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QUOTE OF THE DAY
‘The saddest illusion of the revolutionary is that revolution itself will transform the nature of human beings’ — Shirley Williams
FRONT PAGES
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Guy Venables, Metro
Problem of migration and a culture clash that is swept under the carpet
THE clash of Britain’s permissive society with the alien cultures of immigrants has been a problem for years but is seldom discussed.
Many people fear to tread in the sensitive area of race which can be a problem in itself.
In his latest dispatch PAT PRENTICE tells of a relative’s shock when on a visit to London from a Northern city she spotted miniskirted girls standing at bus stops, conflating these respectable girls with prostitution.
Our British liberal attitude is clearly at odds with those who, having been brought up in different cultures, must have thought they had arrived in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Cocklecarrot and Co get elbow from Jim
Boss cuts out night lawyers and leaves legal matters to the few subs who haven’t been sacked
By LIFTON DUST
FORMER bookie Jim Mullen, boss of newspaper behemoth Reach, is taking perhaps his biggest gamble yet with cuts to the company's legal department that have the potential to cost it considerably more than they save, according to the latest issue of Private Eye.
The magazine reports: “Due to a change in operating processes in England and Wales, the staff lawyer or night lawyer on duty will no longer be proactively reading the whole of the print edition each night,” staff have been informed. The number of lawyers on duty both in the day and on call overnight has been cut, and hacks are expected to make their own call on what might. or might not, be problematic.
“If an article needs legal review, you must send this to the editorial legal team as early in the day as possible,” they have been instructed.
“You must set out at the top of email what legal issue you are concerned about.”
The problem with this — as the Eye can testify from some experience — is that it is seldom the sentences hacks expect might cause a problem that end up actually doing so.
Legal complaints, and writs, often come out of left-field and these days tend to focus on (and attempt to exploit) obscure points of privacy and data protection, areas of the law which continue to evolve.
Retch staff are at least getting some extra training. “We've all been summoned to a series of hastily arranged and idiot-proof sessions covering issues like defamation, contempt and the Ipso code, in the hope the company doesn't get taken to court," one hack told the Eye.
Experienced pairs of eyes who might spot problems are also being dispensed with as Reach's paper and digital operations are cut-and-shut together; the Daily Express's night news editor Liz Perkins is one of the latest out of the door. "We've all been warned that potentially no one will see what you have written before it's published," one hack trembles.
With the £2.2million the company puts aside for “libel and other matters” dwarfed by the £18.2million it was still expecting to pay out over phone hacking despite this favourable result, the dwindling band of experienced journalists left across Retch's titles suspect the company is replacing one worry with a whole new world of risk.
Daily Star editor to quit as big jobs cull
planned at the Mail
Bell tolls for print editions
YET another Reach national editor has been given his marching orders as fears grow of huge jobs cuts at the Mail.
The latest editor to fall on his sword is the Daily Star’s Jon Clark which follows the departures of Alison Phillips at the Mirror and Gary Jones at the Express.
Reach announced that a new digital editor would be in the driving seat at the title and Clark’s number two, Denis Mann would be running the daily and Sunday print editions, raising doubts over their long-term future. He will report to the Star’s new online editor-in-chief, former Mirror online editor Ben Rankin.
Clark, a talented and experienced editor, brought much-needed joy to tabloid front pages and generally adding to the gaiety of the nation.
During his time in charge the price of the Daily Star has nearly quadrupled from 30p to £1.10 and circulation has fallen from 395,362 to 114,261.
Clark, the genius behind the Lizzy the Lettuce campaign, is reported to be happy at leaving Reach. He said: ‘It’s been a lot of fun.’
🔴 The Daily Mail is planning to make around 100 redundancies in what is believed to be the final stage of merging its print and digital teams. Staff at the London office were told that all reporters and editors will produce stories for both print and online from the middle of March.
A memo from DMG Media chief executive and publisher Danny Groom and Mail editor-in-chief Ted Verity said there will also be changes in areas where there is still unnecessary duplication and where the newsroom can be more efficient.
“The aim is to target resources where they’re needed most – producing the superb-quality journalism and world-leading long-form features the Mail is famous for.”
Press Gazette understands a double-digit number of jobs are expected to go as a result at the end of a 30-day consultation period. Whatever happens, the cuts are bad news for the future of print editions.
THE HONOURABLE MEMBER
Remember the Country Boys, the gay little column that ran in the Drone for years? Thought not.
Well listen, luvs, Oliver is back! This time as a Labour MP. Ooh, just fancy that! And we all look forward to him standing erect in the Chamber for his maiden speech, don’t we? Oh, please yourselves. Interested? Read on … you know it makes sense! (It doesn’t — Ed)
A Remembrance of Newspapers Past by PAT PRENTICE, a new weekly memoir only in the Drone
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our top columnists
NEW
The NHS is struggling and it cannot afford to treat people who have never contributed to the service
The Road to Perdition
By Helena Handcart
Let’s all pause today to honour the many stars, celebs and achievers throughout history who were born on February 1. They include: Clark Gable, Harry Styles, Lisa Marie Presley, Boris Yeltsin, John Ford, Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, Peter Sallis, Terry Jones, Stan Matthews, Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo and Big Boi. There must be others but I can’t think of any just (Right. That’s it — you’re fired - Ed).
Much excitement in sunny Hersham today as apple-cheeked rustics gather to mark the birthday of media mogul and lord of the manor (name redacted for security reasons). After a children’s fancy dress procession to Hersham Green, villagers will repair to the Tommy Trinder Memorial Hall for afternoon tea where the guest of honour will be serenaded by a Rod Stewart tribute act including a special version of ‘I Am Sloping’. (Right. That’s it - you’re hired - Ed).
A so-called Drone columnist’s powerful and thoughtful piece on the Holocaust was remarkable in that it used the word Nazi only once. Yet if it had been written by someone at the BBC, Nazis would have been given centre stage with ‘Germans’ cast as mere bit part players. In the Wokerati’s desperate compulsion not to be beastly to the Germans these days, it is conveniently forgotten (or ignored) that only around 8% were members of the Nazi Party (even Rommel wasn’t) but the vast majority of Nazis were definitely, ahem, German.
Trump is an avowed Luddite. POTUS employs former TV presenter Natalie Harp to follow him around with a mini printer in her backpack to run off hard copies of positive news stories. The ‘human printer’, as he calls the 33-year-old, also takes dictation for his social media posts.
Drone diarists have repeatedly warned about the threat posed by Artificial Intelligence, writes our DeepFake correspondent. So-called columnists, please note. Now the Pope has called for constant oversight of AI, warning that ‘the shadow of evil also looms here’. Remember who told you first.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘After my hellish drive, I fancy a snack. So I treat myself to a vegan, kosher, gluten-free, non GMO certified beetroot juice and a 100% organic vegan gluten-free palm oil-free, soy-free, low-sodium “chocolate bar”, which costs $10. I wonder how anyone has time to do anything here except read the labels.’ —Katie Glass, The Times, pursues the Harry&Meghan Dream in Montecito.
PMQs set a new record this week: it was the first session since the election in which the phrase ‘£22 billion black hole’ was not uttered. Mind you, ‘the fastest growing economy in the G7’ did get another airing from Badenoch.
StatsSport: Thirty-second TV ad spots for Super Bowl LIX on the 9th are going for $8 million. Don’t forget, 123 million tuned in for the match last year.
Cancer expert on BBC Radio discusses screening for prostate cancer. Apparently the ‘finger test’ is particularly useful. We are truly living in a digital age, aren’t we?
Nothing ventured Dept: British property developer Tom Grogan in 2018 heard that fast food chain Wingstop had a cult following in the States for its wings, burgers, tenders, platters and online combos but had no outlets in UK. He and a friend sent a four-line email to the company seeking a franchising agreement. They were invited to America and secured the deal. Now Wingstop UK has been sold for £400 million.
SportingLife: The price of failure is enormously high if you are much-travelled footie gaffer José Mourinho: his payoffs are legendary. Chelsea (first half): £18 million; Real Madrid: £17 million; Chelsea (second half): £8.3 million; Man U: £19.6 million; Spurs: £15 million; Roma: £3 million.
A 40-bedroom mansion in Regent’s Park, known as London’s White House, has been bought by an anonymous American millionaire for £139million, making it one of the most expensive residential properties in the capital. The Holme has 40 bedrooms, a pool and tennis court and 4.5-acre gardens next to the park’s boating lake. The buyer drove a hard bargain, negotiating the asking price down from £250 million.
DearDrDrone (The thread in which readers may unburden themselves, share their concerns and ask questions to which there probably is no answer): I am due for a health check-up at my GP surgery. Now they text: ‘Please tell us about your alcohol intake. This will help our clinicians interpret your results more accurately’. What should I do? DD replies: Lie through your teeth otherwise they’ll nag you to death.
Dopey TikTok users in (where else?) America are switching to another Chinese platform, Xiaohongshu, which means ‘little red book’ in Mandarin. They’re calling it Red Note and seem unfazed by its connection with one of the most notorious dictators in history.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: My Pubic Hair Laser Regret: What I Wouldn’t Do Again - New York
The number of Americans who say astrology provides comfort in uncertain times is 61%. Which reminds me of Bernard Shrimsley and the lady astrologer…(Heard it — Ed).
LeftInACab: Em rule marked ‘Zackon - Do Not Remove’; a denture embedded in sticky nougat; pair of Jimmy Choo 6ins stilletto-heeled so-called ‘Fuck Me’ shoes in scarlet. Packet of Brillo pads; Saker cordless mini chainsaw; Eric Cantona boules set.
UntouchedByHumanSub: Mail Online illustrates a story about Heathrow expansion with a lazily selected stock pic of EasyJet and Ryanair planes on stand at an airport. It’s not Heathrow, though. EasyJet don’t fly from there and Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has vowed his planes won’t use it either: ‘Never, ever while I live and breathe,’ he says.
ON OTHER PAGES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW
A gala reunion to mark the 44th anniversary of the iconic ‘And F For Fuck Off’ exchange of pleasantries between Kelvin MacKenzie and Felicity Green takes place on May 15 in a riverside meadow (beer tent; reasonable prices) near the Drone’s offices in Walton-on-America. Some 10,003 say they witnessed the confrontation in the DX newsroom in Fleet Street. First on the official list (entries closed in 1990) was Rick Watkins, two feet away in the Chief Sub’s seat; the 10,003rd was Roger McNeill from Features (late entry because he was in exile) hovering nearby with a damp page proof. I think I’ve got that right. (It’ll do — Ed).
John Prescott’s funeral was the time to remember old feuds and vendettas. One involved Sky’s Jon Craig, OTP. After reporting on a dispute between Prescott and Mandelson at the 1995 Labour conference, Hoss was pursued by the deputy leader brandishing a huge pork pie and shouting ‘lies, lies, porky pies’. Former Expressman Craig recalls: ‘Every time he saw me after that he said: ‘It’s the pie man. Porky pies’.
DearDrDrone (Unburden yourselves, share your concerns and ask questions to which there is probably no answer): My old school, founded in 1614, has been seriously impacted by this government’s spiteful decision to impose 20% VAT. That’s not all, though. The NI increase, above inflation rise in the Minimum Wage, plus removal of Business Rates relief means 25% has been added to independent schools’ costs. Most is passed on to luckless parents. But teaching redundancies are certain; courses will be cut back or dropped. For the first time in 411 years Classics will not be taught at my alma mater. De Labore, progressus, spes et doctrina — as Caesar didn’t say.
Russia has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sun Defence Ed Jerome Starkey, the first UK journo to report from inside occupied Russian territory since the Crimean War. Putin and Co have obviously been irked by Starkey’s reports from the Ukraine conflict. Sun Ed Victoria Newton has, according to Press Gazette, ‘issued a defiant response’. Or, to you and me, an invitation to the Kremlin to rearrange ‘you off just don’t fuck why Vlad’ into a well-known phrase or saying.
The pilot ejects to safety as a US Airforce F-35 fighter plunges to the ground in Alaska after an ‘inflight malfunction’. Ouch! Those bad boys cost between £66 million and £82 million. Each.
Lazy cops in Sheffield are captured on social media trying to apprehend a shoplifter in a wheelchair — without getting out of their patrol car. Twice they tried to pin her down and twice she evaded them, using feints and jinks reminiscent of Antoine Dupont against the hapless Welsh. ‘I don’t know why they tried to drive,’ said shop manager Loreto Valente, ‘you could run faster than that.’
London’s art galleries must be mighty relieved at the decision to build a third Heathrow runway, says Janice Turner in The Times. Presumably, all the tiresome eco warriors will set up camps in Middlesex so ‘fewer Old Masters will get covered in soup’.
Sign in my local M&S: ‘The all-day breakfast is served until 11.30am.’
OldJokesHome: A friend of mine says he’s having an affair with twins at the same time. How does he tell them apart? ‘Her brother’s the one with a moustache,’ he said.
The centenary of an historic lifesaving dog sled trek has just been marked in Alaska. Twenty mushers and 150 dogs transported an antitoxin across harsh terrain to quell a diphtheria outbreak in the remote town of Nome in 1925. They travelled 674 miles in 127 hours in temperatures as low as -65C.
NMPKT: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease caused by inhaling silica from volcano ash, is, at 45 letters, the longest word in English.
When developers in China offered to buy a grouchy grandad’s house to build a two-lane highway he told them to 滚开. So they went ahead anyway and built the elevated road which surrounds and overshadows the two-storey property. Now Huang Ping (for it is he) acknowledges that he should have taken the £180,000 compo. ‘It feels like I lost a big bet,’ he says, wistfully.
Overture and beginners, please! A musical based on the scandals in the life of Wayne Rooney is said to be in the works. Don’t all rush now.
You can’t blame them for wanting something to do. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, NASA astronauts stuck on the International Space Station since June, have gone on their first walk in space together. All together now…
LeftInACab: Alpine grass scythe with 60cm blade in protective LeatherLike sheath; three jute balls of twine in green, ochre and cobalt blue; L’Oreal Paris Color Riche Satin Smooth Lipstick in Greggs paper bag; Well, Am I Or Aren’t I? Pink Paper readers’ survey hard copy; fencing epée wrapped in a table cloth (stained).
Fact: Calamity Lammy says climate change ‘is one of the biggest dangers facing the world.’ Fact: The useless Herbert has taken flights worth an astonishing £916,177 since assuming ‘office’, says Guido Fawkes.
HeadlinesOfTheWeek: My Date Pulled Egregious Stunt At Restaurant — Then Dumped Me With 4-word Excuse — Mirror. Blue Sky Syncing — Mail on marvellous pic of Red Arrows rehearsing on a clear, crisp winter morning.
Royal monikers are out of favour with modern parents, according to BabyCenter which analyses hundreds of thousands of names currently being registered. Anne, Philip, Albert and Edward dropped more than 100 places; Catherine was down 221. On the up? Ellie and Liam.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘As for the hoi polloi…’ — Anna Murphy, The Times.
Fleet Street in the 1930s, note the barber named Sweeney Todd … just the place for a close shave
THEN NOW
Yes, we get the connection, but quite why you would name a hairdressers after the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is anyone’s guess. Close shave, sir?
Back in the 1930s no one seemed to be worried about a salon in the Boulevard of Broken Dreams named Sweeney Todd but maybe they didn’t make the connection.
Next door on the right at 153 Fleet Street was Alderton & Sons, tailors, with Bouverie House to the left. The building on the right was Edgley’s which sold secondhand office furniture, above were the London offices of the Eastern Daily News.
The two buildings on the left no longer exist but the one on the right is still there, now occupied by Wrap It Up which sells salads and wraps. It would have been meat pies back in the day.
The adverts on Sweeney Todd’s were less healthy and more in keeping with the character of Fleet Street — Guinness and Combe’s Brown Ale. The shop below was Prosperity Kandy Store displaying placards for The Jockey racing paper.
VICTOR WATERS writes: The building next door is 151 Fleet Street, not 153. I know this because my office in the 1960s was at the top, behind those distinctive round windows. (The mighty Presswise Ltd and London Picture Service Ltd were my businesses, housed in four scruffy old rooms.)
Access to those upper floors is only possible now from a side door in Wine Office Court and I think all of the upper floors are part of an ad agency. In the 60s King magazine began up top of 151, before Conor Walsh and Ted Simon (both of the Sketch) moved it to Salisbury Square, and I took over their rooms and their press relations business.
Some readers might remember the Sunday Mirror's Matt White and Ronnie Maxwell (dec.) who rented one of our rooms for their freelance work on the US rags, Midnight and National Enquirer!
You won’t be able to hack it much longer, Rebekah
OPINION by ALAN FRAME
‘Be sure your sins will find you out,’ warned the Old Testament Book of Numbers. And in the case of the not-so-biblical News Group and, in particular, CEO Rebekah Brooks, so it came to pass yesterday.
The settlement between NGN and Prince Harry (and former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson) has, I am reliably informed, cost the company more than £13 million with the vast legal costs almost doubling that amount. In total, Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloids have paid out more than £1 billion in settlements and costs since their dirty tricks first came to light in 1997. And in the process Murdoch has closed the News of the World, at its best a force for good with its exposures and campaigns. It’s an expensive business.
Many Drone readers were out of Fleet Street before phone hacking became the tool of choice for some reporters as much as a regulation notebook and tape recorder. So I never saw at first hand how suddenly all those remarkable royal and showbiz exclusives came about.
One thing I know for sure: it is a despicable and rightly illegal activity and all editors should have warned their staff that if they resorted to it, no matter the story, they would lose their jobs. And it’s not yet over; next January Harry’s action against those smug types at Associated Newspapers is scheduled for the High Court.
In the case of NGN, it has stuck to its line in its ‘full and unequivocal apology’ to Harry for its intrusion into his life and that of his late mother Diana that it was private investigators who led the intrusion. Is anyone so stupid as to think that they were not commissioned by editorial execs or reporters. And how were their invoices explained when they came to be paid?
It has always denied that there was no hacking at The Sun, only the NoW.
So where does this leave flame-haired Rebekah Brooks? Her life as a chancer who has avoided the handcuffs on three occasions must surely have come to end of the road. She escaped the wrath of the Leveson Inquiry in 2011 but made a gesture by resigning as CEO of News International (now News UK). Three years later she was cleared at the Old Bailey of charges of criminal phone hacking and was brought back to her old job by a seemingly bedazzled Murdoch.
Now that NGN has admitted the charges brought by Harry and Watson against The Sun it must follow that she was lying throughout the last 14 years when she insisted she knew nothing about hacking. She should quit now and retire at 56 to the Cotswolds to ride her horses. It seems impossible that even old Rupert will be minded to save her.
It may not be as simple as that however. The Yard is being urged to conduct a full criminal investigation. Those handcuffs may still be needed.
FLEET STREET IS BACK IN THE NEWS GAME
By SPIKE DIVER
A NEW digital daily newspaper is promising to breathe new life into Fleet Street.
London Daily Digital is planning to launch the title next month as a website and a page-turning digital edition.
The title is based in Fleet Street and has plans to support a London Museum of News, a Fleet Street Walk of Fame and a monthly media forum at St Bride’s Church.
The move comes four months after the Evening Standard’s daily print edition folded and morphed into a weekly magazine
LDD also plans to publish a monthly print edition priced at £5 with a run of 100,000 copies.
The title has a 17-strong team of staff already in place with plans to recruit 13 more people.
Azeez Anasudhin is the executive editor of the title and managing director of LDD News Ltd. He launched the Asian Lite digital newspaper and website in 2007 and has previously worked for titles including The Gulf Today and Indian Express.
Former BBC sports editor and Evening Standard columnist Mihir Bose is consulting editor of the title.
Brian Freemantle dies at 88
By ALAN FRAME
Charlie Muffin was born on the 7.29 Southampton to Waterloo. And now Brian Freemantle, who created the great anti-hero spy series while journeying each morning to the Daily Sketch, is dead at 88.
Brian, pictured, and I had been friends since we met on the Sketch in 1969. He was foreign editor and I a new boy on the subs’ bench, fresh from the Express in Manchester. When the Sketch closed two years later we followed David English to the Mail with Brian heading a growing foreign team which did more than merely report events outside our little island.
In 1975 he organised UK Babylift, rescuing 100 Vietnamese orphans from Saigon and bringing them to families here, eager to adopt. One of those babies, 18-month-old Viktoria, later christened her own son Harry after Freemantle’s middle name. She went on to be a successful actress and producer.
Shortly after the airlift, Brian said goodbye to the day job, abandoned the train and became a full-time author writing an astonishing 85 books, mostly thrillers (and very good ones at that) with sales of more than 10 million worldwide. The first, Charlie M, was described by a critic as ‘one of the best spy novels ever written’ and was made into a film with an all-star cast including Ralph Richardson, Ian Richardson and David Hemmings.
Brian and Maureen, his wife of more than 50 years, were close friends with another foreign editor who wrote books while not in the environs of EC4, our very own David Eliades. They both proved that you didn’t have to be chained to the newsroom to realise great success.
Brian leaves behind Maureen and their three daughters, Charlotte, Victoria and Emma. And many great friends and admirers plus a legion of fans of the rebel Charlie Muffin.
CHRISTOPHER WILSON writes: Two things about Brian — he became a novelist by sheer determination, getting on the train at Winchester early in the morning and writing furiously, furiously until it was time to get off at Waterloo. On the ride home he'd revise, accumulating several finished novels without yet finding a publisher.
Finally a publishing exec came round to the house and said, "Wow, this is a great yarn, Brian! But... first-time novelist... we're never sure whether someone like you could ever produce a follow-up."
Brian: ‘I didn't say anything, just gave him a smile and opened my bottom drawer. There they were — half-a-dozen finished manuscripts just waiting to have a wrapper put round them.’ They were the first of his astonishing output of 88 books.
ALSO — Brian was a bit of a dandy. It was always Gucci shoes and Armani jeans with him, befitting his status as a best-selling author. After a day's labours he'd usually quench his thirst in Winchester's Wykeham Arms, and one night, Maureen being away, he stayed later than usual.
He told me the story a couple of days later, his face still puffy and bruised. Apparently he'd managed to find his way home across the Cathedral Close but, faced with his front door, felt in both pockets for his front-door key.
Brian: ‘Unfortunately, can't think why, I lost my balance. Hands trapped in my jeans pockets — d'you know how tight Armani jeans are? — and I fell forward into the door. Then I slid slowly down, hands still in my pockets. Blood everywhere."
The beautiful, long-suffering Maureen was a gifted makeup artist and next morning prior to her arrival home, he applied just about everything in her many makeup boxes to disguise the night's excesses.
Brian: ‘She saw straight through it. And I'd spent hours applying all that ruddy panstick.’
He was adorable, admirable, and just the very best fun. And Maureen was his perfect counterpart.
TIMES OBIT (£) Written by Alan Frame
Shag night on the Express
THAT caught your eye, didn’t it? Actually the shag referred to here is the tobacco variety and there was a distinct cloud of it in the Daily Express subs room when this pic was taken back in the day.
Terry Manners, who unearthed the photo during his history researches, is trying to date it. The pic shows a reporter giving his copy to the Chief Sub who is polluting the atmosphere with his shag-filled pipe.
Rory’s new spy thriller
OUR friend and colleague Rory Clements has a new book out, A Cold Wind Wind From Moscow, a wartime spy thriller.
The synopsis reads: Winter, 1947. Britain's secret services have been penetrated. The country is more vulnerable than ever — and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin knows it. He decides it is time to send his master of 'Special Tasks' to create extra chaos.
But Stalin has a more important motive than mere disruption. He has a man on the inside who must be protected at all costs — a communist super-spy who has the secrets of the atomic bomb at his fingertips.
Freya Bentall, a senior MI5 officer, no longer knows who to trust and is left with one option: to bring in an outsider whose loyalty is beyond question - Cambridge professor Tom Wilde. His task: to find the traitor in MI5.
Barty’s having a party
Barty, right, surrenders to another glass of pinot grigiot with Tony
WE sought him here we sought him there, we’ve sought that damned elusive Barty Compton everywhere.
Now, thanks to ‘Monsewer’ Tony Boullemier, we’ve found him.
Monsewer reports: ‘Geoff 'Barty' Compton, who now lives near Nimes, en France, has been visiting the home his family recently bought in Worcestershire.
‘When I called in on him, it was a chance to swap multiple anecdotes from our days together at the DX in the early 1970s.’
They're pictured during a typical long lunch. And later on a canal bridge, which the Compton family now owns as part of their land.
Geoff regrets he wasn't well enough to attend Phil Durrant's recent wake but says he'll try and make future Express reunions.
Pictures: Ben Compton
Boozy nights with O’Hagan
By PAT WELLAND
The late and much lamented sausage king Bill O’Hagan, whom Pat Prentice so engagingly recalled, is remembered as an old Telegraph hand. But it tends to be forgotten, and was not mentioned in his Times obit, that he first adorned Fleet Street on the Express.
Bill fetched up on the subs’ desk soon after I joined the paper in ’72, having previously worked on some publication servicing Gatwick Airport. Unhappily, after impressing all with his astounding capacity for drink, he left shortly afterwards having committed, if I recall correctly, some headline indiscretion.
Bill was a committed patron of the Pemberton Media Club, which many will remember as a late-night haunt in Pemberton Row close to Dr Johnson’s house. This was a rebrand of the inkies’ Newspaper Workers Club in an attempt to elevate it above the level of stygian hellhole (hacks entered the Workers at their peril – I was privileged to be present there when it was suggested to gay barman Geoff that, as it was his 60th birthday, he would appreciate 60 candles rammed up his fundament).
As Bill and I both lived in the Greenwich area, I occasionally had the pleasure of being driven home by him in his decommissioned London taxi. His previous vehicle was, I believe, an ancient ambulance sailing under similar false colours, in this case the old LCC. When I say 'home', I mean the sausage shop where Bill would produce a primus and fry up a selection of some of his more exotic bangers to be washed down with Swan lagers before, suitably fuelled, I tacked the remainder of my way home in the rising dawn.
Bill’s ability to hold his drink while remaining ever genial was phenomenal. But even the greatest among us have our frailties. I remember him downing a last potent tumbler of spirits in the Press Club circa 3am. It may not, however, have been his final drink.
The next morning, I joined a small queue of cars on Greenwich South Street while drivers waited patiently, and with much amusement, as Bill uncertainly negotiated the complexities of crossing the road via a zebra crossing. A lovely man.
The Daily Drone is published, financed and edited by Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre with contributions from the veteran journalists of old Fleet Street, Manchester, Glasgow, Welsh Wales and the worldwide diaspora. Dedicated to scribblers everywhere.
©Lord Drone, Whom God Preserve 2005-2025