The Roy Strong Diaries

For over three decades Roy Strong has teased, tantalised, amused and sometimes enraged the British public, firstly in his capacity as the flamboyant director of two great cultural institutions, the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum, and more recently as a broadcaster, writer, garden expert and historian. This first volume of diaries takes the reader into the heart of his career from 1967 to 1987, vividly recording events as they happened, and revealing Sir Roy to be not just a mercurial and brilliant administrator but also a shrewd observer of the glittering social and political milieu into which he was drawn. In these pages we meet David Hockney in his studio, the poignant figure of Cecil Beaton in decline, the Philistine Mrs Thatcher, the ever-indestructible Diana Cooper, and many others, including a bevy of members of the Royal Family. SPLENDOURS AND MISERIES provides a unique panorama of the world of the arts, fashion and society, taking us from the outrageous Swinging Sixties to the hard-edged glitz of Thatcher's Britain.