Journalism
William writes for The Spectator, Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, The Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Catholic Herald and The Tablet.
He was the winner of 'Writer of the Year' at the 2022 PPA Independent Publisher Awards. He has been named 'Editor of the Year' twice.
Below are links to a selection of recent articles, along with the header/standfirst or a few words on the context in which they were written. The articles are listed by date.
2025
March 2025
The dark side of World Book Day
Bibliomania ruined my uncle's finances and left him buried in books. As World Book Day approaches, his story is a warning.
The Spectator, March 5th 2025
January 2025
The Davos I knew is over
As a former regular at the World Economic Forum (WEF), William Cash asks if Davos has had its day as the top VIP globetrotting conference ?
The Spectator, January 27th 2025
January 2025
The LA dream has burnt out
The Spectator, January 11th 2025
2024
November 2024
Hollywood is quietly welcoming Trump
The Spectator, 25th November 2024
August 2024
The dark truth about Hollywood assistants
The Spectator, 22nd August 2024
2023
December 2023
Medallion Man
Mark Smith of the Antiques Roadshow has become a household name after turning his passion for medal sleuthing into a Poirot form of detective work. William Cash meets him.
The Telegraph, December 10th 2023
October 2023
Our quest to become the Kardashians of Shropshire
Envious of stately home owners making a fortune on social media, Lady Laura and William Cash decided to give it a go themselves
The Telegraph, October 30th 2023
September 2023
What a Scottish castle guest book reveals about the King’s school years
King Charles may have joked about prison camp conditions at Gordonstoun, but the truth is rather more complex, as William Cash discovered on a trip to Scotland
The Telegraph, September 12th 2023
July 2023
We advertised for a nanny at £12 an hour – and got trolled for being slave drivers
All William Cash wanted was help serving tea and ferrying his children to pony club. What he got was an army of online trolls
The Telegraph, July 2nd 2023
February 2023
Can men ever get Valentine’s Day right?
February 14 is so often a day of novelty chocolates and panic-bought flowers but, sometimes, the stars align for a moment of inspiration, so William Cash (and others) confess
The Telegraph, February 14th 2023
2022
December 2022
I’m having a Christmas card drought – but they’re more important than ever
Now is the perfect time to get out the old fountain pen and send as many to old friends as possible says William Cash
The Telegraph, December 7th 2023
December 2022
Meet the heating refuseniks – and how they’re planning to survive this winter
Now is the perfect time to get out the old fountain pen and send as many to old friends as possible says William Cash
The Telegraph, December 7th 2022
August 2022
Why cash is king in Britain
In a world of online banking, notes and coins chime with our libertarian sensibilities, says William Cash
The Telegraph, August 9th 2022
May 2022
The modern rules of keeping your staff happy
The world has moved on from Downton Abbey, so if your housekeeper quits – like at the PM’s Chequers residence – new modern rules are needed
The Telegraph, May 31st 2022
January 2022
Aristocrats have always had to reinvent themselves to survive
The world has moved on from Downton Abbey, so if your housekeeper quits – like at the PM’s Chequers residence – new modern rules are needed
The Telegraph, May 31st 2022
2021
December 2021
I finally found happiness with my third marriage
Seeing that Heather Mills has wed again got me thinking about my own relationships – and how fortunate I am, says William Cash
The Telegraph, December 24th 2021
November 2021
How my neighbour David Hockney taught me to shun 'wellness'
The legendary artist gives short shrift to the wellness obsession – instead we hung out with the great bon viveurs and had a ball
The Telegraph, November 16th 2021
March 2021
The reality of carrying out home improvements when you live in a manor
William Cash on DIY at his 'Money Pit Manor', where jobs include fixing ancient walls with Polyfilla and comforting sobbing brides
The Telegraph, March 20th 2021
2020
October 2020
I fell for a Ruin - and it nearly cost us our home
Stumbling on a disused abbey, William Cash was so obsessed he decided to risk his house to buy it
The Times, October 2020
July 2020
The Road to Canterbury
William Cash on why the cult of St Thomas Becket endures after 850 years
Catholic Herald, July 2020
The 607 page travel bible that every pilgrim needs
Midlife Crisis? A camper van saved me
Stressed and fed up, William Cash wanted to go on a pilgrimage. There was one problem: where to sleep
The Times, July 2020
May 2020
Do Catholics make faster racing drivers?
William Cash reviews Faster: How a Jewish Driver, An American Heiress and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best
Catholic Herald May 12 2020
March 2020
To the Manor Closed. How Londoners helped historic houses survive lockdown
Times 2 March 24th 2020
Londoners flee to the country as lockdown threat grows
The holiday cottages at William Cash’s Elizabethan house would normally be empty now, but they are filling up with city people hoping to escape a lockdown
The Times March 2020
February 2020
Dear Boris, Welcome to the Old Dad's Club
Mail on Sunday, 29th Feb 2020
January 2020
Pope versus Pope: The Battle inside the Vatican for the Church's soul
The Sunday Times, News Review Front, Sunday, 19th January 2020
2019
December 2019
My True Love gives to me.... a pair of white peacocks
Times 2, December 24th 2019
October 2019
Me and My Cousin Johnny
William Cash joins his family clan in Akansas for the Johnny Cash Festival,
Times 2, 24 October 2019
September 2019
How renovating my house saved me from a mid-life meltdown
The Daily Telegraph, 30 Sept 2019
August 2019
I'm launching a Literary Festival. Am I mad?
The Times, 28th August 2019
January 2019
Will Bois join The Third Wives Club?
The Times 2, Jan 15th 2019
Why I wrote a memoir
This column explains why I have just written a literary memoir called ‘Restoration Heart’ - about how restoring my old Elizabethan wreck of a family home in Shropshire helped save my life after my two divorces.
2018
June 2018
The new Glyndebourne: opening night review of the Nevill Holt Opera
I was lucky enough to be invited by my pal David Ross to the world premiere of his extraordinary new Nevill Holt opera house in Leicestershire. The last time I had seen the project was on Christmas Eve when David showed me around the old 17th century stable block where the opera house is housed. The place resembled a bomb site. Just six months later, however, he and his architectural team were ready to raise the curtain on a visionary new addition to Britain's cultural landscape. The sculpture park gardens provide a spectacular backdrop.
May 2018
Tom Wolfe
The death of Tom Wolfe resulted in The Spectator unearthing a Balzacian interview I did with the great author for The Spectator back in 1998.
Tom Wolfe: https://usa.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/tom-wolfe-1931-2018/
I also wrote a lengthy piece for The Times about how we kept up a correspondence after our meeting, and how he never regarded himself as a 'satirist' in the tradition of Swift, Thackeray or Evelyn Waugh.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/times2/tom-wolfe-and-me-c82n8btkq
April 2018
Death of a Friend - Matthew Mellon
My wife woke me early on 17th April to say that my old friend Matthew Mellon had died, aged just 54. Matthew was wonderfully kind and funny. I had got to the know the American banking heir playboy in the 1990s in LA when he lived around the corner from me in a moated mock Tudor manor that he shared with my pal Henry Dent-Brocklehurst.
How he became a crypto-currency billionaire from a $2 million investment is something of a mystery to his friends. My sister Laetitia was with Matthew at the Bel Air Hotel just days before he died just as he was checking into a New Mexico rehab. His gilded but troubled life belonged in a Jay McInerney novel.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/friend-matthew-mellon-tragic-truth-billionaire-playboy/
March 2018
Philip Kerr - a commanding officer of my literary generation
The death of my good friend the novelist Philip Kerr came as a shock even to those who knew he had been fighting cancer. He had been attached as executive producer to a TV drama project (co-written with Tony Macnabb in the sports world of the 1930s. After his funeral at St Mary's, Wimbledon, I described the service as feeling like the burial at sea of a commanding officer of m literary generation.
I was always touched that when he was interviewed in 2016 by the New York Times about what books he kept by his bed, Philip mentioned my Graham Greene book, The Third Woman, which he wanted to adapt into a screenplay.
Here is my Guest Diary for the Catholic Herald:
http://catholicherald.co.uk/magazine-post/diary-by-william-cash/
I also wrote a piece for Spear's about the Philip I knew for nearly 30 years. I had sent him an email only the day before he died (from cancer) from a table at Colbert where we used to have lunch. How Phil ever found the time to write 30 novels whilst also enjoying long lunches was always an eternal mystery to me. The last time I had seen him had been at the Chelsea Arts Club Christmas Lunch I co-host every year with artist Adam Dant. 'I love this lunch' he had said as he sipped on a glass of champagne. 'But sadly this will be my last'. He was just 62. He will be greatly missed.
Feb 2018
Davos Man Re-Born
I've been going to the World Economic Summit at Davos for many years, not the least as Spear's magazine is one of the official magazines of the summit. So its fun to see the magazine rubbing spines with the Economist and New Yorker in the lobbies of the hotels. After announcing the death of Davos Man in 2017, he came back resurrected in 2018.
Suvretta House, St Moritz
Instead of going to Davos, the wife and I celebrated my giving up puddings for Lent in style with a flambé crepe drenched in Gran Marnier in the way that only old fashioned Italian maitre d's can do - served a la table. A throw back to another age.
Jan 2018
Country House Rebels
There is nothing I love more than a good country house tour by its owner, in the manner of Tony Last around Hetton Abbey in A Handful of Dust. After being given a masterful tour of Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire by James Hervey-Bathurst, I was inspired to write about the changing world of the English country house with owners now relying on renting out wings of their houses, or donning their dinner jackets to host Downton Abbey style £25,000 corporate dinners and shooting parties to keep themselves afloat, rather than farming income.
A House Chef Writes..
I am not much of a cook but I am very proud of the framed certificate that hangs in our kitchen attesting to the fact that I 'graduated' from the Raymond Blanc Cooking School at Le Manoir hotel outside Oxford. Very occasionally (shusshhhh....) I have been known to cook the steak au poivre dinners for our paying punters in the Gatehouse at Upton Cressett if they opt for the 'house chef dinner'. I am also rather proud of my Raymond Blanc chef's apron.
http://www.spearswms.com/review-raymond-blancs-cookery-school/
2017
Dec 2017
Bankers and bonuses: remember when greed was good?
I wasn't going to miss the 30th anniversary of Bonfire of the Vanitiers without writing about how the novel changed my life. Thirty years ago, Wall Street hit the screens and Black Monday cleared the way for young, hungry graduates to make millions in the City. As a young reporter, I had envied the mega bonuses and five-star lifestyles of his banker friends. But what became of my Master of the Universe pals in the long run?
Boz for Downing Street?
I have had mixed thoughts on the rise of Boris Johnson over the years. I was never a pal but admired his writing and he published me in The Spectator so all was fine. With the Westminster sex pest scandal in full throttle, I reflected that, strangely, it had benefited one politician perhaps more than any other - Boris As I wrote for the New Statesman, I now saw him as a future possible Reagan of the Conservative party, a showman and celebrity politician first and above all a cultural and populist figure as much as a political one.
Nov 2017
Boutique Chicken Fever
Much of my family life in the country revolves around rare chickens, pugs and peacocks. My wife’s rare-breed chickens cost less than a pair of Jimmy Choos but have been a winning present. Forget Agas, alpacas and Range Rover Evoques. As I wrote for The Times, the latest country-chic status symbol is to own rare, boutique chicken breeds.
Sept 2017
The Art of Sir Oswald Birley at Philip Mould & Co
I was delighted to be present at lunch when the idea for this superlative show was first suggested to Robin Birley by Philip Mould. I had arranged the lunch as I thought Philip was the ideal gallery owner to do justice to the first retrospective of Oswald Birley's work in over 50 years. It was a triumph.
Hugh Hefner R.I.P
I got to know Hugh Hefner in the 1990s after he kindly showed me into his study during the middle of the LA riots when I was at the Playboy Mansion to cover the Playmate of the Year awards. I needed to file my LA riots copy to The Times but during the ceremony a curfew had been announced and I couldn't leave the mansion. Hef was very obliging when I explained my predicament and let me use his study where multiple TV screens beamed all the news live. I wrote my memories of him on his de
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/hugh-hefner-was-the-king-of-soft-porn-and-luxury-living/
May 2017
Why Heritage and Tourism matter at the general election
As a conservation heritage nut, I have long been concerned that Heritage and Tourism do not have a seat at the top table of government, as they used to when, say, David Mellor was Heritage Minister under John Major. As somebody who was invited by planning minister Rt Hon Greg Clark to submit a report on 'Heritage and the NPPF' to his dept during the 2012 planning reforms, I thought the general election was a good moment to pen my apolitical 'Manifesto for Heritage and Tourism', a sector (the 5th biggest in the UK economy) that has been largely ignored in the election campaign.
April 2017
The Old Dad's Club
This long magazine article was about how I joined the Old Dad's Club. After two divorces and 'many, many disastrous liaisons', as the Telegraph Magazine editor pal Sasha Slater wrote in the stand-first to the below, publisher and author William Cash was 'staring down the barrel of his 50th birthday single and, worse, childless'. Would marriage to a much younger woman – followed swiftly by two children – cure his angst? This piece resulted in as much feedback - almost all good - as any I can remember in many years.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/becoming-dad-50-saved-life-william-cash/
Review of Sir Philip Sassoon biography by Damian Collins
I first came across Sassoon's house of Port Lympne back in around 2005 when I was publishing the Aspinalls magazine for James Osborne. He used to live in the luxurious Kent country house that was built for Sassoon in the 1920s and included an extraordinary mural by Rex Whistler who was the model for Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited (although unlike Ryder, Whistler was killed in the war), If there was any social/political set that was more glamorous than the 'Brideshead Set' it was the 'Sassoon Set' and this brilliant book by Damian Collins is a masterful account of a different political and social era when political power was exercised socially.
Feb 2017
How to Write the Perfect Love Letter - with help from a former monk
With Valentine's Day looming, an unlikely encounter with a former Cistercian monk turned calligrapher solved my Valentine's Day present worries. How about a hand-delivered calligraphy love letter in authentic Regency-style script, in 'iron gall ink' using a 19th century recipe?
The Death of Davos Man
After going to the WEF at Davos for many years, I finally decided that my days trying to pretend that I enjoyed the Global Citizen annual social fair were over. No tribe is more rootless, nomadic and dispossessed than the very soi disant global 'elite' who assemble in Davos each year to lecture the world.
2016
Dec 2016
The Magic Circle of the Global Elite
Attending a Walbrook Club City Breakfast, I found,myself sitting next to the senior partner of a top London law firm who told me that the concept of the 'British law firm' was dead. So was the idea of rising to become a 'senior partner' as firms don't operate as partnerships any more - they are LLP's. After I looked into this, I wrote a piece about the death of the English law firm at a time when the Supreme Court was just about to make its most important judgement in its short history.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/britains-legal-system-went-global/
Nov 2016
Review of Kenneth Clark biography by James Stourton
Clark's Civilisation - the book more than the TV series - was a hugely influential book in my life and one of the first books that taught me how to take the blindfold off and think for oneself about art and architecture within the Western canon of literature art and architectural tradition, from classical Rome to modernism.
Of course such thinking is regarded as demented today and Clark would never have been allowed to begin his epic TV series with an African mask, insinuating that its primitive savagery was in any way less culturally significant than a sculpture by Henry Moore. A brilliant book on a brilliant but flawed man by my pal James Stourton.
Oct 2016
The Spirit of the Financial Age
After launching The Spear's 500, the seminal 'bible' of the UK private client industry, I thought it would be useful to write an introduction that summed up why it was now London, rathe than New York or Hong Kong, that was the 'irresistible destination' of those who insist on being where the financial action is. The financial Crown passeth over the waters.
David Yarrow - Rock Star of Wildlife Photography
My pal David Yarrow is one of the very few people I know who has successfully quite being a hedgie to re-invent himself into a completely new career. I had been following David's career for many years and if you went to his hedgie offices you'd see that his office was decorated with photographs he had taken. And these weren't any normal holiday snaps. I perhaps went too far when I described him as the 'Aeneas' of modern wildlife photography but one thing is certain. He will be remembered for his snaps not his sharp index.
http://www.spearswms.com/david-yarrow-rock-star-photography-launches-wild-encounters/
May 2016
The Spear's 10th Anniversary - The Founder reflects
When we decided to throw a glitzy party at Philip Mould's gallery in Pall Mall to celebrate 10 years of Spear's, I recalled how the magazine started with endless stamp-licking to get the first edition out in an office above a kebab shop in Notting Hill Gate. Whenever I walk past the kebab shop, I have the fondest memories of our former staff canteen.
A Ducal Dog Kennel for just £10,000 a night
When I went to stay at Hound Lodge on the Goodwood estate as a guest of Lord March, I didnt realise the extent to which the aristocratic entrepreneur was re-inventing the whole concept of what is known in the trade as the 'de luxe country house stay'. Anybody who can charge corporate guests ten grand for a night - before food - is a genius.