Guy Rais, with another former Telegraph colleague, Wendy Holden, now a successful author
Stop Press: Guy Rais deserved an outstanding obituary and it now appears (bravo David Twiston Davies, its author) at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11713530/Guy-Rais-journalist-obituary.html. Not all the comments you see below were sent to Salut!, but appeared at Facebook, in e-mails or - in one case - at the Telegraph site. I hope their authors agree it was fitting to "import" as many as possible.
Media being part of Salut!'s beat, no apology is necessary for an item that will probably interest only journalists, along with any stray readers who happened for one reason or another to come across my friend and former colleague Guy Rais, who died yesterday at the wonderful old age of 95. I have added, I hope without objection, some of the tributes I have seen elsewhere ...
Last night, two kilometres from the Mediterranean, I swam beneath a splendid full moon as memories took me back 37 years to another place by the sea, Minehead.
It was the occasion on which I worked most closely, and over the longest period of time, with the wonderful, irreplaceable Daily Telegraph character, Guy Rais.
Much more than a reporter, Guy had a warm, exuberant and ever-so-slightly bonkers demeanour that made him a Fleet Street institution of his own. Yesterday, July 1, I received an e-mail from Kelly Scott, as saintly as newsdesk secretaries come, that began: "Guy Rais passed away peacefully today with his daughters Sandra and Karen by his side."
Our presence in the Somerset resort at the end of 1978 was to report on committal proceedings against the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, accused of incitement and conspiracy to murder, the intended victim - or so the Crown alleged - being a male model, Norman Scott, with whom he had allegedly had a fling.
The woefully flawed prosecution case got its comeuppance at the full Old Bailey trial, but the pre-trial committal was a major event in British politics, effectively - and despite the later acquittal - ruining Thorpe's career.
For three weeks or more, with reporting restrictions unexpectedly lifted at the request of a co-accused, the astonishing story - or at least the prosecution's version of it - unfolded. And, free of the usual restraints on publication at this stage of criminal proceedings, the whole of the British media from the local weeklies to the BBC, recounted the story in all its fascinating if at times sordid detail.
I was the Telegraph's "district man", the reporter covering the South West of England (as well as South Wales). Since we had expected the hearing to be unreportable, save for its basic details and outcome, my role was to take full notes and send exhaustive accounts of each day's proceedings to be filed at the newspaper's offices for use when permitted.
If I was the artisan, a more senior reporter, R Barry O'Brien, was the artist. He was sent from London to contribute fine writing, "colour" pieces about the phenomenon that was the Thorpe committal and how it had taken over a seaside resort out of season.
All changed when counsel for George Deakin rose to make his application. Every word would now be reportable. I rushed from court to alert the head office, pressing our shared press bench ticket into Barry's hands as I fled. And head office duly sent Guy to Minehead to make our duo a trio.
Day after day, we took turns to sit in court, take copious notes and then head for the home of a former magistrate who had agreed to let us use her house as our office. I hope not even the CPS or Operation Weeting detectives would regard her remuneration for this innocent service as misconduct in public office, though I cannot be sure.
On the occasion of Thorpe's death last year, I recalled Minehead and described Guy as "that one-off marvel of Fleet Street's finest days".
I stand by that phrase. To appreciate Guy and his ways, it was necessary to work with him, as I did on many occasions.
He had an almost theatrically bombastic approach, loud stage whispers in court cases to reveal his own assessments of witnesses' evidence, legal submissions and the interventions of judges. He would pretend to be hard of hearing; in more than one courtroom of the land was heard his question, "what did the the silly old weaselbag say?". Once, a judge heard such a remark and, recognising its author from many previous sightings, invited Guy to sit beside him on the bench to ensure he could follow the proceedings more clearly.
Another judge, displeased by some mid-trial coverage by a Sunday tabloid, exploded at Monday's resumption of the case: "The press ought to be boiled in oil ... though I naturally exclude my friend Mr Rais from this comment."
It was impossible to dislike Guy, even when you were working for another news outlet - I first met him when I was a reporter for the national news agency, the Press Association - and he would fire off questions to the other journalists on what they had chosen as their "intros" or introductory paragraphs.
He was also exceptional company, as I found nightly in Minehead when the day's work was done and large groups of journalists, and sometimes others involved in the hearing, would meet for dinner, necessarily accompanied by generous servings of wine. Guy was not then a big drinker, certainly by old Fleet Street standards, but was always superbly entertaining.
Guy, well into retirement, at a Telegraph leaving party (Pat Clarke, formerly chief of the Press Association's Old Bailey reporting team, at his side
Even into retirement when he would pop into the offices, by then relocated to the Isle of Dogs, to invite friendly faces young and less young out to lunch, where he would cheerfully fork out for champagne. Once or twice, he'd also met the obituaries editor to update the detail of what would be published upon his death.
It is important to note that even the Thorpe case, big as it may have been, was just another story for a man who had covered the Great Train Robbery, coups d'état in Africa, war in Algeria, US troop landings in Beirut and much more besides.
Another unforgettable fixture of the old Telegraph, Roly Gribben, who recently retired after continuing to contribute to the business pages until the age of 80, wrote a charming tribute on Guy's 92nd birthday - see it in full at the much-missed Gentlemen Ranters site: http://www.gentlemenranters.com/page_325.html#rg220 - which included this priceless paragraph:
"He scooped the world with a powerful interview with General Jacques Massu, de Gaulle’s ally, during the Algerian conflict and was rewarded by having it on the font page of Le Monde. Furious French reporters took their revenge when they used Guy’s bowler – the identification for a neutral – as a pissoir."
But my favourite recollection comes from one of the many e-mails I have seen in response to news of his death. In its entirely quirky way, it captures the Guy Rais so many of us knew.
"The first time I met Guy I was the youngest Fleet St reporter (I think) aged 21," wrote Celia Haddon. "He drove me back from the story singing 'I am a mole and I live in a hole' repeatedly all the way. I didn’t know what to make of it except that I liked him a lot."
I look forward to what the Telegraph of 2015 will make of the life of one of the paper's legends, unknown except by reputation to most now working there in these greyer times for national newspapers.
Rest in whatever mischievous, rascally peace suits you Guy.
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