A FEW LOOSE ENDINGS...

There is much to be said for being 84. At least it gives your family time to get the presents right. From my lovely children Welsh single malt whisky, Dom Perignon champagne and from my darling wife and former ferret a bespoke armchair which warms, massages me, assumes more positions than a Karma Sutra and finally deposits me in an upright posture.

A very civil young man arrived to measure me. Imagine being measured for an arm chair. Biggest surprise I have had since my mum stood at the bedroom door and said: "There's someone at the front door and he has got something for you." Then she gathered a quiverful of arrows of  disapproval, aimed them at my aching head and added: "AND IT'S NOT COMING INTO THIS HOUSE."
Wrapped as I was in a Satan's blanket of a hangover when words avoided joining other words to make sentences, I could recognise a Three Line Whip when it was cracked and with an effort remembered where the front door was.

It was a mistake. Standing there was a small man in a cap. That bit was easy. It was the bird of prey on his wrist that jarred.

"Told you I knew where to get one," said the Cap. "It's yours for a fiver."

Fight it though I might, memory fought its way back. Frankie Sharman had struck again.

Writing of Harry Whewell last week wafted me back to Manchester in the Fifties and the rainbow world of newspapermen who inhabited it. For many years most of the national newspapers had offices in Manchester: The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Sun. Only The Daily Sport remains based in Manchester now. At its height, 1,500 journalists were employed, though in the 1980s office closures began and today the "second Fleet Street" is no more.

I joined it in 1950 via the sub-culture of trade magazines, gradually working my way up to "Two Worlds", the voice of the spiritualist world. My job was to cover seances and the huge rallies where superstar spiritualists invoked departed loved ones for the gullible droves. The most colourful of them paled into dull pastel besides my editor, the pioneer of illustrated conversation. From floor to ceiling his office walls were covered with framed photographs which he used to illustrate his endless anecdotes. "General Montgomery," he would say. "Window wall. Second from the right." Or, "Dan Leno, over the fireplace." If you had any difficulty locating the subject under advisement he would scurry round the room, pointing them out.

But to return to Sharman, which I always do with reluctance. He was a tiny man and if toothache had a face it would be Sharman's. He was five foot two and five foot one of him was bad temper. Harry Whewell introduced me to a drinking group of which he was a member. It met every lunchtime in the Waldorf in Cooper Street, Manchester. Its leader was Ronnie Jeans, the news editor of the Daily Mail who habitually wore two rain coats which gave him extra pockets for books and wire rimmed spectacles like portholes. Under the raincoats he gained extra pocket disbursement with a tweed waistcoat. Bearing down on one, he resembled nothing so much as a man o' war, his raincoats flapping like sails, his waistcoat pockets gun ports from which, it seemed, cannon would appear.
Once he bore down on me in Oxford Street. "What are you about?" he demanded. I said I was going to Hills UCP restaurant for tripe and onions and then to the Odeon to see Alan Ladd in "Shane".
He paled, he may even have gulped. "I am indebted to you," he said, "for the most vivid description of Hell since Dante wrote his Inferno."

He was not a kind man. In his company one remained silent. I had been among his companions for two months before I dared speak and offered an anecdote. Jeans broke the silence that followed: "We have admitted you to our little group in an attempt to civilise you. You may listen but not speak until we ask you."

He exuded authority and made me do something of which I am still ashamed. It was he who introduced me to Frankie Sharman, a man who had once held one of the best jobs in journalism editing the maritimeDaily Mail which was produced daily on one of the great transatlantic liners. He interviewed all the stars of the day and was a welome guest at the famous Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in New York where Robert Benchley presided with Dorothy Parker. His fall had been spectacular and when I knew him he was a casual sub-editor doing three shifts a week on the News of the World. His only other source of income was as a sub-editor on Mr Manchester's Diary, the gossip column of the Manchester Evening News. The paper paid 2/6 a paragraph but Sharman's friend broke his submissions into as many as three paragraphs. Alas, the sub-editor retired, the income dried up and he lost his shifts on the NOW. There was about him an air of decayed splendour. His beautifully cut suits were threadbare, his handmade shoes cracked and holed in the sole. Jeans ordered me to give him a 'hotfoot'. This involved sticking live matches between shoe uppers and their soles. Jeans was testing my knowledge of American literature. The hotfoot was a device of Damon Runyon. I inserted the matches and lit them. Everyone was delighted at his response but I saw the despair in his frantic efforts to remove the matches with the sudden realisation I was ruining his only pair of shoes. Times got harder over the months that followed until the aspirin butty offered the only way out and Frankie took it. He left only one note. It was addressed to Bert Stone who covered the inquests. "For God's sake spell my name right," it read.

The Bird of Prey? Alas, my time is up but I can just say that when we released it from the carrier bag in which we took it to the Central Library, an imposing building, it made a page lead all round.

CRY GOD FOR HARRY

On the gorblimey trousers and the dustman's hat history is silent but Harry Whewell's Old Man was certainly, if improbably, a dustman. . . As a child on Friday nights Harry sat round the kitchen table with the family sorting through the likely rubbish brought home by his father searching for valuables.

Later in life from his mansion flat he toured the great universities, as news editor, then editor, of The Manchester Guardian, searching for literary talent.  Michael Frayn, Jonathan Steele, Benedict Nightingale and Simon Hoggart were among the many he discovered. He was part of the Team of Immortals: Alastair Cooke, Neville Cardus, Howard Spring among others which made The Guardian by a mile the world's greatest newspaper.  Last week he died at the age of 91 which came as a surprise to those of us who believed him to be immortal.  During the war he was a navigator with Bomber Command, surprisingly, since he could get lost in an office corridor. Training at "Hell's Mouth" in North Wales he met, married and loved Esther Rose, the daughter of a celebrated journalistic dynasty who worked on a weekly paper to fund his student years. She was one of the pioneer writers who launched Coronation Street and until her tragic death led its creative team.  They have a son, Tim, an outstanding foreign correspondent on Newsnight.

Harry was small, saturnine, with an impish grin like a devil on holiday and he could ruin a suit by standing next to it.  His cap was his badge of office and he had a genius for conversation.  Google lists only seven Harry Whewells in Britain.  Personally I don't believe in six of them.

Oddity in Harry was brought to a fine art.  Respected and enjoyed, he could only have found a home in The Manchester Guardian, which for him never became The Guardian.
He was discovered and encouraged by the empire building Alastair Hetherington,an unlikely pairing.  Although the great universities were his talent pool his net went wider . His choice of a foreign editor, Joe Minogue, he plucked from the small, irascible group who reported on Manchester municipal matters, with whom he had worked as a reporter. It proved a brilliant choice, though international coups never achieved a venom like to the municipal intensity.  Minogue formed an anti-cultural group[in the newsroom.

Harry was amiable and curiously domestic in his ways. Though obdurate.  Hetherington's, grand ideas were achieved round him, rather than through him.

His Guardian did not encourage change.  He refused to have telephones in the newsroom because they disrupted his writers' thoughts and he was overheard  telling a correspondent: "The ManchesterGuardian does not take murders over the telephone."
The Guardian was the only paper he could have  worked for.  Impossible to think of him working anywhere else than the little rabbit warren of offices, sheltered by its milch cow The Manchester Evening News, in a court off Cross Street in central Manchester.  For years I have been telling the story of The Guardian news editor who counselled me never to learn shorthand if I wished to succeed as a newspaper reporter.  Harry's death frees me of the obligation.  It was he who gave me that gem of advice which flew in the face of received wisdom.  Harry was right, of course.  He said news editors needed reporters who wrote shorthand to cover courts, councils, and all the dross that made up an edition. Others would be chosen for those chores until I, without a Pitman's stroke to my name, was the only one in the office. "And that," said Harry, "is when the plane will crash."

A year later when I was working on The Yorkshire Evening News a jet fighter crashed at RAF Finningley.  I was the only reporter in the office so I was sent on the story and got my first byline.

In the early days of our friendship we competed in sending fantasy letters to weekly newspapers.  My winner was a query about the Rochdale Flock Hound, a mythical beast, which nonetheless brought letters from readers claiming to have bred them.  Harry's was to wonder whether pictures existed of the Sioux Indian chief photographed on a Bury tram in full ceremonials during a visit by American Indians to the town.  We were amazed at the number of readers who claimed to have seen the photograph.

Harry reached his apogee in the Battle of the News Editor's Desk.  To Harry's horror Hetherington announced The Guardian was moving to new offices in Deansgate, sharing with The Daily Mail.  This was across town from the Bodega bar and Sam's Chop House where Harry held daily court about fifty paces from his desk.

He refused to move.  They showed him his new state-of-the-art office.  He was unimpressed.  They offered him suites of executive furniture.  He spurned them.  He insisted his desk would be too large for the new office and abandoning it would be unthinkable.  He pointed out that the great C.P.Scott had sat at his desk.  We could all see the point.  Harry's desk was bigger than some sporting estates.  It had drawers that had remained unopened for years and candle sconces like the old pianos.  It was more than wood.  It was history.  And Harry was adamant.  Britain had conquered the world with smaller gunboats.  Some of the drawer fronts, it was said, were gun ports behind which cannons stood.  The impasse continued for weeks.  Both sides came to see the desk as a symbol of everything The Manchester Guardian represented.  To the management it was clumsy, fusty and out of date.  To Harry it was A Noble Tradition.  Our money was on Harry.

Finally management caved in.  They agreed to move the desk.  When it arrived at its destination, doors had to be widened but by this time management's nerve had been shattered.

Harry pronounced himself pleased and went back to the old building to collect the canary in its cage, his office companion over many years.  We formed a guard of honour for its progress from Cross Street to Deansgate, to admiring glances from shoppers.  There may even have been cheers.

Every holiday he took the bird home with him so that it would not be lonely.  Seeing him with it one Christmas, a printer asked: "Where you going with that?"  "I am taking it home for Christmas," said Harry.  "Are you?" said the printer. "We're having turkey."

Writer Colin Dunne recalls going for an interview with Harry who offered a different view on shorthand:

He sat me down across the desk before asking me exactly the questions I had been dreading.

How did I feel about American imperialism and their war-mongering in the Far East?  Oh Gawd.  I sort of shrugged and said I didn't know much about it and didn't - pathetically, no doubt - have any strong feelings about it.

Where did I stand on women's rights and the women's movement in general?  Oh Gawd, again.  I pulled a face and said it was all a bit of a mystery me and I'd rather leave the whole thing to women.

Which university did I attend?  Gawd.  None.  I left school at 16.  I did an A-level at Bradford Tech, if that helped.

Could I do shorthand?  At last - my moment.  Yes, I assured him, I could do reasonable shorthand.

"Thank God," he said, reaching over to shake my hand. "I have these buggers from university coming in here for interviews, they sit where you are and put their feet - in suede shoes - on my desk.  All they want to write about is the wicked Americans in the third world and the worldwide fight for justice for women.  And not one of them can ever do shorthand.  When can you start?"

Sadly I wasn't able to take the job.  He was a funny, clever man.  He used to pin up a list of slightly unusual words in the news room and invite the reporters to try to get them into their copy.  The idea was to raise the level of the language in the paper: it worked too.

Revel Barker recalls a typical Whewellism:

He was interviewing a girl from The Northern Echo Newcastle office for a reporter's job on The Guardian.

It was going very well and he asked her whether there was anything about the paper she didn't like, or might like to see changed.

Well, she said, she thought there might be a greater use of pictures (this was in the late sixites).

Ah yes, said Harry. Well of course they had thought about that, but they had come to the conclusion that ..."in the space it would take to display a decent size picture we could place... oh, I don't know... maybe a thousand words."

We shall not see his like again.

A BIRTHDAY THOUGHT FROM A CLEVER FRIEND

"My college flat mate Loren Needles, who is 71, pointed out to me that by

reaching 68 I am only 1.50% older than I was last year!

In your case you’ll only be 1.21% older than you were on your last birthday…"

“Venus was sculpted by man,

But the far more attractive woman, Margaret Thatcher,

Was sculpted by Allah.

My heart raced when I saw her face to face.

Her skin was smooth as ivory,

Her cheeks as rosy as an English rose,

And her eyes as lovely as a mare’s.

Her figure is more attractive than the figure of any cherished wife

Or coveted concubine.”

Ode taken from A Christmas Carol, being a commonplace selection by John Julius Norwich, 1984.

Written by court poet of Fahd of Saudi Arabia, it appeared in the 1^st edition of The Sunday Times but mysteriously not in the second.

I KIND WORD FOR LADY T

OK I can take a hint. Very flattered in fact and grateful for your kind wishes. Going for tests for my foolish heart........Alas wandering leg has signed up for Rio Olympics but look on the bright side. Soggy lung is showing a fine crop of watercress.
So its back to business............

I really did know a Tory Grandee  called Lady Guinevere who was given the fairy tale role of turning a grocer's daughter called Thatcher into a lady.
Another pal, John Julius, the Earl of Norwich, corroborates..His mother the  bewitching Lady Diana Cooper was brought up as the daughter of the Duke of Rutland. The truth was  she was fathered by the Hon Harry Cust, a neighbour in Lincolnshire who it might be said put the rut in Rutland.In my forthcoming book "Lusty Ladies"I list the other aristocrats Cust cuckolded.
Ever ecumenical he also bedded Margaret Thatcher's maternal grandmother, one of his servants. As JJ cheerfully admitted to me in an interview. "That would make us first cousins"
I couldn't resist a secret smile when I was told of Guinevere's role.
I am surprised that in the recent acreage surrounding her name so little was made of her defining bloodline. Her father the small town grocer was also an Alderman, which meant he was qualified to stand in as God.Her father if he deigned to think of it all would assume superiority.
You had to work as a reporter on a North country newspaper to appreciate the power wielded by that frightening creation of our Saxon past. The myth was that councillors became aldermen after many years in that lowly role but that was not always the case. Many were the sons and grandsons of aldermen. Some were honourable and wise men who cared for the people they had represented for a lifetime. Some were venal, Droite de Seigneur was alive and well in the Northen towns in which I worked. They signed off budgets of many millions, the decided where factories and housing estates were built, which land could be made available for purchase and what could be built on it.
One I knew in Chester began life as the chief clerk in a Territorial Army office. He retired the owner of enviable suits, breathtaking cars and a home to dream on. Somehow he became part of the army, a Lt Colonel in the army without once having heard a shot fired in anger, though he frequently shot pheasants with the Duke of Westminster. The City owed him much.  In fairness the regeneration of Chester was down to him. He called in the planners,fixed the finance and fired the population, The architect who took on the work told me a year later that the Carloginian ceilings which wre Chetser's pride were at the point of no return. The last I heard from the alderman from his reurement retireentvilla. " You never did catch me," he said.
The power those monoliths wielded was breathtaking. The St Leger racing classic
s is civic owned.The race, the course, the staff, even the boookys pitches ,finances were controlled by a diminutive railway boiler cleaner, Alderman Albert Cammidge, chairmanof the Racecourse Committee. Every year he hosted a dinner for the great and the good of racing at the Guidhall, an 18th century gem.
One year the guest of honour was the Queen. Alderman Cammidge took her into dinner , settled her into her chair.
As the waitresses brought the main course round the Alderman prffered a serving bowl with the words; " Have some cabbage Queen, it'll settle thi' stomach after all that bussin about "

some people missed this

or over half a century I have sat at the top of more columns than Simeon the Stylite, so many, indeed, that I am known in my inky trade as The Parthenon Kid. I have been throwing down handfuls of words since VE Day on the green baize of printers' 'stones'.

I was Chiel Amang Ye Gathering Notes in the 'Hairdressers, Wigmakers and Perfumers Gazette'; Man About Town in the 'Drapers Record'; Yorkshireman in the 'Yorkshire Evening News';Thea Paige on the Showbiz page of the 'Manchester City News'; Mr Midnight in the 'Sunday Pictorial'; and I have thrown my chamois bag of glittering words at the heads of more editors than you could throw a stick at.

I just wish there had been time left over to learn how to write shorthand, spell, understand about commas and laying out columns. The truth is that even from my office desk I used to phone my copy to the copy takers at the other end of the newsroom. My radio and TV work meant I only had to speak, never to write down.

Alas, I have gone too far. I apologise to my readers for the Holy Mess I made of last week's blog. The truth is I have had a lot on my mind. I am tended a team of doctors who have nothing better to do than to make up improbable diseases. Wandering leg syndrome was one, you may recall. Failing heart was something of a relief . But Soggy Lung Syndrome? Too much by far.

Fortunately help is at hand. One of my oldest chums - in every sense of the words - and former publisher Neil Marr rang. Paraphrasing one of the great men of our trade, he offered: "I will attend to the format and the spelling errors. You confine yourself to the word artistry."

I have just returned from the Pier's Head of Skidmore's Island where I have been  welcoming him to the main shores of Skidlandia. What a stirring figure he made as, preceded by his hereditary piper and dressed in full Highland Regalia, he has inspected the Island Yeomen.

I have hurried home to pour the Glenfiddich for his arrival. Yet stay. I fancy I hear the tread of him iambic feet

The happy mood in which this was written was made of fools gold. Neill tried manfully  but I have made such a mess of blogger technicalities I cannot survive.

So iyts good bte and thanks lovely people. I have fallen foul of wandering leg, soggy liver,and all those perils my unhappy flesh is heir to and the Giftie has taven back the gifts he gie us.

This is my last weekly blog. There will be more but not as otfte. Thanks for listening you lovely people

skidmore's island: They are a weede awa

skidmore's island: They are a weede awa: For over half a century I have sat at the top of more columns than Simeon the Stylite, so many, indeed, that I am known in my inky trade ...

THE LAST POST

The day my son arrived in Milan terrorists blew up the railway station. My daughter and son inn law, fitness fanatics arrived in Boston in the wake of the Marathom massacre.When I changed trains in Milan to go to Paris some oaf put me on the wrong train and I finished upin the Hook of Holland but the romantic trip my producer went on was a major disaster,

So far the greatest advert for ilidays at home was the nightmare of my old producer,sHe has kindly recalled th detail of his mini-cruise to Bilbao, intending to visit the Guggenheim museum

Having invited 'a lady' along for the trip [a discounted last minute bargain four- day P&O mini-cruise from Portsmouth] we disembarked at Bilbao with some 6 hours ashore before needing to return to the ship.  Caught the train running from the dockyard and were soon enjoying the delights of the city.  Friends had asked if I could get them some rolling tobacco so whenever I saw a 'Tabac' I popped in and stocked up.  What with various other diversions we realised that time had flown and so without getting as far as the Guggenheim we had to hurriedly jump on the train back to the docks.  Walking from the station around the corner we sensed that the pavement seemed to be moving under our feet but then realised that the massive 7 decked ferry was slowly moving away from the quayside . . . with our luggage + passports on board!

The dockside booking office [having previously rehearsed with others in the same predicament I'm sure] offered to speak with their contacts in the Brittany Ferries office in Santander who kindly reserved a cabin for us but at the full going rate, which was multiples of the cost of the original passage.  The only way to get from Bilbao to Santander in the short time we had to catch the boat was by taxi which by fat chance was parked just outside the office!  After a hair raising journey and a jaw dropping taxi fare we just about made it, literally minutes before they drew up the gangway.  The customs man wasn't impressed at the 9 kilos of contraband baccy in my holdall but he did allow us to board.  

Without even a toothbrush between us, 'the lady' went in search of necessities whilst I made for the bar and as soon as the steward drew up the portcullis, pleaded for a stiff G&T.  "Ohh!,  I really needed that" I said, "What time do we get back to Portsmouth?"  After a long blank stare he replied "It's Plymouth were bound for,sir."  "But my car is in ......"   He didn't think it likely the captain would change course.

At passport control in Plymouth two HM Customs officers without warning suddenly jumped out from behind a screen and took us into a room.  They'd been tipped off by their friends in Santander; after long inquisition and my insistence that we were committed smokers [neither of us were!], they eventually relented and with a stiff reprimand we were allowed to go.  A couple of weeks later a letter arrived from HM Customs & Excise saying that my details had been recorded and if I ever did that again . . .etc., etc.

The journey by train to Portsmouth was long and again expensive.  I've never been out of Wales since.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

(The only trips I have enjoyed have been on the Flying Scotsman. One when I ran away from home to Edinburgh on a platform ticker. The second was when thje. Flying Scotsman was bought by a millionaire businessman.....? He went bust and no wonder. He used it to give splendid parties.None better that the Fest to celebrate the 150 th anniversary of the Blenau Festiniogg Railway..Pre- train champagne buffet and free drinks all the way to Blenau Festiniog when I gought my first drimk. At Victorian prices.

nu

ROLF HARRIS GUILTY OF SEX CRIME

Of course he isn't but sixyty amiable years he has devoted to making us happy, his great talent as a painter and his all round reuptation as a good bloke might never have happened. The hint of pedearasty will cling to him like an offensive smellt

Why? To give newspapers an extra patagraph to titilate their readers.

I am not sure if he has been charged,he certainly has not appeared in court, no ev idene has been brought against him, nor any given to disprove the worst c harge a man could face. Nor has any sentence been passed. I have never thought much of British Justice nor could I agree withose people who thought our policemen were wonderful. I grew up in a police family who coulve wandered unchallenged into Ali Baba's thier jars

They are a weede awa

For over half a century I have sat at the top of more columns than Simeon the Stylite, so many, indeed, that I am known in my inky trade as The Parthenon Kid. I have been throwing down handfuls of words since VE Day on the green baize of printers' 'stones'.

I was Chiel Amang Ye Gathering Notes in the 'Hairdressers, Wigmakers and Perfumers Gazette'; Man About Town in the 'Drapers Record'; Yorkshireman in the 'Yorkshire Evening News';Thea Paige on the Showbiz page of the 'Manchester City News'; Mr Midnight in the 'Sunday Pictorial'; and I have thrown my chamois bag of glittering words at the heads of more editors than you could throw a stick at.

I just wish there had been time left over to learn how to write shorthand, spell, understand about commas and laying out columns. The truth is that even from my office desk I used to phone my copy to the copy takers at the other end of the newsroom. My radio and TV work meant I only had to speak, never to write down.

Alas, I have gone too far. I apologise to my readers for the Holy Mess I made of last week's blog. The truth is I have had a lot on my mind. I am tended a team of doctors who have nothing better to do than to make up improbable diseases. Wandering leg syndrome was one, you may recall. Failing heart was something of a relief . But Soggy Lung Syndrome? Too much by far.

Fortunately help is at hand. One of my oldest chums - in every sense of the words - and former publisher Neil Marr rang. Paraphrasing one of the great men of our trade, he offered: "I will attend to the format and the spelling errors. You confine yourself to the word artistry."

I have just returned from the Pier's Head of Skidmore's Island where I have been  welcoming him to the main shores of Skidlandia. What a stirring figure he made as, preceded by his hereditary piper and dressed in full Highland Regalia, he has inspected the Island Yeomen.

I have hurried home to pour the Glenfiddich for his arrival. Yet stay. I fancy I hear the tread of him iambic feet

The happy mood in which this was written was made of fools gold. Neill tried manfully  but I have made such a mess of blogger technicalities I cannot survive.

So iyts good bte and thanks lovely people. I have fallen foul of wandering leg, soggy liver,and all those perils my unhappy flesh is heir to and the Giftie has taven back the gifts he gie us.

This is my last weekly blog. There will be more but not as otfte. Thanks for listening you lovely people