Clive James - Early Life

Early Life

James was born in Kogarah, Sydney. He was allowed to change his name as a child because "after Vivien Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara the name became irrevocably a girl's name no matter how you spelled it".

James' father was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. Although he survived the POW camp, he died when the plane returning him to Australia crashed in Manila Bay; he was buried in Hong Kong. James, who was an only child, was brought up by his mother in the Sydney suburb of Kogarah, after living some years with his English maternal grandfather.

In Unreliable Memoirs, James says an IQ test taken in childhood put his IQ at 140. He was educated at Sydney Technical High School (despite winning a bursary award to Sydney Boys High School) and the University of Sydney, where he studied Psychology and became associated with the Sydney Push, a libertarian, intellectual subculture. At the university, he edited the student newspaper, Honi Soit, and directed the annual Union Revue. After graduating, James worked for a year as an assistant editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.

In early 1962, James moved to England, where he made his home. During his first three years in London, he shared a flat with the Australian film director Bruce Beresford (disguised as "Dave Dalziel" in the first three volumes of James' memoirs), was a neighbour of Australian artist Brett Whiteley, became acquainted with Barry Humphries (disguised as "Bruce Jennings") and had a variety of occasionally disastrous short-term jobs (sheet metal worker, library assistant, photo archivist, market researcher).

James later gained a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read English literature. While there, he contributed to all the undergraduate periodicals, was a member and later President of the Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on University Challenge as captain of the Pembroke team, beating St Hilda's Oxford but losing to Balliol on the last question in a tied game. During one summer vacation, he worked as a circus roustabout to save enough money to travel to Italy. His contemporaries at Cambridge included Germaine Greer (known as "Romaine Rand" in the first three volumes of his memoirs), Simon Schama and Eric Idle. Having, he claims, scrupulously avoided reading any of the course material (but having read widely otherwise in English and foreign literature), James graduated with a 2:1—better than he had expected—and began a D.Phil. thesis on Percy Bysshe Shelley.