Philip Toynbee, born in Oxford in 1916, was an English journalist and author best known for his insightful and often controversial reviews in the The Observer—including, most famously, his 1961 critique of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “dull, ill-written, whimsical and childish” Hobbit novels which he declared to have “passed into a merciful oblivion.” Outside of work, Toynbee’s life was marked by a battle with alcoholism and mental health problems, and in 1977, following a course of Electric Convulsion Treatment to treat his depression, he began keeping a journal in which to record his progress. He wrote the following entry in 1978, shortly after a health scare provoked by a vividly hued vegetable. Sadly, he died three years later from cancer.

The Diary Entry

29 December

Suddenly yesterday morning I observed that there was bright blood in my pee. Cancer of the bladder, naturally! But I was amazed to find that this assumption hardly seemed to bother me—though I’ve suffered so cravenly from Timor Mortis [‘fear of death’] all my born days.

But when S consulted one of her medical books it became quite obvious that the culprit was the beetroot we’d had for supper the night before. So my heroic composure was wasted, in a sense, but it’s nice to know that I achieved it, however briefly.

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Further Reading

The entry above comes from the first of two published volumes of Philip Toynbee’s journals, Part of a Journey: An Autobiographical Journal 1977-79. The second volume is titled, End of a Journey An Autobiographical Journal 1979-81.

Also…

• Philip Toynbee at Wikipedia
• Faces of Philip: A Memoir of Philip Toynbee, by Jessica Mitford (1984)