Richard J. Needham (May 17, 1912, in

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–July 1996 in Toronto) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

humour Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in ...

columnist for ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

''. He previously worked at the '' Calgary Herald''.Earle P. Scarlett: A Study in Scarlett
by F. W. Musselwhite; published 1991 by

Dundurn Group Dundurn Press is one of the largest Canadian-owned book publishing companies of adult and children's fiction and non-fiction. The company publishes Canadian literature, history, biography, politics and arts. Dundurn has about 2500 books in print, ...

Many of his columns were collected in a variety of books, including ''The Garden of Needham'' and ''Needham's Inferno'', which won the

Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, also known as the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour or just the Leacock Medal, is an annual literary award presented for the best book of humour written in English by a Canadian writer, published or self ...

in 1967. Needham also coined ''Mop and Pail'' and ''Grope and Flail'' as unflattering nicknames for his employer, both of which are still in use today. Needham was influenced by the work of

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

, whose credited comments, especially about politicians and women, found their way into his columns. Needham spent most of his career on the ''Globe''s editorial board. His own ''bons mots'', such as "Every woman needs one man in her life who is strong and responsible. Given this security, she can proceed to do what she really wants to do—fall in love with men who are weak and irresponsible", won him a following across Canada. Needham had often expressed to ''The Globe and Mail'' staff that he wished for his death to be announced to the public with a notice reading "Richard J. Needham's tiresome and repetitious column will not appear today, because he is dead"; even though Needham had retired more than ten years before his 1996 death, his request was honored (albeit with a note explaining that it had been Needham's idea).Richard Needham, 1996
in ''The Globe and Mail'', July 19, 1996"Obituary: Richard Needham: Long-time Globe Columnist Struck Chord in Young Readers", by Donn Downey, in ''

''; published July 19, 1996 According to

Margaret Wente Margaret Wente (born 15 February 1950) is a Canadian journalist and was a long-time columnist for ''The Globe and Mail'' until August 2019. She received the National Newspaper Award for column-writing in 2000 and 2001. In 2012, Wente was found ...

, Needham had the common touch:

The son of an army officer, he came to Canada from England when he was sixteen and claimed he had worked as a
farmhand A farmworker, farmhand or agricultural worker is someone employed for labor in agriculture. In labor law, the term "farmworker" is sometimes used more narrowly, applying only to a hired worker involved in agricultural production, including harv ...
before showing up at the ''
Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...
'' where he was hired for ten dollars a week. Despite his cranky print persona, he was a kindly man who enjoyed the company of teenage misfits with intellectual pretensions.

Regarding the

persona A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatr ...

, Wente wrote:

As Rudolf J. Needleberry or Rasputin J. Novgorod, he cultivated an alter ego of a fairly disreputable, dirty old man who rescued first-class women from second-class men, who, regrettably, rule the world… In person, Needham was neither dirty nor disreputable. He was a tall, crewcut, polite fellow who stayed married to the same wife for fifty two years. In spite of his loathing of institutions, organized religions and conventional pieties of all kinds, he was a small-c conservative who was deeply suspicious of liberal efforts to reform mankind and protect the world.Wente 2004 p. 31

Selected bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Needham, Richard J. Canadian humour columnists 1912 births 1996 deaths Stephen Leacock Award winners The Globe and Mail columnists Gibraltarian male writers Gibraltarian emigrants to Canada Gibraltarian journalists