No one could be long in conversation with Christie Davies without realizing that he was in the presence of a powerful, individual, and original mind. He had something interesting to say about practically everything, almost always from an unusual and unexpected angle on whatever subject came up, and drawing from a vast stock of information and experience of every kind. What he said was often simultaneously startling and obvious (obvious, that is, once he had enunciated it): his thought had a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that? quality about it. This is what gave a peculiar pleasure to talking to him. It was like going on a journey in which new vistas were likely to open up at any moment.

His thought had a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that? quality about it.

Readers of The New Criterion will be familiar with his art criticism, which was judicious, lucid, well informed, and properly opinionated. But art criticism was only a very small part of his protean activity and interest. If he was not a renaissance man, it was only because the expansion of human knowledge now makes the existence of such a person impossible. He could speak equally of cabbages and kings.

He started as an economist, obtaining a distinguished degree at Cambridge (he was also for a time the president of the Union there, as well as a member of the Cambridge Footlights, an amateur dramatic club famous at the time for its satirical spirit). After leaving university, he was a producer for the bbc