William Donaldson

Charles William Donaldson (4 January 1935 – 22 June 2005 ) was a British satirist, writer, playboy and, under the pseudonym of Henry Root, author of The Henry Root Letters.

Life and career Son of Charles Glen Donaldson (1904–1956) and Elizabeth (née Stockley; d. 1955), Donaldson enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Sunningdale, Berkshire. His father was Managing Director of the Glasgow-based family shipping line, Donaldson Line, which until its sale in the early 1960s, was one of the largest passenger lines in the world. He was educated at Winchester College (where he first met Julian Mitchell) and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He spent some money supporting young writers such as his contemporaries Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Before long he was scavenging for food on the beach. Returning to London, he found refuge with a former girlfriend who was running a brothel on Fulham Road.

Donaldson's biographical survey of roguish Britons through the ages, Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics (2002), has been described as "a breathtaking triumph of misdirected scholarship".

Donaldson also wrote novels including the semi-autobiographical 'Is This Allowed'. In the 1990s he also had a column in The Independent.

The phenomenal success of the Henry Root books, especially the first, enabled Donaldson to resume his earlier chaotic lifestyle, and in the mid-1980s he began using crack cocaine. He continued its use for more than a decade, but insisted he was not addicted. Talbot Church, and Liz Reed.

Personal life Donaldson married Sonia Avory in 1957 and they had a son named Charlie. He left her for Jacki Ellis, then the wife of Jeffrey Bernard, but in due course she left him. A sequence of affairs followed, including liaisons with Sarah Miles and Carly Simon. In 1968, Donaldson inherited another fortune and married Claire Gordon. The couple epitomised 1960s Swinging London. He later remembered that "sex, whether in company or not, has been the only department in life in which I have demanded from anyone taking part the very highest standards of seriousness."