Negley Farson

At one time considered one of North America’s most intrepid journalists, Farson is probably little known today to most readers under the age of 50. Farson was raised by his eccentric grandfather, the notorious Civil War General James Negley who ‘made other men look like mongrel dogs.’ With such a colourful family background, it should have come as no surprise that young Negley was not only expelled from college but immediately emigrated on to England.The excitement of the First World War soon lured him even further afield. The young student, now turned journalist, soon showed up in Russia and was present in Red Square the day the Bolshevik Revolution broke out. Farson went on to become one of the most renowned foreign correspondents of his day. He covered a host of varied and exciting world events including interviewing Gandhi in India, witnessing bank-robber John Dillinger’s naked body in the morgue just after he had been shot down by Hoover’s men, and meeting Hitler, who described Farson’s small blond son, Daniel, as a “good Aryan boy.”A renowned fly-fisherman, Farson’s private life was just as turbulent as his journalism career. He partied with F. Scott Fitzgerald and supposedly out-drank Ernest Hemingway