DAILY DRONE

Julia treats her girl to a wizard Halloween treat

By POPBITCH
With Brexit supposedly due to occur on October 31, Brexiteers are going to be forced to choose between celebrating Halloween or celebrating Britain's glorious emancipation from the oppressive shackles of the EU (etc, etc...)

Except for former Sunday Express political editor Julia Hartley-Brewer, whose regular Halloween plans were pretty Brexit-y already.

Julia's neighbours have long stopped expecting a call from her on October 31. That's because for many years Julia has chosen to take her daughter out trick-or-treating in St John's Wood instead. 

The neighbourhood there is stuffed to the rafters with wealthy American families whose kids are enrolled at the nearby American School. As they all get properly into Halloween each year, in true Yank style they offer up a seemingly endless supply of premium goodies to anyone who comes knocking. 

A much better deal than the paltry presents her much closer neighbours offer. 

Julia currently hosts the breakfast show on TalkRADIO.

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NEWS YOU’LL BE GLAD TO HAVE MISSED
Headline in today’s Daily Sport:

My boyfriend left me so I am now marrying a fish finger, See her tits on Page 5

Wretched Reach plans to sack 20 more staff
TWENTY staff are facing redundancy at Reach as the news group continues to integrate teams following its buyout of  Express Newspapers.

The proposals affect staff working on the group’s national titles within the supplements, celebrity magazines, sport and fashion departments.

Reach bought OK!, New! and Star magazines as part of its £127million deal with Richard Desmond last year, which saw it acquire the Express and Star titles.

Former Mirrorman Revel Barker commented: "How odd is it to realise that 'in our day' we were working in a period of wealth, stability  and even (comparative) sanity?”

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NO wonder they’re smiling — these three former Expressmen managed to escape from the Black Lubjanka for the more journalist-friendly and lucrative Mail group.

Enjoying lunch at Wholefoods in London's Kensington are, from left, diarist Peter Mackay, who is now retired; John McEntee, editor of the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle; and Peter Hitchens, who writes a column for the Mail on Sunday.

McEntee wrote on Facebook: My dear friend Peter [Mackay] worked with me on the Express when he shared an office with Peter Tory overlooking the Thames at Blackfriars. The pair watched the slow construction of what became the wobbly bridge from St Paul’s to Tate Modern.

When it was half finished the Queen walked out into the Thames on the incomplete structure. I recall going into the two Peters’ office and joining them and we stared at HM at the end of the half-finished edifice in the middle of the river.

None of us spoke. 

WAR AT THE MAIL AS BOSSES PLAN
7-DAY OPERATION 

BY POPBITCH
BOSSES at the Daily Mail are planning a power grab — by merging its Sunday sister title into a seven-day operation.

The action, which would hit jobs and put the daily paper in the driving seat, comes as the Mail on Sunday is on the backfoot after getting served by Meghan Markle.

The plan will be met with some resistance. The old guard at the MoS don't much care for the daily's recent chumminess with the celebrity set under new editor Geordie Greig.

It didn't escape their notice that Greig offered his good friend David Furnish a massive deal for the serialisation rights to Elton John's new memoir (a deal which has ended up doing naff all for their sales).

But the thing that really caused raised eyebrows was Geordie agreeing to turn off the comments underneath the online version to avoid any unwanted "negativity”.

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Zack gets em-rule back after 33 years

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BACK BY COMPLETE LACK OF PUBLIC DEMAND

Muldoon’s Overheard in Waitrose (Part 2)

One of the highlights of the digital publishing year (Oh, come on! — Ed) was the Daily Drone’s hilarious series Overheard in Waitrose featuring fascinating snippets of conversation which revealed so much about the people who shop in that up-your-bum grocery store.

Since then the Drone has been inundated (? — Ed) with pleas from readers for more of the same.

Even our proprietor, Lord Drone, a keen fan, has been approached in the luxury mixed gender Turkish baths that he patronises in a cellar in a side turning off Curzon Street (Stop! On no account must this be published before I check with Lord D — Ed).

So, by popular request, our witty, incisive trainee Muldoon, the Drone’s very own unexplained item in the bagging area, passes on more gems Overheard in Waitrose:

“You’ll like potato, darling. It’s what gnocchi is made of.”

“Simon, don’t get the basic hummus - you’ll make me a laughing stock.”

“Horry, put down that Daily Mail this instant. Horatio, I said now!”

“Please take that out of the trolley, Lavinia. I’ve told you what kind of people eat crisps.”

“George, run over and pop this little green token into one of those boxes. Nothing to do with the homeless or gypsies mind.”

“I just died when they offered me a Ferrero Rocher with my Bellini. Rough as tits it was. Rough as tits.”

“I told you they’re not people like us. Range Rover in the drive and a massive vat of Utterly Butterly in the middle of the buffet.”

“Oh, buggery botch wagons, Felicity. Do mummy a favour and run and get the organic quinoa before it’s our turn to be served.”

“Excuse me, do you stock the Earl Grey chocolate thins? I can’t remember for the life of me whether I got them here or at Fortnum’s.”

“I’d have a breakdown only I’ve got a facial booked for two o’clock.”

“Mummy, why are we getting Essential Waitrose carrots?” “They’re for the pony, darling.”

“The music teacher had the cheek to say that Eveline could do a Bach sonata at the end-of-term concert. I thought ‘Fuck this. I’m not paying through the nose for a piddling sonata.’ So I told him: ‘It’s the Elgar or nothing.’”

“No, the parking around there is horrendous, especially when the infants come out. I had to tell a couple of the new mums the other day: ‘Don’t parade around here in your Korean AWDs. This is Range Rover territory.’”

“Oh, she’s a jumped-up bitch all right but I brought her down a peg or two at the book club dinner. Imagine asking for chopsticks in a Thai restaurant!”

Overheard in Lidl: “Won’t be long, Felix. Just doing my Waitrose shop.”

And finally, Overheard in Aldi: “Hi, Tig. You’ve caught me in Waitrose despite the crap signal. Of course I’ll be at bridge tonight. Antigone, you know you can rely on me.”

READ PART ONE (IF YOU’RE STRONG ENOUGH)

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The magical day I played football for a World XI

Few amateur footballers get to meet their professional heroes, much less perform on the same pitch. But on one sultry Italian night, in the 1970s, I had the privilege of playing alongside arguably England's greatest post-war winger, in front of 10,000 spectators.

The unforgettable experience was courtesy of Eddie Firmani, the former Charlton Athletic striker and Italian international, whom I met when he was working as a PR for a life assurance company.

Once Eddie had forgiven me for admitting that my favourite Charlton player was not him, but his fellow South African team-mate Stuart Leary, we became friends and played squash and charity football matches together. He even showed me how to swing a golf club.

Over lunch, one afternoon in June 1973, Eddie told me he was taking a group of former England international footballers —including Finney, Newcastle United centre-forward Jackie Milburn, pictured right, and Tottenham's Welsh winger Cliff Jones — to Mestre, just outside Venice, to play in a World XI v Italy XI charity match.

"Why don't you come, too," Eddie said. "And bring your boots."

I thought he was joking but Eddie assured me wasn't. "Who knows," he grinned, "you might get on."

When we all arrived at Mestre Stadium, Eddie said it was okay for me to go into the Visitors' dressing room with the World XI players, and take part in the pre-match kickabout. I then sat on the subs' bench, marvelling at the speed and trickery of Finney, then 51, and the shooting power of 49-year-old Milburn.

I didn't expect, for a second, to play in the match, but, at half-time, Jackie Milburn plonked himself next to me in the changing room and said: "On you go, son — I'm bloody knackered."

So, on I went, announced over the Tannoy as: Robbie McGibbon, who once played for Scotland. And after the match, I was presented with a medal, confirming I'd played in a World XI.

I'm happy to say that Finney and I kept in touch and, as an in-joke between us, he signed his autobiography with some flattering — and totally unjustified — words about my performance in that game.

What a magical night! And what a gorgeous, modest gentleman Tom was.

I didn't appreciate the personal significance of  that night until years later when I was boasting about the match to former Express news sub Terry Ryle, who, as most of us know, is a Geordie.

Terry was so impressed he nearly knocked down the long row of cigarette butts lined up on his desk. "Good God, man," he exclaimed. "You substituted for Wor Jackie — our Tyneside legend!"

I'd honestly never thought of my appearance that way. But, after that, I told anyone who cared to listen!    

Where are they now?

Does anyone remember the Expresswomen in this cutting from 1982? Janet Kreiger worked for Struan Coupar and married Ray Williams, a sports sub. Ann Graham’s very good friend was Pat Falkender who worked for special offers editor, Mary Collins.

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Still dumb and even duller, Daily Mail’s pathetic film listings

By S MULDOON (Trainee)
The clamour has been cacophonous; the inquiries have been insistent; the pleas have been persistent. 

And now the Daily Drone is proud to proclaim that its most popular Muldoon series of recent times (Hang on! What about previous witty, incisive features such as Overheard in Waitrose, Last Train To Adelstrop, Muldoon’s Lookalikes? — Ed) has been brought back.  By popular demand.

Yes, it’s the Golden Age of British Cinema as seen through the prism of the piss-poor programme notes department of the Daily Mail’s Weekend TV listings supplement. 

Here, to its shame, the otherwise excellent magazine lets loose its numbskull “subs” on the oeuvre of Talking Pictures TV (Freeview, channel 81; Freesat 306; Sky 328; Virgin 445) and allows them to make an already crap post war B movie seem even more unattractive or to dumb down a classic movie to its banal basics (See here  for synopses for A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and This Sporting Life).

But that’s enough of the trailers. Reach for the popcorn. Snuggle down. Sit back and savour…

The Leaden Age of British Cinema (Part 2)

And if you missed it (shurely shome mistake) — Part 1

COMMONS IN STITCHES AS MPs TALK BALLS

Crikey! Croquet and crochet in the House 

By SPORTY MULDOON (Trainee)
ONLY the whisper of the decorous caress of fine bone cup on saucer disturbed the idyll as members of the House of Commons Croquet, Chess and Crochet Society celebrated the end of the season at a match on College Green. 

The game also marked the society’s decision to leave the European League to take part in a more lucrative global competition. 

Among the celebrity spectators was Diane Abbott (Hackney North) pictured showing characteristic sympathy for a player who has just fluffed a crucial Dambuster Double Bounce. 

Team coach David Lammy (Tottenham) demonstrated the power of subtle persuasion, explaining the difference between a Hard Banana and an Aspinall Peel.

Players and spectators were grateful for the calming influence of Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) as she cut up the half time oranges.

Meanwhile, shy, retiring Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) is shown gently exhorting team members to finesse a difficult Duffer Tice in an attempt to pull off a nuanced Dolly Rush.

Genial Barry told our man on the oche (Wrong sport — Ed): “After a hard week in the bear pit of the Commons there’s nothing nicer than relaxing with friends at a game of croquet. 

“Mind you, it’s a bit combative for me these days: I prefer a bit of cross stitch myself.”

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How Hickey ed Wilson saved this Fleet Street sculpture from crusher

FORMER Hickey editor Christopher Wilson has revealed how he saved an important sculpture from being destroyed.

The work, Three Printers by Wilfred Dudeney, is a misnomer as it depicts an editor, a printer and a news boy. 

It originally stood in New Street Square outside the Westminster Press offices off Fleet Street but now graces the sunken Goldsmiths' Garden in Gresham Street.

Christopher wrote on Facebook: "This day 50 years ago I came to Fleet Street as a young reporter. In one of the back alleys I explored in the following weeks, I came across this sculpture by Wilfred Dudeney — as far as I know, the only public monument to us and our trade. 

"A dozen years ago, after the diaspora, it was in pieces in a builder's yard and destined for the crusher. I saved it, and since I never became an editor, I count it as my greatest journalistic achievement. 

“I wanted it to be re-sited in St Bride’s Churchyard but Goldsmiths' belatedly decided to claim ownership — even though until I said ‘ Oi!’ they were content to let it go to the crusher.

"They were the landlords of New Street Square but the sculpture was commissioned and paid for by Westminster Press [a now defunct local newspaper group].

“We compromised because Goldsmiths' offered to have it restored at considerable cost in return for it being placed in their garden.

“Anyway, like us, it’s still around!”

The Goldsmiths' Garden is on the site of the churchyard and medieval church of St John Zachary, which was damaged in the Great Fire. 

The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths had acquired land in 1339, and built the earliest recorded Livery Hall. After part of the Company's property was demolished in WWII, the site was first laid out as a garden in 1941, redesigned in later years. 

The former churchyard is to the west, a raised garden with a number of gravestones and trees. Steps lead down to the excavated site of the church, laid out as a sunken garden with lawn, hard surround and seating against the retaining wall. 

The Three Printers sculpture, dating from around 1957, relocated there in 2009.

Westminster Press was sold by parent company Pearson to Newsquest in 1996.

EXPRESSMAN Ray King’s son Alex has completed a marathon ride from Croatia to Greece to raise money for desperate refugees.

Ray told the Drone: "Alex is living in Greece and has been helping at refugee aid centres in Athens and other places.

"To try to raise money for the projects, he recently joined other cyclists on a tough cycle ride across mountainous Albania and Montenegro to Greece (from Dubrovnik in Croatia to Igoumenitsa). 

"As you probably know, refugees are getting a raw deal from governments (and sometimes people) around Europe."

After completing the ride on 7 September, Alex said: “In the end, we cycled 670 km over six days and through four countries.  We climbed more than the height of Everest when you add it all up. Most days were 120-140 km with some pretty solid climbing. It was an incredible ride and pretty challenging.”

You can read Alex’s personal thoughts about the ride and why he took part (and you can also donate) at:

https://donate.helprefugees.org/supporters/alex-is-riding-600km-with-thighs-of-steel-to-raise-money-for-refugees/395/

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Stokes splash row puts skids under Sun editor

By POPBITCH
It's been a pretty indecorous week for the British Press all round, but The Sun's splash about Ben Stokes' historic family tragedy went down like a particularly cold cup of sick. 

Word around News UK is that the backlash has marked the card of editor Tony Gallagher for good – not least because the sports desk had been counselling bosses against the story throughout.

It's no secret that Rebekah Brooks has been gunning for Gallagher since Day Dot, but he's always been kept in position thanks to his closeness to Rupert Murdoch, who sees him as a politically safe pair of hands to helm the paper while Brexit gets sorted. 

But with an EU departure now on the horizon, this little misfire means that no-one at the Baby Shard is expecting to still see Gallagher there at Christmas.

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                     BAKER                             HODGE

Whoah! Freeze frame! Back a bit! A bit more! Is this spooky or what? Can it be that the late, great BBC newsreader Richard Baker has been reincarnated as Lord Hodge, one of the Supreme Court justices sitting in judgment this week on Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament? Are they actually one and the same man? No, stupid boy: they just look alike — Ed

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WAUGH’S ADVICE TO EXPRESS REPORTERS

Slope off to the cinema, smoke a pipe … then make a story up

EXPRESSMAN Geoffrey Mather, writing on his website about Brideshead Revisited, recalled an amusing anecdote about the book’s author Evelyn Waugh.

Quoting Waugh’s biographer Philip Eade he wrote: "Waugh spent several weeks ‘working' at the Daily Express. Having been fired in 1927 he gave advice to budding reporters.

"When assigned a story, 'the correct procedure is to jump to your feet, seize your hat and umbrella, and dart out of the office with every appearance of haste to the nearest cinema'.

"At the cinema the probationer was advised to sit and smoke a pipe and imagine what any relevant witnesses might say.”

We on the Drone reckon this was an excellent policy which was followed 50 years later by eager Expressmen, although at that time pubs were more de rigueur than cinemas.

And the moral? Never take work too seriously.

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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Alex Collinson unearthed this pic of trainee journalists visiting the South Wales Echo in Cardiff in 1967.

But he has lost track of his erstwhile colleagues.

He told the Drone: "I know Bob Warman had a lifetime career on Midlands TV and Peter Deeley’s name has cropped up as a sports reporter on radio [and as a presenter on LBC.] 

"As for the rest, who knows? The names aren’t in running order, by the way — that’s me on the right, though I wouldn’t recognise myself. I was a reporter for the Berrow’s Group, Worcester, at the time.”

Alex added: "I never did darken the doors of the Black Lubyanka during my years in Fleet Street, working variously at the PA, London Evening News, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mirror.”

The cutting is from The Journalist of the time reporting on on the NCTJ block release course based in Cardiff. 

Do you recognise anyone in this pic? Let us know if you do at dailydrone@mail.com

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From Hickey to Hardcastle, McEntee gets the diary date

FORMER Hickey editor John McEntee had good news for his friends on Facebook.

He wrote: "Today I signed a new contract with Daily Mail editor Geordie Grieg to continue as Ephraim Hardcastle in his esteemed paper.

"It makes me the longest serving gossip columnist in Fleet Street surpassing Seb Shakespeare, Ross Benson, Nigel Dempster Kenneth Rose and all the rest.

"From Londoner's Diary via Times Diary and Wicked Whispers to be the last William Hickey on Express and now succeeding my mentor Peter McKay as Effy.

"And who better to celebrate with than Barry Cryer at an Oldie lunch in Simpson’s-in-the Strand.

"Thank God for my health my children my grand children my Morven oh and Geordie!”

Paul Callan commented: “Congratulations John! I think I’m not far behind you. 

"My gossip column years are: Londoner’s Diary, 1965 to 1971; Daily Mail Diary which I started with Dempster as my Number Two, 1971 to 1973; Punch (for which I wrote a weekly gossip column), 1973 to 1975; Daily Mirror, Inside the World of Paul Callan, 1975 to 1982.

"That’s a total of 18 years at the coalface of gossip before turning to the relative purity of features and news colour."

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SALES continue to tumble at the Daily and Sunday Express, new circulation figures show.

The daily title suffered a 10 per cent drop and the Sunday fell by 11 per cent. 

Things were even worse at the Daily Star Sunday whose circulation dropped by a whopping 19 per cent.

The Guardian recorded the smallest year-on-year circulation decline among UK national newspapers in August for the second month in a row.

All national newsbrands are continuing to see print circulations fall, according to the latest ABC figures.

The Guardian recorded a year-on-year circulation drop of 5 per cent to an average of 128,265 copies in August.

The biggest year-on-year decline after the Daily Star Sunday was the Sunday People at 18 per cent.

The Sun remains the best-selling national newspaper with an average circulation of 1.3million in August, despite a 12 per cent drop.

The Daily Mail is close behind on 1.2million and has set new retail market share records for its weekday, Saturday and Sunday editions.

Daily Mail editor Geordie Greig said: “We’re delighted by these record results for Mail newspapers, which are an endorsement from our loyal readers that they value our commitment to quality journalism, through our exclusives, compelling campaigns, and the best-read columnists.

“The Daily Mail on a Saturday is the best-selling newspaper in Britain and every day of the week we have the most read supplements and lifestyle sections. We will continue to invest in journalism that positively reflects the country we live in.”

The Saturday edition of the Daily Mail has a bigger average circulation than the Sun by about 142,662 copies.

The free Metro has the largest circulation of any UK newspaper at 1.4million.

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Unique genius of  Cold War Steve 

DRONETUBE
THE RELUCTANT EDITOR

GARY JONES has brought decency back to the Daily Express by banning anti-migrant and anti-Muslim stories and ending the paper’s obession with dodgy weather stories.

But is this former Mirrorman the right person to be editing the paper? A lifetime Labour voter, Jones appears uncomfortable in the role in this 45-minute interview with Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy

                                   __________

BANGED OUT OF ORDER

                        ___________
COST-CUTTER MONTY ON THE MARCH AGAIN
Rommel is back and aiming for a blitz on our jobs

His name was Hawkey, Raymond Hawkey and he had designs on Bond and the Daily Express ...

RESEARCH by the Daily Drone has unearthed one of the forgotten stars of the Daily Express from the 1950s and 60s.

That man was Raymond Hawkey, design director of the paper from 1959 to 1964, who later designed acclaimed book jackets for Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and Len Deighton’s thrillers.

Clive Irving wrote in The Guardian after Hawkey’s death aged 80 in 2010: "I was features editor of the Daily Express when Raymond Hawkey arrived at the paper, which was then at the height of its success in the late 1950s.

"It is hard to convey to those who work in the relatively sanitised newsrooms of the digital age the bawdy zoo that was the editorial floor of the Express. 

"Banks of cut-and-paste subeditors yelled commands to the copy runners, a single backbench of senior editors shouted at the subeditors, muscular reporters bargained for column inches, and in a far corner of the black glass building was a bear pit of competing claims for the severely rationed space in the ‘soft’ end of the paper.

"In this Fleet Street madhouse Hawkey, who was always impeccably barbered, confronted visual barbarians. His title of design director seemed optimistic, since there was a rigid template of typography and page layouts, imposed from on high, that nobody had the power to circumvent. 

"But Hawkey chose to work in discrete elements, combining feature headlines and simple, strong images in bold panels.

"His style, which later came to full expression in his wonderful book jackets, was the first and one of the most consequential if furtive steps in the long and too-slow advance of newspaper design that eventually culminated in the transformation of The Guardian in the late 1980s."

Hawkey was design director of the Daily Express from 1959 before he was appointed presentation director of The Observer in 1964 where he led the design of its colour magazine. He died in 2010 aged 80.

In 1962, Hawkey was chosen by Len Deighton to design the cover of his first novel The IPCRESS File, which some regard as the template for the covers of all subsequent airport novels. He went on to design covers for Deighton's books, including Horse Under Water, Funeral in Berlin and The Action Cookbook (where the IPCRESS revolver reappears, this time with a sprig of parsley in the barrel).

Hawkey designed covers for works by many other authors, including the Pan paperback editions of James Bond published from 1963-1969, which the Financial Times described as having "a stark elegance ... consistently menacing and memorable. Each has a single photographic image on a plain or textured background. Blurb is dispensed with. It's the visual equivalent of a cruel, sardonic smile.” 

A key element was Hawkey's bold use of lettering — the sans-serif James Bond wording is far larger than the book title or the author's name. 

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WHO COULD THAT BE WITH OUR ALF?

Sunday Express legend Alf Lee was just strolling through Henley Regatta in his best bib and tucker when who should he bump into than our former Prime Minister Theresa May.

The pair exchanged a few friendly words before ambling off in different directions.

Jeremy Gates suggests a caption competition and offers: Alf Lee to Theresa May: “You might think you had a tough time, but I had to work for both Eve Pollard AND Charles Golding!”

Can you do better? Send a stamped, addressed envelope to dailydrone@mail.com

It would be no exaggeration to say that the Drone has not been inundated with entries for the caption competition. That dolt Muldoon did submit an entry but addressed it to himself and failed to include it in the envelope — which he sent without a stamp — Ed

UPDATE: An entry at last. This from RICK McNEILL: “It’s all right officer, I found her wandering around the champagne tent. I think she’s become separated from her party.”

The crisp oncer (it’s on an elastic band attached to Lord Drone’s wallet) goes to Rick.

EXCLUSIVE
HOLIDAY RELIEF NEEDED TO EDIT
MAIL ON SUNDAY

IS there any body out there who would like to edit the Mail on Sunday?

We only ask because the Drone’s mole in Derry Street reports that My Lord Northcliffe is struggling to find holiday cover for editor Ted Verity.

Verity is off on vacation shortly and they have had to haul Eric 'Mr Nice Guy' Bailey out of retirement to sit in the editor's chair because nobody else will do it.

Tobyn Andreae, the smooth-talking Old Etonian deputy editor, dislikes Verity and was given six months to go off and revamp Mail Plus. 

When the six months were up he refused to go back and is being found work elsewhere.  Another Daily Mail executive on secondment to the MoS has likewise refused to stay on, leaving Verity to fend for himself.

The Trump cables leak story, written by cub reporter Steven Edginton, which resulted in the resignation of the UK’s ambassador to the US, is either going to result in Verity getting the Scoop of the Year award, or possibly putting him in the dock.

Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, had a pop at the MoS on Twitter, which was most uncharacteristic, and surely where he leads other editors will follow in failing to support Verity.

Was it ever this bad at the Express? Definitely!

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Pattinson’s great moon scoop - and they didn’t even give him a byline

THE 50th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon was celebrated in July — and what better way to celebrate it than publishing this picture, described at the time as the Scoop of the Century.

Reporter Terry Pattinson showed ratlike cunning to secure the first pictures of the dark side of the moon for this great Daily Express front page, dating from 5 February, 1966.

Pattinson discovered that the Russians were using the same photographic technology as that used by newspapers, to send photos back from space. So he arranged for the Express to send the necessary machinery to the Jodrell Bank observatory from where the picture was snatched.

Terry has been dining out on the story ever since but he has been complaining on Facebook this week that he was not given a byline for his scoop. We think he has a point.

He said once that he would love it if his epitaph was ‘The Man Who Caught the Moon’. 

How the Express described that great lunar landing 50 years ago

The Cummings view

(Brought to you by the Grainy Pics Dept)

Thanks to Expressman Colin Simpson for these cartoons. Take a peek at afaranwide, the excellent Hong Kong-based travel website Colin runs with his wife Sue Brattle, HERE

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DRONETUBE

A day at the Daily Express in 1979

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BUTCHER'S HOOK-ALIKE
Putin raises the steaks

              SLAB OF MEAT                       MAD VLAD
WATCH out chums, those damned Russkies are everywhere you look, even in the butchery department of your local supermarket. That nice Mr Vladimir Putin seems to have his beady eyes on us. Don’t have nightmares!

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Um, just to let you know, it’s still a bit too long, could you cut from the end please love?

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Lunchtime O'Smooch

ON ME ‘EAD SON: Daily Mail diarist and former Expressman John McEntee receives some well-earned adulation from his son Paul after an expensive lunch at Ranald Macdonald Boisdale in London. 

Paul took this selfie outside Dirty Dicks although they hadn’t actually been in the pub. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. You know how it is after a good lunch ...

… and thank you for all the laughs, Mr Booker
THE Drone pays tribute today to Christopher Booker, first editor of Private Eye and the genius behind many of its jokes, who has died of cancer aged 81.

This cover of the magazine, dating from 1968 and featuring Enoch Powell at the height of the racism row that cost him his job in Ted Heath’s shadow cabinet, is acknowledged to be one of his best.

Booker founded the Eye with fellow Salopians Richard Ingrams and Willie Rushton in 1961. He was ousted by Ingrams two years later. 

Returning in 1965, he remained a permanent member of the magazine's collaborative joke-writing team with Ingrams, Barry Fantoni and current editor Ian Hislop.

Of his collaborative joke-writing, Booker said: "Over the years I have enjoyed some of the most hilariously pleasurable times I can remember in my life. Between us we have laughed our way through tens of thousands of joke items.”

The writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones regarded Booker as “near-barmy”, yet it was said without malice.

Times Obituary

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WE NAME THE GUILTY MEN

LOTS OF BOTTLE: Evening beers with the two Carols

Caricature of the Week

EXPRESS JOURNALISTS STAR IN THE GUARDIAN

THE work of two Daily Express journalists has been featured in The Guardian in a tribute to the illustrious past of the World’s Greatest Newspaper.

A fascinating collection of photographs taken by the celebrated photographer John Downing can be found HERE.

Reporter Kim Willsher visited the site of the Chernobyl disaster with Downing in 1986. Her eyewitness account is published HERE.

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SHOCK BBC OFFER
Don’t all rush, they’re only free for over-75s

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THE ETERNAL TRUTH

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EXPRESS CHIEF'S EXTRAORDINARY HOME MOVIE
Beaverbrook as you’ve never seen him before

THE Drone has uncovered an extraordinary home movie featuring Daily Express proprietor Lord Beaverbrook and the novelist H G Wells.

The silent film, filmed in 1924 at the peer’s home Cherkley, near Leatherhead, Surrey, takes the form of an amateur black comedy and also features the writer and feminist Rebecca West, who had a long affair with Wells and later reportedly with Beaverbrook. 

Beaverbrook, who died in 1964 and widowed in 1927, is pictured above wearing a top hat with some of the cast.

The film is fascinating also as a social document, revealing the mores of the time which are considered very politically incorrect today. 

You have been warned!

The film, entitled They Forgot to Read the Directions, runs for 20 minutes and there is no sound. 

Watch it here

POT, KETTLE? Former Daily Express news editor Mike ‘Porky’ Parry reveals his version of chivalry on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine Show

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How newspapers work 

Before last weekend, the last time that Liverpool won the Champions League was in 2005, reports POPBITCH.

A small group of reporters managed to cadge their way on to one of the club buses as it paraded around the city. While on the bus, one tabloid hack took a call from his editor who needed to know the size of the crowd cheering on the team.

Having no real idea, he blurted out "750,000" – and then suggested to all the other reporters that if they all just agreed to stick to that figure, they'd all be OK for the day. So they did.

The story came to mind last Sunday when the city of Liverpool was celebrating again. And how many people did the press think were out on the street?

Yep, you guessed it.

TWO talented stalwarts of the Daily Express in Manchester, Stan Welsh and Peggie Robinson, have died within days of each other.

Stan, famed copytaster and all-round good guy, succumbed to pneumonia on Wednesday, May 15.

Peggie, a brilliant news reporter, died on May 4, aged 97.

Jim Collins, a former Express sub-editor and a good mate of Stan described him as "one of those true journalists who made up the Daily Express’s backbench team in Manchester for many years”. 

Stan had been suffering from bowel cancer but eventually succumbed to pneumonia while in hospital. There will be an inquest.

His former wife Rita Welsh said it was a peaceful death in the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield.

Another friend, Mike Hughes, said: "Stan, who was in his early 80s, joined the Express in the late Sixties and soon became copytaster. 

"He stayed at the Express until production switched to London. He was also a Sunday Express regular.

"He had been active until recently, still going for a beer with former Express and Star colleagues living in Sheffield, including Peggie Robinson.

“Stan made his way to the Express, after National Service as a gunner and working for papers in East Anglia and Sheffield.”

Peggie, a highly-respected mountaineer and yachtswoman, was one of the few women reporters operating after the war and covered the Yorkshire Ripper case and the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

A Tynesider, she died in a care home in Sheffield after a long illness.

Two lost legends of journalism, by RICHARD DISMORE

Shields Gazette tribute

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EVEN BEEN FOXED BY A NICKNAME?

How editor McColl came to be known as Basil Brush (possibly)

               MR BRUSH                             MR McCOLL
Former Express and Mirror man TERRY PATTINSON has entertained his friends on Facebook with two great anecdotes about the Daily Express

I was once delegated to escort Tory Minister Norman Tebbit around the Daily Express building in Fleet Street.

Editor Ian McColl, not long out of Scotland, insisted on joining me although I knew the building like the back of my hand.

After showing Tebbit around the newsoom, picture desk, and fashion department, I decided to take him to the features writers' room.

As we walked down a long corridor McColl suddenly stopped and said to Tebbit: "This is the features department, accommodating the best writers in Fleet Street."


With a grand flourish he threw open the door.
 Out fell buckets, brushes and mops. It was a store cupboard.


McColl apologised and Tebbit said he had to 'get back to the House of Commons.'


I escorted Tebbit to his chauffeur-driven limo, parked outside the Express office.
 As he got into the car Tebbit said to me: "Why don't you Express chaps drink more lemonade?"


Private Eye loved the anecdote.
 After that McColl was dubbed 'Basil Brush.”

*But there’s no denying that McColl (my first DX editor) did look like Basil Brush — Ed

*****
True story. Freelance journalist Frederick Forsyth ventured into Fleet Street in the late 60s when he was 31 years old and tried to persuade the legendary Chapman Pincher (Daily Express) to look at his manuscript for a new book.

Pincher had asked his faithful secretary, Yolande, to get rid of the 'nutter' from the front hall (as we used to call people who dropped in without an appointment. Most were time-wasting nutters).

Instead, Yolande took Forsyth upstairs to meet the great man and made a pot of tea.
 Pincher was busy with his latest blockbuster exclusive and was as polite as possible before throwing the hungry freelance back on to the street.


Pincher felt sorry for Forsyth because, said Pincher, the proposed book had no chance of success.
 The book? The Day of the Jackal.
 The rest, as they say, is history.


Pincher revealed this anecdote in his autobiography published four years ago.

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The Day I had breakfast with Doris Day (sort of)

ROBIN McGIBBON remembers a chance meeting with  Hollywood superstar Doris Day, who has died aged 97.

In the mid-Seventies, when I was publishing books, I had breakfast with Doris Day, in the famous Beverly Hills restaurant, Nate 'n' Al's.

Well, not quite.

I was in a booth with a minor Hollywood film producer, Murray Silverman, when Doris came in, with a gentleman I didn't recognise, and sat in an adjoining booth, only a couple of feet away. 

My producer pal, who was not known for his shyness, immediately asked the actress if she would mind if he introduced me, "a famous publisher from London, England”.

In those days, I wasn't shy in coming forward either and did my best to live up to Murray's hyperbolic billing. Far from being irked that she'd been hijacked, with no escape, the enchanting Miss Day was charm itself — politely asking me about myself and my company for, at least, a quarter of an hour — before her (very tolerant) companion looked, again, at his watch and said they really must order.

Over the years, I've rarely missed an opportunity to boast of the morning I had breakfast with the legend that was Doris Day.

Well, I did. Didn't I? 

And look who met her too!

DRONE OPINION

WHY HAS THE DAILY MAIL HIRED THIS CARTOONIST?

WHAT is the point of the Daily Mail’s new cartoonist Paul Thomas? His drawings are just not funny, in fact they are embarassingly bad. Every day.

Thomas was hired to replace the brilliant Mac, Stan McMurtry, who retired last December. 

Yesterday he plumbed new depths by drawing a cartoon, pictured above, which not only isn’t funny but doesn’t make sense.

Does anyone get the ‘joke'? The Drone can’t explain it.

The editor should have taken Mr Thomas aside and whispered in his ear: “Could you have another think, old man?”

For that matter, the Mail On Sunday cartoonist Michael Heath isn’t much better either.

It’s a sad state of affairs when newspapers lose their sense of humour.

*An observant reader points out that the cartoon has a headline to which the answer is No.

Muldoon’s Lookalike

                  McENTEE                                BRADY
One is perceived to be playing a pivotal role in the future of this country with his subtle, sotto voce, behind the scenes advice and guidance; the other is the chairman of the 1922 Committee, a backbench group of Tory MPs. 

John McEntee and Sir Graham Brady may share the role of influential power brokers but they actually look alike as well.

Former Expressman McEntee, a leprechaun-like wit, bon vivant and World’s Greatest Lunch Club favourite, has just taken over the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column where he excels at writing short, witty and incisive observations of the events of the day (taking the pith, perhaps).

Sir Graham, a former PR consultant who edits the parliamentary magazine The House, has a genuinely important Brexit deadlock task in persuading the Prime Minister to “stop making a tit of yourself and piss off.” 

Isn’t life (and Muldoon) grand? — as McEntee’s guide and mentor Peter McKay was wont to proclaim.

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FREDDIE’S STAR QUALITY

 WE on the Drone are not particular fans of the comedian Freddie Starr, who has died aged 76. But this recording of him trying to mime to a broken tape shows him at his best.

Expressman ROBIN McGIBBON met Starr in the 1980s when he took the spiritualist Doris Stokes to the comic's Berkshire home for a Sun story about him giving the medium a horse.

Robin reports: "A Sun photographer had already arrived and Freddie nodded towards the kitchen, saying: 'Yer mate's in here — having a wank,' then ushered Doris through to his lounge  where they stayed, chatting, until Freddie was ready for photos, 40 minutes later. 

"The photographer and I weren't even offered a cup of tea. A funny man? Certainly. But coarse, rude and obnoxious, too.

"I went back to Bouverie Street with the snapper and typed the story in the Sun newsroom before trotting over to the Express for my afternoon subbing shift.

"Oh, happy days!”

THERE was dancing in the streets of Britain last night as Harry and Meghan announced the name of their newborn son. 

He will be known as Archie Harrison Tarquin Fin-Tim-Lin-Bin-Whin-Bim-Lim-Bus-Stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé Biscuitbarrel Mountbatten-Windsor. 

The long-awaited announcement broke some of the secrecy surrounding the royal birth.

This is not the first time there has been a clandestine element to the birth of a Royal baby, as former Fleet Street reporter FRANK BALDWIN found out when he door-stepped the Lindo Wing for the birth of Princess Anne’s first baby Peter in 1977.

A boot up the Lindo Wing

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Team who helped make the Daily Mirror great

THERE are some well-known Fleet Street faces in this picture of Mirrormen at the wedding of Tony Hatton in around 1971.

Sadly only four of them are still alive.

Pictured from left are: Alex Collinson, Phil Walker, Ted Graham (back), Ben Noble, Tony Hatton, Phil Bunton (back), Ron Pell, Vernon Rowe and Chris Evenden. 

So far as we know, the survivors are Alex Collinson (who supplied this picture), Ted Graham, Phil Bunton and Vernon Rowe.

Alex was with the Mirror from 1971 to 1988, starting as a news sub and graduating to production editor and group systems trainer. He later joined the Mail on Sunday finance section where he worked from 1993 to 2006.

__________

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

New King rises out of a crisis

__________

DAILY EXPRESS EDITOR CONFESSES

I TOOK COMMAND OF BRUTAL PAPER WITH
TORTURED HISTORY..
AND I COULDN’T SLEEP

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Retirement from the Daily Mail is music to the Ashworths' ears

WHAT  do two respected Daily Mail sub-editors do after being forced into retirement by that nice Mr Dacre? They get a life by creating a website full of nostalgia and great music.

Alan and Margaret Ashworth now devote their time to A & M Records, an online compilation of everything they love from Beethoven to Beefheart.

There are also clips from the old BBC radio shows like Take It From Here, Have a Go and The Brains Trust. There is even a Dog Track of the Week by Bingo Reginald Ashworth, the couple’s working cocker spaniel.

Alan told the Drone: "We now help out with the website The Conservative Woman and both write regular columns for it — myself on rock and folk music, Margaret on hymns and old programmes from the BBC when it was good."

Alan, a former Assistant Night Editor, and Margaret, who was Splash Sub, have a combined service on the Mail of more than 70 years. They live in the Ribble Valley.

You can enjoy their website here

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Two Mikes fall out in vicious Twitter spat

EXPRESSMEN Mike Graham and Mike Parry, who formed a popular radio partnership on TalkSport, have fallen out big time.

The origin of the dispute, which broke out on Twitter, is unclear but seems to be centred on comments in Mike Graham’s book On the Road which is due to be released next Christmas.

Their radio partnership broke up when Graham moved to host his own show in the prime mid-morning slot on TalkSport’s sister station TalkRadio. The programme is in direct competition with another morning chat show hosted by Expressman James O’Brien on rival station LBC.

Parry, known as Porky, co-hosts a TalkSport show with Alan Brazil which he bills as Alan and the Porkmeister.

The two Mikes met while working on the Daily Express in London. Parry spent some time as a reporter before being appointed news editor.

A passage in Graham's book reads: 

"The problem for Mike Parry was that he wasn’t actually very bright. He was fifth in the pecking order in his own office. He was despised by every photographer he ever worked with and was universally known as a man who couldn’t be trusted.

"Aside from that his time in New York was uneventful. He broke no stories, he came up with no great features and in London he was treated as very much the junior.

"When he met me he became very chummy. He asked me to feed him all the news that I found out about for a very substantial fee that he could pay me for the Express.

"I liked him at first. It took me a while to work out that he was a complete bullshitter.”

Cynics have wondered whether the entire affair has been engineered to publicise Graham’s book. 

EDUCATING ARCHIE: According to Wikipedia, Mike Graham’s first name is actually Archibald but, of course, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. 

The tweets below give a flavour of the spat.

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Fleet Street between the wars

George Davison Reid photographed this uniformed messenger boy crossing Fleet Street in London some time in the late 1920s and early 30s. Such boys often went on to become photographers or journalists themselves.

The picture looks west up the street towards the Law Courts and The Strand. The church is St Dunstan-in-the-West which has stood on Fleet Street for 180 years. Close by is the Bristol Times and Mirror building.

 Below is the scene today. 

__________

                                            _________

The Daily Express, best policy for a healthy life

__________ 
NEWS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

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Inside story of how Daily Star’s Page 3 models went tits up

Lord Drone is obliged to his gossip friends at POPBITCH for the following dispatch ...

The Daily Star's move from Richard Desmond's stable of smut to Trinity Mirror's more right-on empire has been a surprisingly seamless transition. 

But behind the scenes, at least one huge change has been made. Last week, topless models disappeared from the Star’s Page 3 – and they're not coming back.

The fact that the change was slipped out with zero fanfare suggests that management was hoping to get away with it without anyone noticing. However, when nobody actually did notice, it got them even more worried. 

Some of the Star's long-suffering staff fear that the reason there hasn't been a resulting media storm means that no-one's actually reading their paper any more.

Never fear, chaps! We saw what you did – and we're here to pay tribute to the end of a British institution and some of the stars that Page 3 produced.

__________

EXPRESS JOURNALIST FOUND HANGED AFTER   GRIM 17-HOUR SHIFT

Daily Mirror newsroom 1953

Even our elderly benefactor Lord Drone struggles to identify anyone in this view of the Mirror newsroom taken in Coronation year, 1953. 

The chap pictured centre in the bow tie looks very much like David Thompson, current Life President of the Association of Mirror Pensioners, but it isn’t him as he confirmed last night.

He said: "Doppleganger reporting. No, not me. But I was involved in the Coronation, reporting local events for the Mansfield Reporter and Sutton Ashfield Times and then starting National Service.” 

Revel Barker added: "I have a vague recollection that one of them (and I couldn't even guess which) was Joe Grizzard, who was on the back bench as a rising young star, perhaps even around that time.

"You need somebody to contact Hannen Swaffer — a committed spiritualist, he was still around then, and will still be online, somewhere. You could get him via Doris Stokes."

__________

Bottoms up Down Under

IT’S an unwritten law that when old Fleet Street hands get together they end up in the pub.

Expressman Roger Tavener and his old chum Allan Hall carried on this fine tradition when they met to discuss old times in Sydney’s Lord Nelson, allegedly Australia’s first pub.

Roger wrote on Facebook: “Very excellent to meet up with foreign correspondent and author Allan Hall in the Lord Nelson.

“After 35 years (we were kids) it ended as it must. He fell asleep on a ferry and had to be woken by a friendly deck hand.

“I fell asleep on a bus (what’s a bus?) and the driver woke me. Mr Uber got me home. A very lovely Fleet Street day in Oz.”

__________

Sucker for a chukka

A TRIBUTE TO HECTOR BREEZE IN THE TIMES

THE Times has paid tribute to Daily Express Pocket Cartoonist Hector Breeze in an obituary. 

Breeze, who died last December at the age of 90, was appointed 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.

Times Obituary

__________

Lament for the death of the gossip column

DAVID LISTER, a writer and columnist for The Independent, has written a masterly account of the slow demise of the Fleet Street diarist, including the death and resurrection of the William Hickey column in the Daily Express.

The rise and fall of the Fleet Street diarist

__________

A song to strike a chord with all long-suffering newspaper journalists

(CONTAINS SWEARING)

__________

LEVY’S GOLDEN FIFTY

Former Daily Express and Daily Mail star features writer Geoffrey Levy has celebrated 50 years of marriage with his wife Stephanie … and Alan Frame was invited to the Golden Wedding party of his old friend.

Levy’s golden day

_________

__________

C’est Jim sur le TV

Your eyes do not deceive you, this is Sunday Express sub-editor Jim Humphries appearing on BBC Breakfast TV. 

Jim, who has lived in the Dordogne region of France for the past 15 years, was interviewed  about his attitudes to Brexit with a fellow villager in Corgnac-sur-L’Isle.

As you perceive from his expression he is not keen on it. Jim said he was worried about continuing to receive free health care after he had undergone three recent operations in France.

__________

Expressman David Laws gets full-page treatment

Long-serving Expressman David Laws is busily publicising his latest novel Brexit Day, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the Bury Free Press in his native Suffolk.

The paper gave David the full-page treatment with an interview with writer Barbara Eeles.

The book, a thriller, involves an out-of-favour journalist who tracks down a group of spies intent on sabotaging Brexit — and an assassin who is stalking the Prime Minister.

It’s a cracking read and is available as an ebook or paperback on Amazon. BUY IT HERE

___________

SIR — Your organ rightly points out that the answer to any headline with a question mark at the end of it is invariably 'no’. 

Ernie Burrington, when night editor at the Mirror decades ago, would attest to the truth of this by citing the following  classic  example (from the Daily Herald, I believe): Is this the face of Christ in the sole of a cobbler's boot?

My question is: Is there an earlier or more absurd example?   Silly me. The question mark provides its own answer.

Yours etc

CONFUSED of Epsom

__________

Sir — I was intrigued to read in your mighty organ the reference to “the face of Christ on a cobbler’s boot.”

This may be an offshoot of a similar miraculous apparition which is indeed linked with the late, great Ernie Burrington, with whom I worked on both the Daily Herald and The People and who was mentioned in your item

Ernie was chief sub on the Herald when they published an astonishing picture showing the face of Christ in a patch of snow. This picture remained in the Odhams library and was occasionally exhumed to make appearances in The People when Ernie was deputy editor. It invariably produced a torrent of letters from readers who had spotted the face of our saviour in a variety of alternative settings including a pancake and a bar of soap.

Regards

PLAIN JOHN SMITH

__________

GREAT TIMES: The Observer has republished a fascinating piece about Fleet Street watering holes written at the time the paper left for new pastures in 1988. The picture shows the conviviality continuing despite a power cut.

READ IT HERE

____________________

LOOKALIKE (DON’T HAVE NIGHTMARES)

VIZ

_____________________ 

CARTOON EXTRA

PUBLISHER Reach increased its revenue by more than £100million last year following its acquisition of Express Newspapers.

New figures showed income rose to £723.9million in 2018, with an adjusted profit before tax of £141.9million, both numbers up by 16 per cent year-on-year.

The company, formerly Trinity Mirror, also increased its cash pot for dealing with phone hacking cases by £12.5million last year.

It spent £9.6million of the more than £70million provision in 2018, with £13.6million remaining. The publisher has faced more than 100 civil claims for historical phone-hacking carried out on the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People.

Reach made an operating profit of £145.6million last year.

However, the company, which owns the Mirror, Express and Star titles plus the Sunday People, posted a pretax loss of £120million last year after writing down the value of its goodwill, publishing rights, titles and buildings, against a profit of £82million in 2017. Excluding the writedown, it made a profit of £141.9million.

According to its full-year accounts, the company is on track to deliver at least £20million of savings by 2020.

The company said it had made £3million in “synergy cost savings” in 2018 as it cut out duplication across the Express, Star and Mirror teams, with up to 70 national newspaper redundancies falling over the 12 months.

A further £20million in cuts was the result of “structural cost savings”.

Reach made up to 140 people redundant in its regional newsrooms in 2018 under its strategy of building separate print and digital regional teams, Press Gazette has reported.

The company’s net debt is at £40.8million, with a pension deficit of £348.6million.

In a statement alongside its accounts for the year, the company said: “Subject to there being no significant adverse implications arising from the UK’s exit from the European Union, we are confident that our strategy will enable continued progress to support profit and cash flow.”

Simon Fox, Reach chief executive, said: “I am pleased with the performance we have delivered in 2018 and encouraged by the stronger finish to the year.

“We have begun 2019 in a strong financial position with good momentum on the integration of Express and Star and with clear plans for digital growth.”

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