His father Philip Levin was from Bessarabian descendent. bernard Levin was appointed CBE for services to journalism in 1990. The Society of Indexers has insti- tuted an award in Levin's name; ti is given to "a journalist and author whose writings show untiring and eloquent support for indexers and indexing". He was president of the English Association, 1984-1985, and vice-president 1985-1988. He was an ho- norary fellow of the LSE from 1977, and a member of the Order of Polonia Restituta, conferred by the Polish Government-in-Exile in 1976. In its obituary tribute to him, The Timesdescribed Levin as "the most famous journalist of his day". At The Daily Mail, Levin had generally been restricted to 600 words for his articles. At The Times he had more licence to spread himself. He appeared in The Guinness Book ofRecords for the longest sentence ever to appear in a newspaper - 1,667 words. He was proud of this, and affected to be outraged when "some bugger in India wrote a sentence very considerably longer". Levin reviewed television for the Manchester Guardian and wrote a weekly political column in The Spectator noted for its irreverence and influence on modern parliamentary sketches. During the 1960s he wrote five columns a week for the Daily Mail on any subject that he chose.