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• John Julius Norwich (W...
John Julius Norwich (1929-2018) was an English popular historian, travel writer and television personality. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire and 'The Popes: A History'. [Listener: Christopher Sykes]
TRANSCRIPT: He was possessed. It wasn’t quite demonic possession, but there was a devil in him somewhere. I mean, at his great religiousness and his extreme piety, I think, were all in an effort to try and vanquish this devil that he knew that he had inside him. I remember when he and Randolph Churchill and Freddie Birkenhead were all in a cave in Yugoslavia in the war together and Randolph never, never, never stopped talking and Evelyn couldn’t bear it and had a Bible with him, which he always had, so he bet Randolph that he couldn’t read the whole Bible in a week and Randolph took on the bet. Well, it shut him up. He went back into the cave and just read, and read, and read. Occasionally they would hear great bellows going, ‘My God, God's a shit’, but anyway, they went on and eventually they all got out and Randolph, on his way back, went to Rome and went to see the Pope, which, of course, as the son of Winston Churchill he could easily manage to do. And he said to the Pope, ‘You know, I've just been in Yugoslavia with Evelyn Waugh’, and the Pope said, ‘Evelyn who?’ And Randolph said, ‘Oh, Evelyn Waugh, you must know Evelyn Waugh’, you know. And the Pope said, ‘No, I'm afraid I don’t know Evelyn Waugh.’ ‘That's funny’, said Randolph, ‘he's a Catholic too.’