One of the first books about journalism I read was Evelyn Waugh's classic novel, Scoop. And 82 years after it was published, Scoop is back.
This time, the author is not the long-dead Waugh but the much alive Terry Pattinson. Closer to 80 than 70, he not only rattles off a stream of gags and one-liners on Facebook but has found time for a hugely entertaining book charting his rise (or descent?) from the Blaydon Courier to Fleet Street.
From those honourable origins in local paper journalism in the North East of England, he went on to work for the pre-Murdoch Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror.
Terry's book - Scoop: a life in Fleet Street, to give its full title - was written during the first lockdown, the sort of project most old reporters want to embrace but are too lazy, or too pessimistic, to bother with. It's a great read even if I am unsure how much journalists' memoirs appeal beyond family, friends and their confreres and consoeurs.
I know the author less well than I knew Bill - later Lord - Deedes, Waugh's inspiration for the character of William Boot in his 1938 novel and the editor of The Daily Telegraph when I was hired from the Press Association (PA) in 1977.
Terry was already an experienced and successful national newspaper reporter by the time I met him. He had moved on from general news to cover industry for the Mirror. I occasionally ran into him and his unmistakeable Geordie accent when my PA job took me to big trade union meetings in London; he cheerfully admits that he has no recollection of meeting me.
In Scoop, version 2020, he describes, often in amusing detail, the many successes and rare failures of his career.
One notable triumph was his work to expose the miners' leader Arthur Scargill's unorthodox stewardship of union funds. A close friend of mine despises Terry as a result but I believe him to be wrong.
Scargill was a vain man and a poor leader - the 1984/85 strike should not have happened without the ballot union rules demanded - and had a capacity for vindictiveness. At one big strike rally in South Wales, he pointed contemptuously at those of us penned in a highly visible press area and mocked the National Union of Journalists for its donations to struggling miners and their families; "don't send us your shekels," he thundered, "stop telling your lies." (For my own part, working for the Conservative Telegraph, I had good working relations with Welsh NUM officials, as well as the National Coal Board and the few strike-breakers, and never stooped to "telling lies".)
Despite the ease with which aggrieved parties traditionally take money from newspapers in the courts, Scargill did not sue. The NUM refused to bankroll a libel case.
But Terry was not anti-miners, not anti-union and not anti-Labour. Far from it; his own background was working-class and modest and he was a solid NUJ man. Yes, he became a Brexiter but I am afraid the same can be said of plenty of other misguided or misled Labour supporters. And his efforts in the so-called "Scargill Affair" won him a Reporter of the Year Award.
Another success, extravagantly billed as the "scoop of the century", resulted from his discovery in 1966, through dogged inquisitiveness, that the Russians used the same technology as newspapers when flashing photographs back to Earth from space. Thanks to Terry, the paper he then worked for, the Express, was able to send the necessary equipment from Manchester to Jodrell Bank and capture pictures of the "dark side of the moon".
The scoops came at a steady pace. And some came to nought, as when he charmed Ava Gardner into sharing a stream of revealing thoughts that included her undying love for Frank Sinatra and bitterness at film-makers' "encouragement" to avoid having children. Unfortunately, Terry was bound by a deal between the Express's William Hickey gossip column and the actress's publicist that only a picture and some tame quotes, of the "I love London" variety, would appear.
Along the way in Scoop, we meet royals, celebrities and rogues, not the least of them the former Mirror owner Robert Maxwell, whom he terms a "monster".
Terry describes his trade and mine with affection and humour but also candour. He introduces a sorry parade of reporters who succumbed to alcoholic excess, got caught fiddling expenses or cheated on partners. He admits to a few drink-fuelled episodes of his own, though it is clear he was always in control and able to work tirelessly for his editors.
There was precariousness in the lives of newspapermen and women but when times were good, they could be fun. If we do not always emerge with flying colours from Terry's anecdotes, his own standards of honesty were high.
This book will fascinate other journalists and, yes, anyone interested in the ways of the popular press. It would have been a greater read still had Terry been able to put his words past a decent sub-editor, who would have spotted occasional repetition of detail and misplaced apostrophes, but that is a minor quibble.
Bill Deedes's successor as editor of the Telegraph was Max, now Sir Max, Hastings. Max would not have regarded Terry, any more than he did me, as a fine writer in the Waugh mould. He would nevertheless have admired his tenacity and story-breaking skills.
From Tyneside to what Private Eye still calls the Street of Shame, though it has always had nobler moments, back to local journalism (the Slough Express was lucky to have him) and as a worthy amateur playwright, Terry made his mark.
In 1962, working in an employment exchange in Newcastle, he announced that he had found a job as a cub reporter. The manager was dismissive, warning that all but a couple of newspapers would soon be gone. It has taken a little longer than his boss expected but as Terry completed more than half a century in journalism, he was forced to the conclusion that the prediction was coming true.
All the same, news gathering continues, even if it is far too often desk-bound. The method of delivery is changing but the world still needs the men and women who ferret out information that is in the public interest to share. Terry Pattinson did his ferreting for print and he served his trade well.
* Scoop: a life in Fleet Street was self-published. A signed copy can be obtained directly from Terry at his email address. The book is also available at Amazon. All profits are destined for foodbanks and SHOC, a Slough-based charity for the homeless charity
** Terry is a passionate if these days armchair supporter of Newcastle United, also known as the dark side of thy Wear-Tyne divide. He might easily have chosen more wisely: "My parents sent me to school in Sunderland when I was 12 (until 17) and my first two jobs [in the Civil Service] were in Sunderland. I lived in digs in the Roker area and watched the red-and-whites many times. See this interview.
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