of fame I now had something solid about which to be famous... and cheered up no end." During his time as a Member of Parliament, he visited China with a delegation of MPs, includingWinston Churchill, the grandson of thewartime prime minister. When Churchill was given the best room in the hotel, on account of his lineage, Freud (in a reference to his own famous forebear) declared it was the first time in his life that he had been "out-grandfathered".[16]
In the last year ofJames Callaghan's government there was a proposal to revive the one-yearLib-Lab pact which had lapsed in July 1978, to include introducing afreedom of information act, long proposed by the Liberals; however, Callaghan himself was opposed to this kind of legislation. Towards the end of the five-year term there was aconfidence vote in Callaghan's government, and Freud was expected to follow his party and vote with theOpposition.
Due to by-election defeats Labour's Callaghan ran aminority government and sought support of members from opposing parties to support him that day; to that end Freud, inLiverpool at the time, received a phone call from10 Downing Street at 3pm asking him to miss his train back to London for the 10pm vote, in exchange for a "looser" version of his proposed freedom of information act being enacted. Freud declined the offer and voted as stated by his party, after the lapse of the Lib-Lab pact, for an immediate general election. Otherwise the government could have continued until October 1979.[17][better source needed]
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For many, Freud was best known as a panellist on the long-runningRadio 4 showJust a Minute. Freud performed a small monologue for theWings 1973 albumBand on the Run and appeared on the album's cover. He also made the occasional film appearance, with acting roles in movies such asThe Mini-Affair (1968) andThe Best House in London (1969). In 1974, he was electedRector of the University of Dundee and served two three-year terms. A generation later, in 2002, he was electedRector of theUniversity of St Andrews, beating feminist and academicGermaine Greer and local challenger Barry Joss, holding the position for one term.
His sonMatthew Freud founded the London public relations firmFreud Communications in 1985. Matthew Freud was formerly married to Caroline Hutton, who was the second wife ofEarl Spencer; he then married media magnateRupert Murdoch's daughterElisabeth.
Clement Freud's daughterEmma Freud, a broadcaster, is the partner ofRichard Curtis, scriptwriter ofBlackadder andFour Weddings and a Funeral. His nieces (by his painter brotherLucian) include poetAnnie Freud, fashion designerBella Freud, and writerEsther Freud. His eldest brother, Stephen Freud, closely guarded his privacy, with the exception of a 2008 interview he gave toThe Daily Telegraph.[18] Stephen died in 2015, at the age of 93.[19] Freud died without resolving a feud with his brother Lucian, thought to have dated back 70 years, over which of them was the rightful winner of a boyhood race.[20] There have been claims that Freud fathered a child in the mid-1950s with the family's 17-year-old nanny.[21]
Freud was a columnist for theRacing Post newspaper. Freud's enthusiasm for horse racing went as far as challengingSir Hugh Fraser, then chairman ofHarrods, to a horse race atHaydock in 1972. Freud trained for three months and lost some fivestone for the event. Although Fraser, a country gentleman, was seen as a much better prospect, the two made a bet for £1,000-a-side. Freud used the long odds to his advantage, however, and shrewdly placed a largeside bet on himself. Freud won the race and made a great deal of money. His horse, Winter Fair, went on to win the Waterloo Hurdle atAintree that year.[22]
Freud wrote articles reviewing facilities for spectators at racecourses in Britain, especially catering. This led him to receive the nickname "Sir Clement Food".[23]
Freud died at his home on 15 April 2009, nine days before his 85th birthday.[24] His funeral service was held atSt Bride's Church inFleet Street and was attended by a host of personalities from the media and entertainment industry includingBono,Richard Curtis,Stephen Fry,Paul Merton,Debbie McGee andNicholas Parsons, as well as several representatives fromWestminster, such as then-Prime MinisterGordon Brown, then-Shadow ChancellorGeorge Osborne and former Liberal party leaderLord Steel.[25] He was survived by his wife of 59 years, Jill Freud, his five children, his 17 grandchildren and his two elder brothers, Stephen andLucian.[26]
On 15 June 2016, allegations were made in anITV documentary,Exposure: Abused and Betrayed – A Life Sentence, that Freud had engaged inchild sexual abuse between the 1940s and the 1970s.[27][28] Two women, who did not know each other, spoke publicly for the first time to claim Freud had preyed upon them when they were still children and into young adulthood.[29] Sylvia Woosley contacted theITV News team – the same team that exposedJimmy Savile – and told them she had been abused for many years by Freud, from the age of 10 in the 1950s to when she left his home aged 19. The second woman, who remained anonymous, said that Freud had groomed her from the age of 11 in 1971, abused her at 14, and violentlyraped her at 18, by which time Freud had become a Liberal MP.[5][30] On the day of the documentary broadcast, Freud's widow, Jill Freud, issued an apology to both women. She accepted the claims and issued a statement of sympathy for his victims, saying: "I sincerely hope they will now have some peace."[5][30]
A third woman, Vicky Hayes, alleged that she was assaulted and raped by Freud when she was aged 17. Hayes said Freud had no right to his reputation as a "pillar of society" and ought to be posthumously stripped of his knighthood.[31] It also emerged thatOperation Yewtree had been passed Freud's name in 2012 when two alleged victims made accusations to theNational Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).[32]
Allegations were also made of predatory behaviour towards female students during Freud's time asRector of the University of Dundee in the 1970s.[33]Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, who was a student at Dundee University in the late 1970s, described an incident when Freud asked the president of the students' union topimp for him and select a woman to entertain him.[31]
Freud was created aKnight Bachelor in the1988 New Year Honours.[34]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forIsle of Ely 1973–1983 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forNorth East Cambridgeshire 1983–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of Dundee 1974–1980 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of St Andrews 2002–2005 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
