July 2021: ‘I sat between Philippe and the detached French woman. She was quite old. She hadn’t yet got over the death of her lover, she told me, even though she’d passed away a decade before. After telling me this she rested her head against my chest as though exhausted by grief. Offered wine, she sprang to life and filled her glass dangerously close to the brim with red. November 1, 2008: “The bottom half of the bed was sodden. Further investigation told me that, although the sheets were soaked, the duvet and the suit trousers I’d slept in were perfectly dry. Strange.” Short relationships April 2014: ‘The young amateur boxers dash over to their father — their favourite punchbag — climb up on to his chair, and administer a damn good leathering. Their father cowers weakly in his chair as the blows rain down.“Good day at the office?”I ask him. He looks out at me between the blows and I get another one of those desperate looks.’ On Pamplona

April 2020:‘She reached down and slid open the bottom drawer of her desk, showing about 100 vodka miniatures. I nodded complicity. She emptied four into two plastic water cups. “Have you got anything to go withit?” I said, which wasn’t very Low Life-like of me. She reached down and pulled out the lower drawer of her neighbour’s desk and rummaged in it, emerging eventually with a medicine bottle of kaolin and morphine.’ Communists and fascists May 2023: ‘When Marketa leaves, Treena supervises the cleaning of my gob. On the bed table she lays out a hand towel, a tooth mug with warm water in it, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and three paper towels to spit into. She also places upon the table an anti-fungal mouthwash. Mouth fungus, apparently, is an inevitable side result of these cancer treatments. Unfortunately, by kissing her too frequently and too passionately, and vice versa, I have passed mine on to Catriona. Jeremy Clarke, who chronicled his experiences of living a “low life” in the Spectator magazine for more than 20 years. We have a tribute from Eric Idle. July 2022: ‘And I think: is this how it ends? Lying in bed watching TikTok videos? At the weekend I had planned a retreat in a nunnery. Three days of silent prayer and contemplation. But two of the nuns have caught Covid and the technical nun thought it best that we postponed. And at the weekend the tumour pain in my armpit, shoulder and shoulder blade intensified alarmingly. For the first time, the usual dose of the usual painkillers didn’t touch it. An escalation. I have always imagined that when it was time for me to die,I would make a serious effort to prepare myself. And now that the warning light is flashing, what do I do? I tap the TikTok app and there’s Bernard Manning saying,“A man walks into a pub with a crocodile under his arm.”Shoot me.’ On Spectator readersJuly 3, 2021: “I sat between Phillipe and the detached French woman. She was quite old. She hadn’t yet got over the death of her lover, she told me, even though she’d passed away a decade before. After telling me this she rested her head against my chest as though exhausted by grief. Offered wine, she sprang to life and filled her glass dangerously close to the brim with red. November 30, 2013: “The delusions began; the usual delusions; my ordinary neuroses writ large, I think. An unshakable conviction, for example, that these confident, consummate actors gathered here in the bar were operating on a higher plane of consciousness than I was, and that they knew something of crucial importance, perhaps about me, that I cannot imagine nor will ever be permitted to know.” Mayfair This was my introduction to the Elizabethan drama of the oncologist’s consulting room — always a door opening and someone coming in bearing grave news,” he wrote. I might have also suspected that that tagline promised a degree of acerbic social commentary. I might have been wrong about that last bit.

April 25, 2020: “She reached down and slid open the bottom drawer of her desk, showing about 100 vodka miniatures. I nodded complicity. She emptied four into two plastic water cups. “Have you got anything to go with it?” I said, which wasn’t very Low Life-like of me. She reached down and pulled out the lower drawer of her neighbor’s desk and rummaged in it, emerging eventually with a medicine bottle of kaolin and morphine.” Communists and fascists July 30, 2022: “And I think: is this how it ends? Lying in bed watching TikTok videos? At the weekend I had planned a retreat in a nunnery. Three days of silent prayer and contemplation. But two of the nuns have caught Covid and the technical nun thought it best that we postponed. And at the weekend the tumor pain in my armpit, shoulder and shoulder blade intensified alarmingly. For the first time, the usual dose of the usual painkillers didn’t touch it. An escalation. I have always imagined that when it was time for me to die I would make a serious effort to prepare myself. And now that the warning light is flashing, what do I do? I tap the TikTok app and there’s Bernard Manning saying, ‘A man walks into a pub with a crocodile under his arm.’ Shoot me.” Spectator readers

If I’m honest with myself,I’ve never completely known or understood what I was doing, or supposed to be doing, every week when writing this column On dancing Jeremy’s self-effacement was almost as endearing as his infectious laughter. He was genuinely surprised by the high esteem in which his readers held him and I’m sure this helped him in his battle against his painful illness.

Jeremy could get on with anyone. One year at lunch he was sitting next to the then Chairman of The Prudential who admired his tweed suit. “Got it from The Oxfam Shop for a tenner on the way here,” Jeremy admitted. The businessman didn’t know he was not joking. November 2013:‘The delusions began; the usual delusions; my ordinary neuroses writ large, I think. An unshakeable conviction, for example, that these confident, consummate actors gathered here in the bar were operating on a higher plane of consciousness than I was, and that they knew something of crucial importance, perhaps about me, that I cannot imagine nor will ever be permitted to know.’ On Mayfair October 12, 2019: “Fumbling outside my door in dripping swimming trunks for my room key, I was hailed cheerily by the maid from a doorway further along the corridor. I hadn’t met her, but her greeting was not without a touch of familiarity, if not intimacy, I thought. The latter, I guessed, must be predicated on the fact of her coming into my junior suite when I was out and restoring it to a holiday-brochure photograph, then arranging my tawdry collection of toiletries into little islands on the marble counter. What she made of my penis vacuum pump, I couldn’t guess. I rather think that while she could only speculate as to its function, she probably imagined it to be the latest Western bourgeois ‘must-have’ gadget. This patronizing thought was based on the way she polished the Perspex tube and deified it and the heavy motor unit by arranging them side by side and centrally on a glass shelf lit by four spotlights.Although based in France he kept closely in touch with his family in Britain, especially his grandsons on whom he doted. His spirits rose when he met up with them either in France or in Britain.