In our June issue of the Bulletin we told members of the publication of Richard Jaffa’s book, A Letter from Oggi. Richard, who was a national newspaper journalist before being admitted in 1967, is now having a special evening at Waterstones in New Street, Birmingham on Friday September 18th, starting 7pm.
His aunt Olga Franklin was a famous Daily Mail columnist and wrote amazing and uninhibited letters to Richard’s mother in Birmingham every week of life for over 30 years. Olga, who was educated at King Edwards School for Girls, started her working life as a bi-lingual secretary to Sir Herbert Austin at Longbridge. She went to London before the Second World War where she joined Reuters as her first step in journalism.
At the event Richard will be reading extracts from the book. He says some of the letters are very funny and he especially enjoys doing an impression of Groucho Marx whom his aunt interviewed in the 1960s.
There are also uninhibited descriptions of Olga’s meetings with the Duke of Edinburgh, many film stars and politicians including Nikita Kruschev. She also describes fall-outs she had with Harold Pinter and the Beatles but also her trip to Moscow with Billy Wright and the Wolves. She even describes the subterfuge she used to discover what was five years old Prince Charles’s favourite breakfast cereal.
Richard and Olga’s careers briefly overlapped and he says the last big story he covered on the Daily Mail was the Profumo crisis and following that he was sent to interview Harold Macmillan at Chatsworth, before joining a slightly calmer profession.
Members of the Birmingham Law Society will be very welcome at the event at Waterstones and are promised some stories that never reached the national press. Richard is a consultant with Dass Solicitors.