Peter Hitchens Must Die. That was the name of the – once active - Facebook page to which the unscathed columnist gave the pithy retort “broadly I agree with this, it’s a statement of fact”.
For the creators of this page however, the line was likely intended as a statement of purpose, and indeed there were bound to be many other internet browsers who agreed with the wish.
Not every journalist reaches the great peaks of notoriety which afford them the honour of the digital death threat.
So how is it that Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens - who met up with the Oxford Mail for an exclusive interview this month - gained what he calls the “perfect condition of minor celebrity"?
READ MORE: Peter Hitchens shares his views on Oxford in exclusive interview
From a bold attempt to interview a former prime minister as a young journalist, appearing on Have I Got News for You, and being mistaken for Richard Dawkins, to impressions of Evelyn Waugh and debates with his brother, here’s what ‘the hated Peter Hitchens’ and I spoke about.
Sitting down with Mr Hitchens in The Perch in Binsey Lane, the Oxford Mail asked him about the first ‘serious’ interview he remembers doing.
“I remember an attempt to interview Harold Macmillan, the former prime minister, on a train," Mr Hitchens said.
"I saw him being fussed about on a platform before getting into his train compartment, and at that point, around 1977, he had been out of office for many years.
“He’d put on this act of being very old, and I thought it was a great opportunity. I went into his compartment and I said ‘Mr Macmillan, I wonder if you’d have a few words for the Daily Express?’.
“And he looked at me, and he produced his walking stick, and he poked me with it in the chest very, very hard with immense strength for a man who was as old and doddering as he was pretending to be.
"And he said in a quavering old man voice (which Mr Hitchens mimics at this point): ‘I don’t want to be interviewed, I’m much too old for that sort of thing’.”
He recalled questioning the “Blair creature”, describing the interview as being akin to “mixing concrete” and admitting that the only thing he got out of the former prime minister in an hour and 15 minutes was “the name of the stupid rock band that he played in at Oxford”.
Onto his minor celebrity status, Mr Hitchens said he “became the story” after being called home from Moscow while working for the Daily Express in 1992.
“I was called home to annoy Neil Kinnock, who at that time was apparently cruising to victory in the general election.
"And I didn’t expect anything to come of this, but what ensued was the ‘War of Jennifer’s ear’ incident.
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“There was a story about a girl who was in a Labour party election broadcast. She’d got glue ear and couldn’t get treatment because she couldn’t afford private.
"A misleading broadcast. I tried to ask Kinnock about it in a press conference in London, and he wouldn’t take my question.
“When the press conference was over, I went out into the hall outside and I caught Kinnock coming out with his entourage. I went up to him, notebook out, and said ‘you wouldn’t take my question so I’m asking again’.”
Mr Hitchens continued: “At that point his entourage fell on me. It looked afterwards as if this had been an assassination attempt. It was so rough that Kinnock actually put his arm around me to protect me from his aides.
“Following this I was accused of all kinds of rubbish. I gave the first press conference I’d ever given in my life. Bruce Anderson, then of The Independent, appointed himself as my bodyguard because he thought Labour supporters might have a go at me.
"The poor press officer involved had a tearful breakdown in Nottingham.
“People always said don’t become the story. I thought, why not? That was the first time. A brief flash in the pan.”
He said: “I did one programme, which was a catastrophe. It’s recorded. The jokes are scripted for the professionals but not for the victims like me.
"They edited out one of the three successful jokes I told, completely unscripted.
“The programme flopped. It was impossible for any of us, including me, to shine, because the late Clarissa Dickson Wright would not shut up. On and on she went.
"But I remember in the weeks afterwards, being recognised in the streets by almost everybody. It was astonishing.
“Bit by bit it grew out of one television programme here, another there, but at a very minor level. Minor celebrity is much the nicer to have.
"Because when people come up to you, they generally say nice things, most people leave you alone, it doesn’t do you any harm.
“It pumps up your ego a bit, but not excessively, and I recommend it.”
The Malta-born journalist – who enjoys a pub-made cheese sandwich on his day off – reminisced on some moments of hilarity.
“A man came up to me once and said ‘you’re that Richard Dawkins’.
“My other favourite one was a man who approached me and said, ‘you’re that Peter Tatchell aren’t you?’
“There was one where a woman accosted me on Kensington High Street and said ‘you’re famous aren’t you? Who are you?’ and I said, ‘well look this is very simple, if I was famous you wouldn’t have to ask me who I was.”
I would not have had to ask Mr Hitchens who he was. I’ve watched him and read him for many years.
I disagree with many of his views, but the man I met was charismatic, generous in his advice to an early-career journalist, and above all a principled defender of freedom of speech.
In the heated face of that once active Facebook page, I throw my light, and conclude that Peter Hitchens, in writing and voice, must live on.
Read more from this author
This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.
Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.
Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1
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