Education
Botham was educated at Dulwich College and apprenticed on The Croydon Advertiser, then became the foreign editor for the Daily Sketch at the age of 21.
Botham was educated at Dulwich College and apprenticed on The Croydon Advertiser, then became the foreign editor for the Daily Sketch at the age of 21.
He wrote books on the love-life of Princess Margaret and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, as well a series of books of obscure facts with the theme of "Useless Information". Also noted as a raconteur and publican, for many years he ran one of Soho"s landmark pubs, The French House. He then proceeded to work for a large number of tabloids, including the News of the World.
In 1997, at the funeral of television presenter Hughie Green, Botham revealed that Green was the biological father of entertainer Paula Yates.
Selling that information to the press may have earned him £100,000. In 2008 Botham was portrayed by Danny Webb in the British Broadcasting Corporation Four drama Hughie Green, Most Sincerely.
After his death The Daily Telegraph referred to Botham as "one of the hard-drinking reporters who made British newspapers the liveliest in the world". The Guardian called him "the epitome of a Fleet Street scandal-monger and happy to be regarded as such".