He was educated at Harrow until after his father, who had struggled to manage the family's wealth for years, suffered heavy financial losses from the Wall Street crash of 1929 which eradicated their remaining fortunes.

[3] Due to the lack of funds, Deedes was forced to leave school a year early and finish his exams with a tutor.

[7] He rose to the rank of major and was the only officer to serve in 12th King's Royal Rifle Corps (2nd Queen's Westminsters) for the duration of the war.

[1] After the 1999 Australian republic referendum, Deedes wrote in The Daily Telegraph: "I have rarely attended elections in any country, certainly not a democratic one, in which the newspapers have displayed more shameless bias.

[11] Deedes was married to Evelyn Hilary Branfoot, who died in May 2004, by whom he had two sons Jeremy and Julius and three daughters, Juliet, Jill and Lucy.

[8] A convinced Christian like his father, he lived very unpretentiously on the edge of Romney Marsh, Kent, where his wife, Hilary, kept a menagerie of farm animals.

According to many sources, Deedes was the journalist used by Evelyn Waugh as the model and inspiration for the hapless William Boot, protagonist of the satirical novel Scoop.

Deedes himself said he "spent part of my life brushing aside the charge", but admitted "that my inexperience and naivety as a reporter in Africa might have contributed a few bricks to the building of Boot.

[18] Berhanu Kebele, Ethiopian ambassador to London, pointed out that Deedes's sharp journalistic instincts ensured Italian excesses were kept in the public eye.

The two men regularly played golf together, with Deedes saying it was a public service to take the spouse of the Prime Minister away from the stress of being married to the country's head of government.