Anne Shelley RIP: a warrior queen of the English language

From the spring edition of Quest, the journal of the Queen's English Society, I learn of the death of Anne Shelley, a former chairman and, when our paths crossed, vice-president.

The news is a little old. She died in August last year. However, Quest has just arrived and happens to be the bearer of that news for me.

The journal includes an obituary, written by one of the current vice-presidents, Michael Plumbe, who applauds Anne's insistence that the QES should always have people available for interviews with the media.

It has become deeply unfashionable to care about the way we express ourselves.

Teachers, or some of them, struggle with basic spelling. A few tell their pupils not to worry about apostrophes. There are daily assaults on correct English in the newspapers, on the radio and on the BBC, ITV and Sky.

I make plenty of my own mistakes. My friend, Julian Young, an exemplary sub-editor, is usually quick to correct those that appear here. Yet media management convinces itself sub-editors are barely necessary any more.

Anne would have none of it. She rebuked anyone who described her as the society's "chair", insisting she was "not there to be sat on". I was belatedly persuaded to allow spokeswomen when I had a say on the style used by The National, the English-language newspaper published in Abu Dhabi, but I always advised journalists that even if they objected to "chairman" for a woman, there ways round its use - eg "Mrs Shelley, who chairs the QES" - without resorting to the ugly variant of "chair".

For a personal tribute to Anne, I shall allow a speech I made, at her invitation, to the 2003 annual meeting of the QES to speak for itself. I was, then, employed by The Daily Telegraph as its executive news editor.

Here is the relevant passage from the speech:

Towards the end of last year, we received a short communication from Anne Shelley.

Many more letters are sent to the Telegraph than we ever have room to print. Whenever possible, the letters editor will reduce his or, as is the case at present, her burden by passing on items to other people around the building so that they can deal directly with the matters raised. Often, I am seen as such a person, especially where the correspondence concerns relatively minor complaints that do not require the attention of the editor or, more ominously, the lawyers but can usefully be resolved by a polite exchange of letters.

On November 26 2002, Anne innocently opened her copy of the Telegraph to read with horror an article headlined "The girls who drink until they drop".

The report began: "One in 10 women has drunk themselves unconscious, according to a survey that confirms the 'girls behaving badly syndrome'.''

This is what Anne wrote: 'The effect of your serious and rather alarming article was somewhat spoilt by the opening sentence. I realise that "his or her" has been superseded by "they" but as the gender of the subject is known, surely you could have writen `One in ten has drunk herself unconscious'. Why not use correct grammar and more elegant English if it does not involve pandering to political correctness or other modern trends which are considered "acceptable"?'

Now this was not, as I am sure most of you will know, the first occasion on which Anne Shelley had taken issue with a newspaper's incorrect use of English. I read her letter and replied _ here I rely on memory _ in the following terms: ``Thank you for taking the trouble to write. I completely agree with you. The introduction to the story should have been written as you suggest, or been changed by the sub-editor.''

I really saw nothing unusual in the nature of my response. To Anne, so accustomed to smart-alec or lazy dismissal of her efforts to prevent assaults on the English language, my words came as a revelation.

A few weeks later, the journalist whose prose had caused the initial offence came to me with a heartwarming story. She had been helping out on the telephones during our annual phone-in to raise money for the Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal. The person sitting beside her had taken a call from Anne Shelley. She had made a very generous donation to the appeal, explaining that this was her way of thanking us for our conciliatory response.

We can learn two lessons from this episode. One, which should hardly need emphasis, is that courtesy costs nothing and can bring rewards. The other is that not even a newspaper that likes to place itself among the finest in the English-speaking world is above making mistakes.

Anne lived to be 93. I am sure she would have seen that as a good innings. I would like to think her repose would be untroubled by further abuses of the English language. If that is unlikely to be the case, it may be rather as a doughty warrior would have wanted it.