Byron Rogers is the ex-feature writer’s feature writer

They lurk in the double-page spreads of newspapers no-one cares about and few buy, his disciples, imitators and conscious or unconscious clones. Not that Byron Rogers is without his own influences. Earlier Fleet Street giants like William Connor (Cassandra) and Anthony Carson, masters of observed eccentricity and terse, mordant humour, left their mark on him. The range, obsessive detail and rolling, stylish fluency are his own.

It looks easy to do: Find a lost celebrity of the past, unearth a local eccentric or strange relic of history, write with a kind of distanced, amused warmth. But no-one has done it as well as Rogers.

The freedom to write like this, for money – a lot of money too, it would have been – has all but vanished from today’s clickbait digipress. And a 3000-word piece of crafty history and speculation about The Last Tramp in Wales, Mr Sparry’s odd parlour bookshop or the relatives of Dr Crippen’s mistress? I can hear the two-days-a-week features desk “commissioning editor” now: Can you shoot some video and check with the GMC if Crippen’s still registered? Books? Nobody’s interested.

Rogers’ full-length biography of the poet RS Thomas is an hilarious masterpiece, but these finely-wrought, funny, sometimes very moving pieces of journalism are missives from a wondrous, magical past, where hacks with charm and contacts could lounge by Rita Hayworth’s pool, and characters like “socialite and impresario” Major Donald Neville-Willing knew everyone and were ready to tell all Elizabeth Taylor’s secrets.

As I say, there are still a few writers, illumined, knowingly or unknowingly by Rogers’ style and subject matter, filling columns on pages that crinkle, rustle and eventually serve to light logburners or line litter trays. Online, few have the attention span necessary to read them. No journalists have the time, space or editorial support he had.; None have the expense accounts (claiming for a longbow and arrows?) the fees, or are as intellectually and spiritually rewarding to read. Or as daft.

On the Trail of the Last Human Cannonball (and other small journeys in search of great men).

An Audience With an Elephant (and other encounters on the eccentric side)

Both by Byron Rogers and published by Aurum Press.