Alistair McAlpine

摘要

Former Building columnist Lord McAlpine died last Friday at his home in Italy at the age of 71. Alistair McAlpine, part of the McAlpine dynasty and grandson of the contractor's eponymous founder Sir Robert McAlpine, sadly came into the public eye recently for the false allegation of child abuse that he faced in 2012 and the subsequent libel actions to restore his reputation. McAlpine became a director of Sir Robert McAlpine at the age of 21, and was still involved with the firm up until the early nineties. However, he spent most of his life in politics (he was deputy chair of the Conservative Party during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher), and also spent time collecting art and writing. Indeed, his writing career included serving as a columnist in this magazine up until the mid-noughties. In one of his last columns, he reminisced about the gung ho drive and initiative of the industry in the fifties and sixties. "Construction [today] is truly a grown-up industry, a far better place, but not half as much fun," he wrote.