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THINGS are going from bad to worse at the Mail On Sunday with editor Ted Verity under pressure following the axing of star columnist Tina Weaver.

Weaver's removal was ordered by Lord Rothermere following revelations that she masterminded phone hacking at the Sunday Mirror while she was editor.

Verity is already facing a costly lawsuit for referring to the couple wrongly arrested for the Gatwick drones chaos as morons in a splash headline.  

Our informant at Northcliffe House says morale at the MoS is at rock-bottom because staff had been accustomed to the gentlemanly ways of former editor Geordie Greig. Under Verity they now find themselves back to the bad old days of Paul Dacre.

Weaver’s reported involvement in the phone-hacking scandal was revealed exclusively by the news website Byline.

A source told Byline: 'This is already being seen as a humiliation for Ted Verity and leaves a big question mark on his judgment. The decision to get rid of Weaver was made by the paper's top executives last Saturday.

'When they hired her, they knew there were some skeletons left over from her years at Mirror Group Newspapers. But until Byline's stories came out, they did not know the full extent of Weaver's involvement in the phone-hacking scandal. 

'It was abundantly obvious they had scored a big own goal. Reluctantly, but inevitably, they had to let her go.'

Read the report here

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Morten Morland, The Times _______________________________________________________

DULL PIC OF THE WEEK

Luton Station in the rain

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Who’s still in the Q?

Dear Lord Drone,

I wonder how many of your digital followers worked on the old broadsheet DX in the late 60s and early 70s, when Douglas Orgill was Chief Sub?

Dougie was very stout and never ventured far from his chair. He could just about reach Ralph Mineards & Co on the middle bench to hand out copy.

But we lower mortals, on the distant benches, had to be summoned to receive our LP, Brev and Min instructions. 

As an ex-tank commander, Dougie liked to keep up morale with a joke or two. So when he issued an order, he interposed the initial Q in our names.

When, for example, he called out: “Anthony Q. Boullemier, approach the base of the podium,” a hum of merriment would go round the desks.

But how many of those in the Q are still with us?

Clearly Kelvin Q MacKenzie is. As is David Q Laws, Ian Q Bain, Laing Q Leith, Chris Q Chalke and Rick Q McNeill, although I believe Rick sat near enough to Dougie to be handed his copy.

But listing those who have departed this earth is sobering. Lloyd Q Turner, William Q Reynolds, Leslie Q Diver, Robert Q Kilby and William Q Montgomery to name just a few. 

How many others are still out there today?

If they’re readers of this mighty organ, perhaps we could be told?

Yours as ever,

Anthony Q Boullemier.

PS:  Dougie never did tell us what the Q was meant to stand for.

IAIN Q MURRAY may have the explanation.

He writes: I suspect that Dougie, whom I fondly recall from my brief spell in DX features, was enjoying a mischievous private joke.
Q was the pen name of Sir Arthur Quiller Couch (1863-1944), editor of the Oxford Book of English Prose and a series of Cambridge lectures published as On the Art of Writing.

He coined the writers’ maxim ‘murder your darlings’. 

“If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it— whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

It would have amused Dougie to see the subs as discerning assassins hired to butcher purple prose.

DOUGIE THE WAR HERO
By JIM Q DAVIES

When Dougie Orgill was brutally sacked as chief sub he found himself deposited in features where I lived.  I barely knew him but attempted to commiserate.  'Nonsense, dear boy,' he said.  ‘It's out of the kitchen and into the restaurant.'

That lovely piece of insouciance began a friendship which lasted for several memorable years until his early death at the age of 63.

Dougie was an expert in some pretty diverse fields from tank warfare to butterfly collecting, a constant source of entertaining stories and a joy to lunch with — especially in El Vino where he loved my embarrassment at being made to wear a tie, usually one of Geoffrey Van Hay's gravy-stained numbers.

During the advance through Italy in early 1944 Dougie's tank was knocked out by a German shell and his crew surrounded and told they would be shot.  Bravely, Dougie told the Panzers that they could shoot him as commander but that his men must be taken prisoner under the terms of the Geneva convention. 

Into this crisis charged  a German officer, ironically the same rank as Dougie, who ordered the German troops away and apologised saying his men had sustained days of aerial bombardment and were stressed out of their minds.

He explained that he had no facilities for taking prisoners and told Dougie and his men to stay by their stricken tank until the Allied advance caught up with them.  'This war will be over very soon,' he said by way of farewell.  

Dougie congratulated him on his perfect English and asked where he had learned it.  ‘Oxford,' said the German. 'Which college?" asked Dougie.  ‘Balliol,’ said Herr Maior. 'Me too,' said Dougie, upon which they exchanged names and addresses and promised to get in touch when the war was over.

Dougie fulfilled the promise only to find out that his generous combatant had been killed within days of their battlefield meeting.

I can't settle Tony Boullemier's query about Q any more than I could ever discover why he always called me Soulberry.

I am, though, proud to say that I was invited by his family to give the address at his funeral at St Bride's where, to his undoubted celestial amusement, I did not wear a tie!

Good to know there are still those of us around who remember this great man.  Best to everyone, Jim.
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Muldoon’s Lookalike

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CHAPMAN’S PARTING SHOT AS HE QUITS THE EXPRESS
Private Eye reports:

Veteran Daily Express hack John Chapman, who refers to himself as a “Fleet Street survivor” having stuck with the paper through its Desmond doldrums and on to the new Mirror-managed era, left last month with an old-school retirement party at El Vino.
He had an admirable valedictory message for his assembled colleagues: “I have witnessed the slow, sad decline of a once-great newspaper … but I was earning an old-style Fleet Street salary so I don’t give a fuck.”

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MARTIN HOLDS COURT

Sunday Express editor Martin Townsend, left,  holds a riverside conference with deputy editor Dick Dismore, right, and Andy Hoban at the Lower Thames Street offices in London some time in the mid-Noughties.

Picture by GEOFF COMPTON

…. AND HERE’S ANOTHER

Muldoon’s History in Moments

1916: One man and his dog at ease during a lull in the maelstrom of war. A cosy scene. But this man had a licence to kill. And kill he did. Meet Manfred Albrecht Freiherr Von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron, the ace-of-aces who was credited with 80 air combat victories. He was leader of fighter wing unit Jagdgeschwader 1, better known as the Flying Circus because of the bright colours of its aircraft.

Originally in the cavalry, he quickly applied to join the newly formed Luftwaffe when he realised horses were not going to win the war. Initially, he was a poor pilot and crashed during his first solo outing but quickly he demonstrated an almost supernatural appreciation of the intricacies of flight and tactics and introduced the lethal weapon of diving out of the sun on unsuspecting prey.

 Von Richthofen died after being shot down over the Somme river on April 21,1918. There has been some controversy over who fired the fatal shot, a .303 bullet. The RAF awarded the “kill” to Canadian Captain Arthur “Roy” Brown in a Sopwith Camel but subsequent investigation points to the air ace being downed, ironically, by a shot from the ground.  

Von Richthofen was barely clinging to life when rescuers reached his crashed triplane. He managed to say one word, “kaput” before he slipped the surly bonds of earth (wrong war- Ed).  He was 25.

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October 3, 1862: Brrr! You could cut the froideur between these two with a Model 1860 Light Cavalry Saber (sic), the weapon of choice for mounted Union troops in the American Civil War. 

That’s President Abraham Lincoln, of course, his stovepipe hat upended on a table draped with the Star-Spangled Banner. His frosty stare in this “inquest without coffee” is reserved for Major General George B. McClellan, leader of the Northern forces at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland two weeks earlier. It was the bloodiest day in U.S history with a total of 22,717 dead, wounded or missing. 

McClellan, whose army outnumbered Confederate Robert E. Lee’s by two to one, was far too cautious to achieve what would have been a decisive victory so early in the war. Two corps he held back in reserve and refused to commit to the battle were later discovered to have been twice the number of Lee’s entire force. This and his failure to pursue the Southern army, which was retreating back to Virginia, led to his dismissal by Lincoln. 

Their enmity continued: McClennan unsuccessfully challenged the President in the 1864 election and for the rest of his life vigorously defended his army record. He said: “History will, I trust, do me justice.” It never did.

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Hector Breeze dies at 90

CARTOONIST Hector Breeze has died at the age of 90,  the Drone has learned.

Breeze was appointed Pocket Cartoonist by the Express in 1982 and was best known for his drawings featuring impoverished gentry with characteristic chinless faces and tiny dot eyes. 

Fellow cartoonist Ralph Steadman wrote in 1996 that Breeze's "clumsy bewildered characters restore my faith in the seriously daft”.

In 2004 Breeze was voted Pocket Cartoonist of the Year in the Cartoon Art Trust awards, but six months later he was sacked by the Daily Express.
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Deep in thought, the late, great Paul Carter

IF there was one man the Daily Express should never have let go it was Paul Carter. He was the finest journalist many of us have ever worked with — and not only that he was a delightful person.

Here he is meticulously checking the first edition proofs at the Express offices in Blackfriars, London, in 1999 or 2000.

Paul, who went on to be a brilliant deputy editor of the Daily Mail, was forced out by editor Rosie Boycott  mainly because she failed to understand the culture of a middle market tabloid.

Paul died in 2017 aged 54 after a long battle with cancer.

Also in this pic is the back of production editor Bob Smith’s head and Nick Dalton.

Picture by GEOFF COMPTON

In his own words: Paul bids us farewell

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The Roaring Eighties

IF ever there was a decade for partying on the Daily Express it must have been the 1980s — and here is the proof. 

Pictured at a Roaring Twenties evening are, from left, the late and much lamented Ross ‘Crommers’ Tayne, Robin McGibbon and his wife Sue, and Jan Barden who hosted the party at her home in Penge, South-East London.

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HOORAY FOR PINKY!

A quiet Saturday night on the Sunday Express

Here’s another snap from the Compton Collection, this time at the Sunday Express offices in Lower Thames Street, London, circa 2005.

On the far left is Tessa Evans, then Roy Povey arriving in his overcoat. In the distance, trying to mind his own business, is Alastair McIntyre, then from left on the middle bench is Mark Hoey, Rod Jones, Brian Izzard and on the backbench, Andy Hoban.

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I had that Tim Shipman in the back of the cab ...

MORE FLEET STREET FUN

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES: Daily Express features subs having fun in their break some time in the 1990s are Elaine Canham, Norman ‘Normal’ Cox and Jeff ‘Mine’s a Toby Light’ Boyle. The blonde in the foreground is features desk secretary-cum-nurse Alison Greenacre, who, according to Geoff Compton who provided this pic, 'dispensed our morning hangover cures’. 

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A message arrives in a forked stick from ROBIN McGIBBON.

He writes: A girl, aged no more than four, was walking by our bungalow, with her mother, when she spotted blankets in the back of the pictured Perodua Kenari, which my wife, Sue, uses to take friends' dogs for walks.

"Look, mummy," the girl said, pointing at the odd-looking vehicle, "A caravan for little people."

As one of the shortest subs ever to work for the Express, I'm wondering if I should seek your permission to start driving it!

Lord Drone replies: On yer bike, Stumpy!

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Muldoon’s History in Moments

1960s: Martin Luther King, watched by one of his sons, removes the charred remains of a fiery cross which had been planted in his front garden. Yep, the good ol’ boys with the white conical hats have been at it again. Not that the Ku Klux Klan worried MLK too much. After all, this Nobel peace laureate was a true icon of our time, the inspirational leader of the civil rights movement in America and with, arguably, Churchill and Hitler, one of the great orators of the 20th century. 

Many, rightly, laud his 1963 I Have a Dream address as his finest. Others, though, point to a poignant and prophetic, spine-tingling speech he made in Memphis in 1968 in which he told of going “to the mountaintop.”

He added: “And I have looked over. And I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you but I want you to know that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

“And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.

“Mine eyes have seen the coming of the Lord!”

The next day King was assassinated. He was just 39.

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Muldoon’s Lookalike

THE SLIPPERY SLOPER

ONE of the great legends of the old Fleet Street Daily Express in the 1970s and 80s was Ted ‘Kipper’ Keeling who, although an excellent news sub-editor, was mostly noted for his ability to slope off to the pub in a cloud of cannabis fumes without the Chief Sub noticing.

Reading on the Drone of Kipper’s exploits, former sub Nick Pigott climbed into his loft to retrieve this sketch he drew at the time of Assistant Chief Sub Jon Zackon tearing his hair out as his nemesis slipped out to the pub.

The original story is here:

The Grey Ghost, Forgotten Hero of the Lopés Cup

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GLOOM AT MAIL AS ONE MORE STAR NAME QUITS Now Charlie throws in towel

Charlie Sale, former Daily Express sports sub and latterly sports columnist on the Daily Mail has announced his retirement on Twitter.

His decision to quit follows the exodus of several star names following the appointment of Geordie Greig as editor to replace Paul Dacre. It is not thought that Charlie’s retirement is connected with this.

Last night after more that 200 Twitter tributes to Charlie, he tweeted: "Absolutely overwhelmed by all the kind messages today re retirement. Even the trolls were nice. Thanks so much.”

One fan tweeted: "Charlie, many congratulations on your recovery. Yet another foe bested, though I’m sorry you’re leaving the circuit; you’ll leave a gap that’s impossible to fill. An absolute doyen of journalism and cantankerous harrumphery. Retiring now, maybe, but you’ll never be ‘irrelevant’.”

On the Express, Charlie rose from sub to No 3 and was a candidate for sports editor when David Emery was short-listed for deputy editor on the Sunday Express, but SX editor Eve Pollard opted for Craig Mackenzie.

LATEST gossip from Northcliffe House reveals that a memo from the Mail’s managing editor informing all staff of the details for Victor Davis’s funeral was sent to everyone — including Victor Davis! Well, he WAS there…

Our informant had a long chat with a Mail insider who said the troops were very distressed at the way the Daily Mail has lost its edge under Greig. Our mole compared it to the emasculation of the Express.

THE DRONE is indebted to Popbitch for the following titbit in its review of the year:

After nearly three decades of steering the ship, Paul Dacre stepped down as the Daily Mail's editor. 

Once in a morning conference Dacre interrupted a journalist talking about the female fighter pilots who were going into Libya to ask: "What? Actually flying the planes? And shooting? Not just navigating? Or giving directions?" 

The reporter informed him that, yes, the women would be flying fighter jets. 

Dacre mulled this over for a hot second, before asking: "Won't their tits get in the way of the steering?”

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HOW THE EXPRESS DID IT IN STYLE IN THE EARLY 1950s

These two images are taken from from a style book entitled The Express Way issued to staff in Manchester and Glasgow in the 1950s, writes BOB CUMMINGS.

The pamphlet contains such gems as:

THE CRITICS

Advice to the critics: They should not assume too much knowledge on the part of the reader. It is their job to give information to the reader in such a way as not to offend the erudite and not patronise the ignorant. (April 1, 1953).

Whenever possible print a woman's age. That's a fine paragraph in today's Diary about Lady Helena Hilton-Green who flies to the hunt — but I wanted to know how old she was (March 31, 1953).

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SNAPPERS SNAPPED

Here, in glorious black and white, is another trip down memory lane. This pic of Sport and General Press Agency staff was taken at the retirement in 1980 of John Macnee, centre standing. Back row, fourth from left, is Tony Sapiano.

Stuart Clarke, editor of The Moorlander in Devon fills in some of the gaps: Middle row, Dave Ofield, Scoby Riggs, printer, Alistair Loos, Dennis Jones, Hugh Routledge. 

Front row: Neville Mariner,  Stuart Clarke, Roy Chaplin,  Julian Parker and Dave Benett.

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Daily Express news subs 1960s

This snap, provided by David Eliades, shows the Express newsroom in London some time in the early 1960s. 

In the foreground is foreign sub Jack Atkinson and next to him in his customary white shirt is splash sub Peter Hedley. The man to Hedley’s left on the middle bench is Ted Hodgson who later became night editor.

Opposite Jack is Ken Macaulay and next to him is Ralph Mineards. 

The man seated under the pillar in the white shirt and dark tie, is Eric Price. This would date the pic as before 1962 as Price left the Express that year to join the Western Daily Press in Bristol.

The backbench is the long desk on the left, second left is Bob Edwards, (the only man to be made editor of the Express twice) next to him is Eric Raybould and Morris Benett.

Thanks to TONY BOULLEMIER  and ROGER WATKINS for help with this caption.

RICK McNEILL reports:  I would date the picture pre-1965, before I joined. I recognise those you mention but others are unknown to me. 

I think the man in the far right background, on the telephone, is picture supremo Frank Spooner and the man seated looking up at him Jim Nicholl. I seem to recall the picture desk and foreign desk shared the same space around then. 

Facing Ted Hodgson is Welshman Harold Jones wearing his signature cardigan, look you. Apart from Morris and Raybould the Backbench is populated by strangers. I’d love to know who they are!

ALAN HILL, Chief City Sub from 1968 to 1996, who identified Bob Edwards, recalls: Bob gave me my job on the Express City staff. When I arrived, six weeks later, he had gone … again!

I believe he sacked Frank Spooner in the morning. Frank’s staff took him for a long lunch and when he returned to clear his desk … Bobbity had been sacked himself.  Frank continued as Picture Editor for years.

Click pic to enlarge

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SIR — How nice to see a photograph of my late father, Ralph Mineards, deputy father of the Daily Express chapel, in your illustrious organ.

When he retired in 1979, getting the honor of being "banged out" by the printers, he estimated he had travelled more than a million miles commuting from his Northampton home to London Euston, whiling away his hour-long ride doing the Times crossword.

I always remember him telling me that when he sat on the committee that helped launch the Daily Star, its audience was considered "the Millwall supporter who rolls his own cigarettes”.

An extremely capable journalist and wonderful father.

I followed in his footsteps as an Express trainee on the Falmouth Packet, where my colleagues included Nick Coleridge, now the head of Conde Nast UK, before joining Paul Callan's Inside World on the Mirror and then moving to Nigel Dempster's Diary on the Mail, leaving for the U.S. as an editor on New York Magazine, eventually becoming an anchor for CBS and a commentator on ABC News.

I have now lived in Santa Barbara for 11 years, where I write a weekly column for the Montecito Journal.

RICHARD MINEARDS
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Seven in pub heaven

Seven of the best — that’s this group of erstwhile Daily Express sub-editors who met at their old haunt of the King’s Arms in Roupell Street, London on December 5. 

Pictured are, back row, from left: Brian Izzard, Tony Boullemier, Alan Livermore (Daily Mirror) and Ray King.
Front row: David Laws, Ray Williams and Nick Pigott.
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Lunchers meet at the court of 

King David and Queen Lamar

The World’s Greatest Lunch Club moved from its customary festive perch at Joe Allen to the World’s Greatest Luxury Apartment Overlooking the Thames yesterday.

We were guests of David Eliades and his wife Lamar who invited the former Daily Express journalists and their wives to their home beside the river at Richmond.

Pictured above from left are Lamar Eliades, Alan Frame, Dick Dismore and Carol Watkins. Behind Carol is Ashley Walton, Chris McIntyre and David Eliades.

MORE PICTURES 
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FLASHBACK TO 1965

Twiggy’s Express dress

MORE TWIGGY

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They look glum but these Daily Express women were in fact putting on an act. They were actually having fun, mourning the death of the paper’s William Hickey gossip column. 

Back in 1987, the Express decided to replace the long-dead diarist with a real person in the shape of Ross Benson. Fleet Street gossip columnists led by the Daily Mail’s Nigel Dempster held a mock funeral for Hickey whose  name was revived following Benson’s death. 

This picture is supplied by Kim Willsher, second left, with Louise Court on her right.

The day they buried Hickey
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SIR — On a flying visit to London recently I took my family for dinner at the new Joe Allen, fondly expecting to wallow nostalgically in its uniquely cool and quietly clubbable atmosphere.

Imagine my surprise (as they say) to find myself in a overcrowded characterless bistro full of shouting tourists off the street and an expensive menu with little to remind me of its bygone Exeter Street heyday. Even the signature cheesecake tasted like Tesco’s!

Perhaps you chaps have a different perspective at your regular get-togethers there. Probably it’s the company not the place? Maybe also night times are a no-no. Too close to the Strand.

You know what they say . . . never go back.

Greetings to all Express Persons of Good Standing!

 RICK McNEILL
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Tweet of the Year

TERRY MANNERS tells the story behind one of thousands of cartoons drawn for the Express by Michael Cummings

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Caricature of the week

Theresa May by Seamus Jennings

They way we were

Production editor Bob Smith, left, and artist Fred Boyce inspect the first edition of the Daily Express at the Blackfriars offices in the 1990s

Picture: GEOFF COMPTON

It’s the Duke, caught on camera in the 1970s

There’s a few familiar faces in this pic of the London Evening Standard backbench in, at a guess, the 1970s. In the background gazing into the middle distance is Chris ‘Duke’ Djukanovic, later to become picture editor of the Daily Express. 

Seated on the right is Charles Wintour, famed editor of the Standard, and next to him in the striped shirt is Roy Wright, who later became the editor of the Daily Express before disappearing without trace.

PETER STEWARD has filled in the gaps. He writes:

I believe the picture was taken before I joined the Standard (in the long hot summer of 1976) and for some reason I think it was a pre-Budget meeting. At that time the Evening Standard was part of the Beaverbrook empire and housed in Shoe Lane.

As you say, to the left of Charles Wintour is Roy Wright who returned to the Standard while I was there. I think he was deputy editor when Simon Jenkins was fired and Wintour returned for a short time before Lou Kirby arrived and Associated took half a share in the paper.

Seated centre is Bill Sharp, the splash sub.The chap back left in beard and specs is Cyril Raper, who enjoyed a White Shield Worthington. I think he was once chief sub, but during my time there he was like an executive revise sub. 

In those days subs sent copy direct to the printers below via a conveyor belt down the middle of the desk and a hole in the floor. The first opportunity to get it revised was when galley proofs arrived upstairs or when the stone sub got a chance to read it.

On the left is the legendary political editor Bob Carvel (with pipe) and Michael King.

Perhaps the person furthest right could be David Henshall.

I left the Standard on December 29 1983 after being kidnapped in the Poppinjay by the sweet-talking Terry Manners. I was working a five-day week as the Standard's chief sub at the time but Terry held out the prospect of a four-night week for more money. 

Six months later Mr Manners showed me the way to the escape tunnel (or perhaps he regretted tempting me in the first place) and I left to join the Sunday Express under that dynamic liberal editor Sir John Junor.

Click pic for larger image

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Punch Classic Frank R Gray

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When we were very young

The faces look familiar to anyone who was on the Daily Express in the 1970s and 80s. But who are these two youngsters? The answers are here

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Fleet Street then and now

1899: Carter’s Hair Cutting Saloon, at 17 Fleet Street, London, just opposite Chancery Lane. The facade above the gateway, which leads to Inner Temple, hid the original 17th Century half-timbered front which was subsequently restored. 

The first floor of the building comprises Prince Henry’s Room, named for the son of James I. It is one of the few surviving buildings in the City of London dating from before the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is a Grade II listed building.

BELOW: The same building today.

More on this

__________________________________________________ Hold the front stage! It’s Christiansen the film star

1961: Legendary Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen demonstrates that as an actor he was a very fine journalist playing himself in the cult sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Caught Fire. 

Chris, pictured with Edward Judd who played a maverick reporter (aren’t they all? — Ed), spent most of the time spouting lines like: “Hold the front page!” and “Make it sing and make it a song I like,” (or was that another legendary Daily Express editor?) 

The film was based on the Express in its heyday and many shots were filmed in the office and Fleet Street. Behind the scenes there was also rumoured to have been a piquant play within a play starring an Express executive (still there in the seventies) and the luscious female lead Janet Munro, who, after a hard day’s filming, were encountered discussing bold intros and splash heads in the lane behind the Old Bell (mem to Night Lawyer Cocklecarrot: It’s OK: they’re both dead now)

MULDOON

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We think this may be a pic of the Express subs

but could it be the Mail?

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Drone Mart

DRONETUBE

Our man Ashley on ITV news

Ashley Walton out on the Fergie story, early 1990s 

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Former Daily Star sub Jeff Connor, pictured front right, sent this snap of the paper’s Sports Desk in Manchester circa 1980 before they moved to new offices. 

Pictured, second left, is sports editor Arthur Lamb, to his left is deputy sports editor Gordon ‘Geordie’ Burnett (long departed), the secretary was named Sue. In the background between Gordon and Jeff is the backbench with deputy night editor Chris Davis, later Royston Davis, who went to The Sun, and leaning over him is copy editor Mike Hughes. 

Next to Chris is night editor Andy (mine’s a Bell’s and a light ale) Carson, then Ian Pollock. On the extreme left is Jack Ronnie (probably). Also on the backbench is Robbie Addison.

To the left of Chris Davis is Ian Pollack and standing is a guy called Robbie who we think was deputy to editor Peter Grimsditch. Behind secretary Sue is the DS newsdesk. Thanks to Mike Hughes and John Edgley for help in identifications. 

Read Jeff Connor’s potted history of Ancoats from 1976 to 1988. ONLY ON THE DRONE!

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Life After The Front Page

This rare and previously largely unseen film, unearthed in the annals of Lord Drone, recalls the grand old days of Fleet Street. It includes interviews with Ann Buchanan, of The Sun and Daily Mirror; Clem Jones, from the Wolverhampton Express; Eric Todd of the Manchester Evening Chronicle and The Guardian; and George Bell and Ted Townshend of the Daily Telegraph. 

The film, which was made by students of Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 1999, also includes someone called Alastair McIntyre (who he – Ed?) who addresses the public from the Daily Express offices in Blackfriars. 

Runtime is 16 minutes.
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The Crusader Years 1900-1990