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 DAILY      DRONE

LORD DRONE’S MIGHTY FLEET STREET ORGAN,

 THE WORLD’S GREATEST ONLINE NEWSPAPER

CONTACT THE DRONE



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QUOTE OF THE DAY

‘Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is’
— Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 yesterday

CARTOON OF THE DAY

Matt Wuerker, Politico

LABOUR LOOKALIKE

BINGO                                          MILIBAND

Great headline Kelvin, but 

it nearly got me beaten up

BY GEORGE DEARSLEY

Watching the brilliant BBC crime drama Sherwood brought back a frightening memory. The show is set in a former mining village and repeatedly flashes back to the miners' strike of 1984. 

I was in Nottinghamshire one day for the Daily Star, covering a visit by miners' leader Arthur Scargill, the day most national papers had printed an inflammatory picture of Scargill apparently making a Nazi salute. Every paper, except one, ran the picture. 

The exception was The Sun, where sympathetic print union members refused to publish the image because of editor Kelvin MacKenzie's clever but crass headline: MINE FUHRER. 

The striking miners were incensed by the general negative Press coverage and when a group saw me they decided to take revenge. I would have suffered a severe beating had I not been about 400 yards from a police station. 

I might have beaten some sprint records but the cop shop saved me. Dangerous times.

Revel Barker

One of the great characters of Fleet Street, Revel Barker, former Sunday Mirror foreign editor and later Mirror Group managing editor, has died at his home on the Maltese island of Gozo. He was 79.

Revel also ran the Gentleman Ranters website, a rival to the Daily Drone which originally chronicled Fleet Street memories but later switched to writing about whisky. 

MORE DETAILS

The crazy night Expressmen Terry Pattinson and Harry Dempster failed to get the Royal Picture 

of the Year — Princess Anne in a mini-skirt helping to bump start her boyfriend’s car 

FULL STORY

Bugged by MI5, Percy Hoskins
of the Express

PERCY HOSKINS of the Daily Express was one of the great crime reporters of  his age. He was so well thought of that Lord Beaverbrook provided him with a rent-free flat in London’s Park Lane.

Hoskins, pictured, who died in 1989 aged 84, had a huge contact list which was the envy of Fleet Street. It was said of him: “If you are in trouble, you should call Percy before your lawyer.”

Now a fascinating story in Press Gazette has revealed that in the early 1940s, Hoskins was bugged by MI5 who were concerned by the stories he was producing, often connected to the war effort, black marketeering, information about captured spies, and inside knowledge about the flight to Britain of Nazi Rudolph Hess.

READ THE STORY HERE

The Road to Perdition

By Helena Handcart

NEW

He’s the man everyone wants to talk to. No, not him. Mohamed Fayed’s former spin doctor, the extravagantly tressed Michael Cole, that’s who (see various columns by my colleague and, dare I say, guide and mentor, A.Frame). According to Popbitch, Cole has been rebuffing journos who have trekked to his Suffolk farmhouse by asking them to come back another day because he has to visit the vet to have his cat out down. 


The son of a toolmaker told the Labour conference: ‘We’re hand-in-hand with business.’ A bit of a way to go, though. Indeed, some top execs were so pissed off with the £3,000-a-head business day in Liverpool that they want their money back. According to The Times, they complained they had to watch speeches on screen, spent ages queuing for a drinks reception and had minimal time to schmooze ministers.


A Russian missile, said to be ‘the world’s deadliest weapon’ has blown up on a launch pad 500 miles north of Moscow, leaving a huge crater and damage to roads and buildings, reports the Telegraph. The Sarmat RS-28, known as Satan-2, has a range of 11,100 miles. Its 16 warheads have an explosive yield 50 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. 


The increasingly sceptical Guardian devotes space to readers’ letters critical of our new Government and the freebies the man who puts the tool into toolmaker has snaffled. ‘Makes you nostalgic for Michael Foot’s donkey jacket,’ reminisces one, misty-eyed.  


A famous Two Ronnies sketch is being re-written in the light of recent events, writes Yogi Baird our TV Reporter. New version: Four candles, please. Fork handles? No. Four candles: Reeves has stopped my winter fuel allowance.


Perky Tom Peck in The Times, reviewing the latest Maitlis interview extravaganza on telly, praises Michael Sheen for portraying Prince Andrew as so pompous, arrogant and absurd that he could almost be him…’if only he could just be a a tiny bit more pompous, arrogant and absurd.’


Chris Patten, then governor of Hong Kong, expected a bollocking when Tory big beast Michael Heseltine, on a visit, requested a private word.  Patten told the Barnes BookFest how he braced himself.  Finally,  Hezza said: ‘I don’t want to hurt you…but you’re not pruning your bonsai properly.’


A hunter has won Florida’s annual Python Challenge by trapping and humanely killing 20 Burmese pythons from the Everglades. Prize? As many boots as he wants out of the skin.


Drone columnist A.I. Dismore’s favourite pizzaiolo makes the fifth best pizza in the world, according to a mystery diner ranking by an Italian culinary organisation. Napoli on the Road in Devonshire Road, Chiswick, was praised for its ‘melt-in-your-mouth’ pizza texture and ‘very high digestibility’. Global winner was Una Pizza Napoletana in New York’s Lower East Side.


A cat lost from a camper van in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, has been picked up two months and 900 miles later trying to find its way home, reports AP. Rayne Beau (geddit?) was identified by microchip after being found still 200 miles from its owners in California.


The Cure, which for ages has been teasing fans about fresh output, has finally come up with a new song after 16 years. ‘Alone’, the lead single on a new album, Songs of a Lost World, premiered on BBC 6 Music.


Poundland has withdrawn a children’s jumper because it spells out the word KNOB on the front. It was supposed to feature the 80s US boy band New Kids On The Block but, hey, it’s only a literal. Poundland says: ‘We have reported this to our Quality Assurance Team.’


Octopuses bully other sea life into collaborative hunting, says a new study. German boffins diving in the Red Sea witnessed  a blue octopus lead a pack of 10 goatfish swooping on mollusks and other small fish. It was also seen ‘punching’ members of the group for slacking and blacktop groupers which attempted to freeload.


TheThingsTheySay: ‘Yvette Cooper paddles about ineffectually in the Channel like a five-year-old who has lost her Mr Men armbands.’’ — Rod Little, ST.


StatsLife (or Death as the case may be): 55% of Republicans in the States have a gun at home; 20% of Democrats, a figure that is increasing steadily.


TitleTattle (books’ original names): Men Who Hate Women = The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. 


HeadlineOfTheWeek: ‘Police Admit They Have Nothing To Go On In The Hunt For Sussex ‘Phantom Pooper’. — Standard.

Observer sale: Staff are the last to know

Jaws dropped at Guardian HQ  when news began to circulate that Tortoise Media was in talks to buy The Observer, reports Popbitch. The paper’s blindsided staff were hauled into a meeting with management just moments before its competitors began reporting the news in their own outlets.

As for the rest of the Guardian Media staff, they found out about the proposed deal not from any official email, but from TVs beaming Sky News into their newsroom.

REVEALED: Robot Weekly

DON”T say we didn’t warn you but the first edition of the weekly London Standard features not only an AI-generated picture of Sir Keir Starmer on its front page but also a column ‘written’ by a dead man.

The cover features a disclaimer saying: “Image of Keir Starmer created by AI.” The picture accompanies a feature about London’s potential as an AI capital, written by political editor Nicholas Cecil. It fits what Paul Kanareck, the Standard’s interim chief executive, revealed about the title’s intentions to experiment with AI.

And just as your non-stop super soaraway Daily Drone predicted, the mag features a review of the current Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery written by AI in the style of the newspaper’s former art critic Brian Sewell, who died in 2015.

LETTERS

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT

Online boss Hunt named as new Express editor

THE new editor-in-chief of the Express newspaper titles has been named as online editorial director, Tom Hunt. He has been with the Express for more than eight years in a variety of senior roles and led the title’s first team devoted to video.


Hunt, pictured, said: “I’m honoured to be taking on this role and to build on what the team has already achieved. In the last year, the Express has infiltrated Just Stop Oil, shown how TikTok and Instagram are aiding Albanian people smugglers, captured the effects of a new drug destroying lives on Britain’s streets, and exposed an ISIS terror plot to target Olympics and Wembley.”


He added: “There is a huge opportunity here which I’m excited to take further, both digitally and in print, particularly as we cover Labour’s first months in office and see out a Conservative leadership contest.”


Hunt will replace outgoing editor-in-chief Gary Jones, who has stepped down from the role he has held since 2018.


Staff at all Reach titles fear that big changes are planned following the departure of Jones who clearly did not leave his post voluntarily.


Jones said: “It’s been a privilege to have served the readers for so many years. Long may they continue to value and cherish the journalism we publish. I have tried my level best to continue in the great campaigning traditions of the Mirror and Express and would like to offer my appreciation to the colleagues, politicians, organisations and individuals who have shared my passion for bringing positive change.”

PRESS GAZETTE CATCHES UP

How much I dislike 

the Daily Mail

By Brian Bilston


I would rather

eat Quavers that are six week’s stale,

blow dry the hair of Gareth Bale,

listen to the songs of Jimmy Nail,

than read one page of the Daily Mail.


If I were bored

in a waiting room in Perivale,

on a twelve hour trip on British rail

or a world circumnavigational sail,

I would not read the Daily Mail.


I would happily read

the complete works of Peter Mayle,

the autobiography of Dan Quayle,

selected scripts from Emmerdale,

but I couldn’t ever read the Daily Mail.


Far better to

stand outside in a storm of hail,

be blown out to sea in a powerful gale

then swallowed by a humpback whale

than have to read the Daily Mail.


Even if

I were blind

and it was the only thing

in Braille,

I still would not read

the Daily Mail.


Stand and Deliver

By Hermione Orliff

NEW TODAY

As we collectively tremble ahead of Rachel Reeves’s first Budget, you’d think less of me if I didn’t remind you of another Labour Chancellor’s monumental fuck-up at the turn of the century. Yes, Gordon Brown sold the UK’s gold reserves at an average price of $275-$276 an ounce. Latest price? Ahem, a record $2,708.70 an ounce.


England’s ODI captain Harry Brook may be a brilliant player but does he worship at the altar of the Spirit of Cricket? He is accused of time-wasting to engineer a draw in the rain-affected final match to tie the series against Australia. Some members of the Drone’s Third XI even question whether he went to the right school but what do they know? (Especially about winning — Ed).


Michelin star? Not always a guarantee of success or longevity for restaurants, says The Economist. Researchers analysed New York eateries which opened between 2000 and 2014. Those that won a star were more likely to close than those that didn’t. Suppliers and landlords tend to use the award as an excuse to raise their prices and chefs are more likely to be poached by rivals.


The marvellous Maggie Smith, who has just died at 89, was famously grumpy. Michael Palin once said: ‘Maggie in a bad mood is clearly a few degrees worse than anyone else in a bad mood.’ When asked if she’d like to take one of her hits, Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, to Broadway, she replied witheringly: ‘I wouldn’t take it to Woking.’


Coca-Cola’s new flavour, Spice, has hit it out of the park. Yes? Er, no. It’s been pulled from the shelves after just six months because neither you nor anyone you know was remotely interested in it.


The existence of Mozart proves the existence of God, as Old Aunt Marje Rambleshanks used to say. So what a thrill that a previously undiscovered work has turned up in Leipzig 233 years after his death. The 12-minute Serenade in C was composed when Mozart was aged between 10 and 13.


The pilot of a small aircraft  forced to make an emergency landing blocking a highway in Wyoming was completely unfazed. He told motorists: ‘I’ve got the tools right here. I’ll just open it up, figure out what’s going on and get her fixed.’ He tinkered with the engine for a few minutes…and then took off.


A 1,000-year-old seed discovered in a cave in the Judean desert in the 80s has DNA links to a tree which, although lost today, was mentioned in the Bible, says ILF Science. Boffins nurtured the seed over 14 years until it grew into a 10ft tree related to the Frankincense and Myrrh family.


A top Chinese economist who, rashly, criticised Xi Jinping’s handling of the country’s economy in a private group chat has… disappeared, reports The Wall Street Journal.


New York Mag’s Political Reporter Olivia Nuzzi has been put on leave after disclosing an ‘emotional and digital’ (sic) relationship with former independent presidential candidate RFK Jr.


TheThingsTheySay: ‘The ancient splendours of Downing Street, as heir of Pitt, Wellington, Disraeli, Gladstone, Lloyd George and Churchill, mean little to him. He is an uninteresting man, scuttling about in vast, echoing halls and chambers built for far bigger people.’ — Peter Hitchens, MoS, on the toolmaker’s son. (They said the same about Attlee — Ed)


Is England reversing the trend on obesity? New NHS data show that the number of overweight children has fallen to the lowest since 2000; obesity in adults has been stable for five years.


SportSpot: São Paulo FC raised the ante before their Copa Libertadores tie against Botafogo by hiring a blimp, emblazoned with the words ‘Vamos São Paolo’, to fly over the city. Ahem, it crashed into a house and then they lost the match on penalties.


UntouchedByHumanSub: Britain Braces For 400-Mile Wall Of Water And 50kmph Gusts — Express Online. (Not only mixing miles and kilometres but 50kmph — 31mph in real money — wouldn’t even disturb the editor’s syrup) 


TitleTattle (books’ original names)  The Last Man in Europe = 1984.


HeadlineOfTheWeek: ‘Rizzle Kicks’ Jordan Stephens Flaunts Exclusive £50 Lidl Croissant Handbag In Greenwich’ — Mirror

News in Brief

Guardian Media Group is considering a sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media after reporting rising losses for the last financial year. The company reported a fall in revenue for the year to 31 March 2024 after a four-year growth streak, although digital reader revenues were up by 8%. The publisher said the 2.5% year-on-year drop to revenue of £257.8m reflected a “market slowdown in advertising and sustained structural pressures on print”.


The Guardian has agreed a two-year pay deal that will see the salaries of most of its journalists increase by 3%, backdated to the start of April. The deal will apply to all Guardian News and Media staff on permanent or fixed-term contracts who are unionised via the National Union of Journalists chapel.


The BBC’s Clive Myrie was paid at least £66,000 by police, financial services industry and others, reports Press Gazette as full details of the corporation’s journalist outside earnings for July 2023 to June 2024 were revealed.

WHO FLUNG FLAN: Watch out Pottsy, he’s behind you! Picture editing courtesy of Drone Laboratories

Custard Pie Corner

2 PAUL POTTS

By ALASTAIR McINTYRE


IF there is a face most deserving of the full custard pie treatment it is that of Paul Potts.


He was parachuted into the Daily Express as political editor in the late 1980s and became deputy editor to Nick Lloyd. It was reported at the time that Potts was liked by Mrs Thatcher who recommended him to the chairman, Lord Stevens.


The trouble was he wasn’t up to the job and had poor interpersonal skills. He was shaky on news values and hadn’t a clue about newspapers. Potts was responsible for making the edition late more than anyone else at the time — and there were quite a few candidates.


Just when a page was ready to go, Potts would appear red-faced from the ‘executive suite’ and instruct the Night Editor to rip it up. This indecision happened night after night with scant regard for deadlines. 


Potts went on to head the Press Association and at least made some success at that, turning the agency’s fortunes around. This allowed him to jump on the executive bandwagon and he was made a director of Times Newspapers. Astonishingly, he was later made a CBE (that’s one below a knighthood) and is now retired.


POTTS MAKES THE FRONT PAGE





Drone howling: nul points

The smug pride on Alastair McIntyre’s face says it all, he has received high points from fellow news sub and good friend Bob Smith.


The trouble is we  can’t quite remember what the contest was. The pic was taken at night (the clock says 11.23pm) in the Daily Express London newsroom in the late 1970s. 


It could be the Jack Atkinson Howling Competition in which contestants yelp  some of the chief foreign sub’s sayings, such as ‘HERE DOWN PLEASE’ or ‘I THANK YOU MOST KINDLY’. (Atkinson, a collector of antique guns, once threatened to use one on McIntyre). Alternatively it could have been a vowel howl. 


In the background, the less important work of completing the third edition is proceeding.


How different it must be to newsrooms today where subs don’t wear ties, let alone a monocle. Mostly, they work from home in their pants. 

LOOKALIKE?

PRESTON                                       STARMER

Sir — I note the astonishing resemblance of Sir Keir Starmer to Preston, the evil mechanical hound who featured in a Wallace and Gromit adventure.

Can they possibly be related?

ARDMAN FAN

No, me neither — Ed

THE GREAT HOLE OF FLEET STREET

By JUSTIN COCKLECARROT, Legal Editor

AFTER years of being the famed home of national journalism, Fleet Street is to become a major legal centre for the City of London.

The redevelopment of Salisbury Square, opposite the old Express and Telegraph buildings, will include 18 courtrooms and will combine all the Square Mile’s existing courts— except for the Old Bailey — into one building and become the new headquarters for the City of London Police.

A ceremony to mark the “bottoming out” of the basement has taken place, marking out the completion of the deepest excavation phase of the project, reaching 18 meters deep between Whitefriars Street and Salisbury Square. This milestone was achieved by excavating 62,270 cubic meters to form a three-storey basement.

No pubs were affected in this massive development, the Drone was assured last night.

Sex scandal which led to Lloyd Turner’s outrageous sacking

THE Monica Coghlan affair of 1986 is a more-or-less forgotten scandal today. But readers of the Drone remember it well.


CHRISTOPHER WILSON is one of them and recalls his part in the affair in which Lord (Jeffrey) Archer had given a prostitute called Monica Coghlan (pictured) £2,000 through an intermediary to leave the country and say nothing.


The subsequent libel case led to the grossly unfair sacking of Daily Star editor Lloyd Turner, a superb operator, after the paper claimed (correctly as it later turned out) that Archer had had sex with Ms Coghlan.


EDIFICE OF LIES

AUGUST ABCs

Star Sunday sinks below CityAM

The Daily Star Sunday now has a smaller circulation than the free City AM for the first time since the business newspaper launched 19 years ago.

The average Daily Star Sunday weekly circulation fell by 2% month-on-month and 16% year-on-year in August to 66,994, ABC figures show.

Sunshine, crab sandwiches and a banned book on the beach

People tend to forget that it was possible for the editor to contact you on holiday before the advent of the mobile phone. The drill was to provide the office with the telephone number of the place you were staying (although many of us conveniently forgot to do this).

ALAN FRAME almost choked on his crab sandwich when a messenger arrived at his Devon cottage with a red hot copy of the banned book Spycatcher.


HOTTEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Garth Pearce tells all, 51 years on

A trawl of the internet looking for a pic of Percy Hoskins (of which more later) has uncovered an excellent piece by reporter Garth Pearce about his early days on the Daily Express in 1973.


This is of particular interest to many of the leading lights of the Drone who joined the Express at the same time.


Garth, pictured, tells of meeting reporter Frank Howitt on his first day after getting the job following an interview by a carpet-slippered managing editor Eric Raybould.


And dear old Norman Luck was on hand to instruct the new boy on how to fiddle (sorry) fill in his expenses.


Those were the days!


Read Garth’s piece on Press Gazette here

Ludgate Circus 1896, when the shit shovelling was a little different

By ORSON CARTER

HERE’S a pic of journalists’ old stamping ground that we haven’t seen before. It’s Ludgate Circus looking up Fleet Street in 1896. Little has changed in the intervening 128 years — apart from the horse-drawn carriages.

It is so atmospheric you can almost smell the horse manure but whether that was preferable to today’s diesel fumes is a moot point. It just shows the area is no stranger to shit-shovelling.

And just fancy that — there is still a clock in exactly the same position today.

TERRY MANNERS reports: Interesting to see the picture of Fleet Street in 1896. There may have been horse manure but at least you could cross the road. Here is an engraving by Gustave Doré of a traffic jam in the Street 20 years earlier. Dung wasn't the real problem then, it was the horses themselves. They often fell dead on the job and their bodies would be left for weeks to rot so that they could be easily cut up later and taken away, because they were often too heavy otherwise. 

Ah, those were the days … pubs, good humour and silly japes. Didn’t we veteran hacks have a wonderful time in the old Fleet Street?

This pic of the celebrated journalist Hannen Swaffer and chums was even before our time in 1955 — he’s the one in the mask and the fag. 

The photo was published along with others in 1988 by The Observer which was about to up sticks and retreat from Fleet Street.

Fortunately, the piece, which chronicles the old pubs of the Street of Broken Dreams is still available and can be viewed HERE

Raising a glass to the pubs of old Fleet St

Fleet Street through the ages

ROGER WATKINS has been rummaging through his dusty drawers again and found his collection of pictures of the Street of Shame. There’s a few that we haven’t published before so we’re putting the lot up on the Drone for old time’s sake.

THE WATKINS COLLECTION

How the mighty is fallen

The iconic Daily Express building in Fleet Street is looking a shadow of its former self as this pic taken by NICK PIGOTT proves. A massive redevelopment has left the Black Lubyanka high and dry.

The photo is taken from the rear of the building which is not the structure many of us worked in. This was demolished in the 1990s leaving only the listed foyer which was so impressive.

Nick said: “No printing presses, no composing room, not even a Poppinjay! I kinda felt sorry for it; it looked so small and vulnerable.”

LUBYANKA TO RISE AGAIN


A Harrowing thought …

Sir — In your re-run of the Observer piece on Fleet Street pubs I was interested to see our old pal, Terry Manners, pictured perching on a stool at the bar of the Harrow.

It was obviously during his Boulevardier-Bookmaker Phase.

He still has that jacket, I’m told, but nowadays only wears it in the garden when there’s a nip in the air.

POPPINJAY, EC4

It looks more like Keith Waterhouse to me — and isn’t that Gill Martin and Susie Boniface at the bar? I think we should be told — Ed 

BARRY GARDNER adds: The young lady sitting (centre) looks remarkably like Patsy John, the unrivalled and superb Evening News newsdesk secretary who helped kick-start the Fleet Street careers of many young reporters. Great personality who epitomised the fun days of news-gathering.

ROGER WATKINS asks from his armchair: Is that Osbert Lancaster serving behind the bar? It isn’t Jean. (This passes for a Watkins ‘joke’ — Ed)

JEFF BOYLE remembers: Great pic of  the 'Backarrer' as we Mail subs used to call the tiny back bar of our watering hole, The Harrow, taken a few years before my defection to the Express. The guy serving the drinks may look like Osbert Lancaster, but is in fact barman Len, whose dulcet tones at 11pm always rang out: 'Haven't you fucking lot got homes to go to?' Ah, memories. 

1966 and all that: Picture 

that sparked memories for an 

old Folkestone Herald hand

There’s a few familiar faces here — Bob Smith, John Fox-Clinch and Nigel Lilburn — three fresh-faced young men at the Folkestone Herald in 1966 who went on to have successful careers on the Daily Express. The pic brought back memories for junior reporter CHRIS WILLIAMSON, (now aged 75) who has related them to the Drone.


Bob Smith said: ‘What memories from Folkestone. The girl behind me is Marianne Hewson who later became my (briefly) fiancée. George “Wiggy” Rayner was an ancient part-timer who subbed the cinema listings etc. He had been gassed in WW1 and was completely bald hence his hideous ginger wig. 


‘Poor old George had a teeny issue with alcohol and used to pour lighter fuel on to cotton wool, tuck it in to his cheek and suck it during those difficult times when the pub was closed. He used to smoke and I always thought that one day he would breathe out as he lit up and incinerate himself.’


THE GREAT FOLKS AT FOLKESTONE

ORIGINAL DRONE STORY

Fond farewell to Phil Durrant

TRIBUTE: Henry Macrory rereads the eulogy he delivered at Phil’s funeral, watched by Mike Snaith, Lynne Bateson, Penny Meyrick, 

Viv Watts and Charles Garside

By THE EDITOR

A WAKE to celebrate the life of former Sunday Express production chief Phil Durrant drew a huge turnout at Fleet Street’s Punch Tavern on Wednesday.

Phil, who died aged 73 earlier this year, had not wanted a fuss, a fact that was ignored by the dozens of friends and colleagues who drank to his memory.

Those who attended included Dick Dismore, Craig Mackenzie, Deborah Stone, Nick Dalton, Stewart Kershaw, Andrew Waller, Bill Dickson, Chris Shearer, Mike Hughes, Tony Boullemier, Jenny Hjul, Ken Parker, Viv Watts, Steve Usher, Ray King, Colin Simpson, Jon Smith, Jim Cassells, plus many others whose names I have forgotten or can't recall. Apologies to them, I blame the beer.

The wake was organised by Phil’s widow Helen and Peter ’Stewpot’ Steward 

to whom thanks must be paid for a splendid buffet.

STEWPOT’S TRIBUTE

Brian’s 3,500 miles of smiles thanks to the Daily Express

The smiles say it all — this was delighted Daily Express reader Brian Barnett and his wife Doreen celebrating in New York in 1958 after winning two seats on a flight in the newspaper’s competition.

The flight was on a new BOAC Comet 4 jetliner which cut the transAtlantic travel time dramatically.Brian, now 88, said of the flight: “It was the most exciting day of my life. It changed my life.”

BARRY GARDNER has the story

Look, this is getting silly …

NO, NO, NO!

MailOnline, where else?

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.


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