We all have fond memories of people we have worked with, alongside ... people we heard about but maybe never got to meet. People we maybe didn't get on with easily or even like too much. People we did like and wanted to help or better still, people who liked us and wanted to help us make advances ... People. That's one of the things which made working in newspapers for so long worthwhile. A bunch of people I remember ... journalists, compositors, lino operators like Harry Gould who never as I can remember had a smile on his face, but who knew words - how to spell them and what they meant. A walking dictionary or even thesaurus ... a smart arse, yes, but he deserved some respect. He kept many of us right in those Spectator days. Later, there were more people/characters to get to know and enjoy ... We feature one today: Ivan Lambert. He and me only met briefly and only exchanged passing greetings ... He comes to mind because I was sent the illustration by someone who did know him well and still manages to make it a fond remembrance, if that's the right way to put it ... Ivan spent the night at his friend's 'residence' and the following morning departed, leaving the drawing and the scribbed note which tells its own tale ...So, here's to memories of people we have worked with and still like to remember ...
I thought a sewer was someone who sewed patches on clothes and darned socks.
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 17, 2012 at 05:46 PM
At last others are coming to share my passion for sewers and sewerage! As publisher of a civil engineering magazine I was heavily into this stuff.
Sewers are the pipes, sewerage implies the entire system which includes sewers, junctions, inspection points, pumps and other things which spring into action after one pulls the chain or presses the lever.
May I crave the Blogmaster's indulgence by re-posting the following as previous attempts did not work. Perhaps they were electronically flushed away (groan).
Half a century ago the old police courts, now preserved, offered a fine prospect of Victoria Square. On the right was Churchill House, then Belfast's tallest building, on the left Louis N. Davis, purveyor of Armstrong Siddeley motor cars, centre was the Jaffe Fountain, and conveniently alongside was that masterpiece of the ironfounder's art, the Victoria Square public toilets.
Cast-iron curliques cascaded in profusion, and ferrous fronds decorated the GENTLEMEN sign. Inside, brass and copper pipework entwined like pythons, massive porcelain stalls enfolded the poorest aim, while the sound of gently tinkling water in the background encouraged one's efforts. These days my own ancient plumbing requires no such encouragement ... but I digress.
The iron panels forming the outer walls were like lacework, with a multitude of tiny holes so one could see out, but passers-by could not see in. Alas the magnificent old loo became the city centre trysting place for gentlemen of a certain inclination, who were all too willing to accept new members to their club.
The Wolfenden Report of 1959 had recommended that homosexual practices be permitted between consenting adults in private, and this recommendation was passed into law. But not in Northern Ireland, which held out for many years until even the great Doctor's efforts to Save Ulster from Sodomy were in vain.
When complaints increased -- I myself was accosted once or twice on my way from court, so they must have been pretty desperate -- the police took action. But the advance from Musgrave Street was easily spotted and the clubbers drifted away or formed an innocent line-up along the stalls long before the arrival of the pounding boots. Sergeant Tom, whose surname I can't remember, led several raids which were (groan) fruit-less.
One day the dock was almost filled with men on indecency charges, while Tom and his team looked like the cats who had got the cream. It transpired that they had used one of the new-fangled street sweeping machines as a stalking horse, creeping along behind it to pounce as it passed the lavatory door. After that the club posted a lookout, which Sgt Tom countered by visiting in plain clothes to block the door while his uniformed team lurked around the corner. On one occasion he borrowed a van to disgorge his raiders into the doorway. The game was still going on when I left the BT in 1968.
I read a few years ago that the old convenience was removed for preservation when the Square was redeveloped. If it ever goes on display I'll bet this story will not be on the information board.
Posted by: Michael | January 17, 2012 at 05:56 PM
Cal: Surely you are talking about a darner? Darn this hole. Darn this split. Darn cheap clothes.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 17, 2012 at 08:11 PM
Yes, Chris, you're damn (darn?) right there. Sew be it!
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 17, 2012 at 09:10 PM
Michael, above, says he's re-posting a message that didn't work. But it must have worked first time, or else I'm psychic. I'm sure I read all that (Victoria Square loo, the Wolfenden Report, etc) a week or more ago. But I'm too lazy to scroll back.
Posted by: Smyth | January 18, 2012 at 04:17 AM
Sorry I've been having posting problems which our faithful Blogmeister has sorted for me. Thanks John.
Notice the 0417 post. Copyboys never sleep.
Posted by: Michael | January 18, 2012 at 08:55 AM
Meant to put a note up last week: the death has taken place of a man ex-Belfast Telegraph sub editorial staff certainly will remember. Harry McVeigh. It is sad to note his passing, but he was the man who was FOC of the NGA in the Belfast Telegraph at a time when things in newspapers were changing, or at least there was talk of things changing. Harry led his colleagues in the NGA out of the building in a dispute with management ... the NGA never came back into the building which led quickly to journalists writing on computers and editing and designing on computers (there was a period of copying and pasting in the old composing room with non NGA staff). In his own way, he helped make history ... after that NGA strike, the BT was never the same paper again.
Posted by: JC | January 18, 2012 at 09:15 PM
I remember Harry, and the NGA. He was one of three (?) NGA men who became journalists through an enlightened scheme that the BT brought in. Roy Winter and Jim Stokes were the other two converts who became respected colleagues in editorial.
Historic times, John. More than 30 NGA walked out - the deal was a pay cut and no overtime to keep your job. Only about a dozen came back on those terms. The we had the 'Apple tarts', girls who were quickly trained on Macs to do ads and all sorts of stuff that the NGA did.
As FOC for the NUJ, I could not compete with my NGA counterpart, who could stop production in a flash and who allocated overtime etc.
Posted by: Derek Black | January 18, 2012 at 09:38 PM
Maybe I got it wrong about Harry switching to editorial.....but we do remember him well. Sad to hear of his demise.
Posted by: Derek Black | January 18, 2012 at 09:59 PM
Harry was never a part of the editorial dept. He continued to work for the NGA after the strike, but in later years I do not know. Roy and Jim were respected and well liked and good editorial colleagues in news/features and sport. The 'apple tarts,' as you call them, were quicker at learning computer skills than some reporters and subs and taught us quite a bit. My thanks to them ... after a training session with them I was left to 'get a feel for the system' and managed to switch it off entirely, causing them to search and rescan and retrieve adverts and other items that they thought I had erased ... Oh, happy daze (sic).
Posted by: JC | January 18, 2012 at 10:47 PM
One of the big local stories today was about improved redundancy offers to older teachers. Not a word on the Belfast Telegraph website despite it being one of the lead stories on the BBC. Poor show!!!!
Posted by: Fred Hoare | January 18, 2012 at 11:35 PM
The reason the story is not on the BT web site is because the editor Mr Gilson has decided that some stories are not to appear online to 'protect the paper ...' ... in other words you have to buy the paper to read some of the big stories. Bizarre, but true.
Posted by: JC | January 19, 2012 at 09:39 AM
Fred - days of free papers on the web might be coming to an end - at least that is what the proprietors hope. Expect more 'pay walls' in the months ahead. Guardian is supposed to planning to charge in near future. Maybe they will offer a discount depending on the number of typos!
Posted by: Derek Black | January 19, 2012 at 10:31 AM
OK... so it was not on the website to entice readers to buy the paper.That was yesterday. It's not even on the website today.
Mike Gilson, the Belfast Telegraph editor told the Leveson Inquiry yesterday 'that the internet meant that his journalists now reached a wider audience.'
I don't think so!
Posted by: Fred Hoare | January 19, 2012 at 02:21 PM
Especially not with the record low circulation at present and falling.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 19, 2012 at 03:12 PM
"Sunday Independent" on Sunday ran a long feature about Van Morrison - his movements, his reclusiveness, his recent bereavements. "Belfast Telegraph" ran the same feature word-for-word on Tuesday.
Posted by: Graham | January 19, 2012 at 03:32 PM
And a lot of rubbish it is too!
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 19, 2012 at 03:37 PM
I don't understand the "Belfast Telegraph's" logic about keeping the teachers story off the internet. If it was a BIG story elsewhere, then others will have it - people consume papers, radio, televison, internet - many nowadays, all of them!
What the BT should be keeping off the internet are those hard-to-get investigative stories, plus columnists, features - (though not secondhand features like the Van Morrison one mentioned above)
Posted by: Graham | January 19, 2012 at 05:27 PM
NGA FoC Harry McVeigh 's passing was a reminder of how quickly the tide of progress can engulf what appears to be an immoveable rock, and of my time on both sides of the stone. I admired NGA solidarity, but they lost my regard one morning when they stopped the NL because they didn't like an anti-Labour cartoon on the front page.
Photoset was already in operation when I left the NL in 1984, copy being typed into punched tape machines by the former Linotype operators. Output was photoset in galleys which were cut and pasted onto page-size cardboard, as were pix in PMT format. The finished page was then photographically converted into the plate.
It was said that instruction manuals were missing their outside covers because they were titled Editorial Typesetting System. After David Wyke emigrated to Canada in the late 1970s he told us that journalists there had used such editorial systems for years.
We started our magazine using the traditional method, but self-employment soon teaches one about costs. We paid dearly in cash to have my own copy retyped, and in time wasted to correct the literals next day, or even the day after, never mind the 24-mile round trip to Holywood. After our first year we moved to another printer offering the Pageplanner system under which I could set my own copy on a PC provided I joined the NGA, which I did. We took copy on floppy disc to the printer who ran out the galleys. We collected the type next day and made up our pages on a lightbox in the new office which we had built above our garage.
In 1986 we bought an Apple Laserwriter, cost £4,500, needed two men to lift it. Its Postscript system enabled us to print complete A4 pages ready for camera though the PMTs still had to screened by a graphics firm and pasted in. The PC display was green type on a grey background. In the makeup program the heads and columns appeared as green blocks. WYSIWYG was years ahead and required more memory. Our £800 PCs had only 250kb of memory and memory cost £1000 per Mb, today it's a few pence.
In 1990 we bought our first Apples with QuarkXpress, enabling onscreen makeup under WYSIWYG. Our first scanner was an A4 Arcus costing over £2000. (Today our Canon Pixma scans better quality at 10 times the speed, prints and photocopies as well, and cost £48.) Items of new kit paid for themselves in 12-18 months but the biggest saving was in time.
In 1993 Apple distributor CEM invited us to try their new demonstration studio with A3 scanner and phototypesetter. We took them at their word, starting at 0830 and being thrown out by the cleaners at 1830. Before the end of the week we had Ireland's first electronically produced magazine. By then our earlier printers had gone bust and the highly skilled trade of the comp, especially the Lino operator, had gone forever.
When we retired in 2002 we could sell ads on Saturday, make up over the weekend to deliver the issue on a CD at 0600 Monday, Impro our excellent printer in Dargan Road would output direct to plate, and we had a pallet of mags on Tuesday.
I still can't get over the changes in less than 20 years, and who knows what comes next? My time on both sides of the fence gives me a feeling that the print industry, and maybe journalists, could be engulfed as swiftly and as surely as were the stalwarts of the NGA. I hope I'm wrong.
Posted by: Michael | January 20, 2012 at 02:52 PM
One of the great things about the "new" technology is not having to talk to miserable copytakers. Some of the most miserable bastards who ever drew breath worked in the copyroom - along with some superb people. I remember when covering the hunger strike the Manchester Mirror copytakers refused to take my copy because I was London based and the London tossers refused as well because I "should have been filing to Manchester." In the end I dictated to a Copyroom overseer who was a decent bloke. On another occasion there were a few bombs - very little by NI standards - in London and the Inkies, who were working three floors BELOW ground in what was virtually a nuclear-proof bunker demanded danger money for coming to work while the reporters and photogs out on the streets got sweet FA. And, yes, the Inkies got their money IN CASH. Here's another one: The wiremen and darkroom printers decided they would black pictures and copy filed from staffmen on foreign jobs via agencies. They insisted a wireteam should accompany the news/features team, staying in the same hotels and, of course, being on overtime for every night away. At the same time Pilger and Eric Piper were going to somewhere like Cambodia, another reporter and photog were pencilled in for a rather nasty job in Africa and I was due to go to Beirut with a photog. Management duly consulted the managers of the wireroom and darkroom saying they needed teams to accompany us. Guess what? The buggers soon changed their minds. We went as normal, filed as normal and they didn't do a thing to stop us. They hastened their own demise and my heart pumps nothing but piss for them.
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 20, 2012 at 08:58 PM
Hear! Hear! The people described by Alastair above sowed the seeds of their own demise. Looking back, it seems unbelievable that greed and contempt could foster so much stupidity, albeit camouflaged as ideology. Many of the current generation of journalists have forgotten (if aware at all) how these pestiferous print unions handed Times Newspapers to the unsaintly Murdoch. Is anyone puzzled that one of the most active of those union leaders was hired as chief negotiator for the NUJ?
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 21, 2012 at 10:49 AM
Spot on as usual Cal. The Inkies holed the Sunday Timrs, sickened Thomson, who were benevolent owners, and handed the lot to Murdoch. The only good thing from that is they got their come uppance at Wapping but the real tragedy is the collateral damage to journalism that has festered there since. Not much more of this old boy. Point. End par. Ends.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 21, 2012 at 12:02 PM
Bought my first computer in early Eighties. It had a dot matrix printer. NGA refused to set my copy saying they had no agreement on new technology. So bought a daisywheel printer which produced copy just like typewriter. No problem with the NGA. A lot has changed since then.
Posted by: Derek Black | January 21, 2012 at 12:23 PM
The old managements, of course, are not blameless as they went belly-up time and again rather than fight the inkies. I remember once, when deputy FoC of the Mirror we were involved in a long-running dispute. The FoC and others were "invited" up to the 9th floor for a "chat with the chairman" but when they got there his seat was occupied by the general secretary of the NGA flanked by the general secretary of NATSOPA and some other union godfather. Bill Keys - for it was he - was chomping on a big stogie and pointed at our people and said: "Right, boys, we've bleedin' 'ad enough ov this, you're costing our members money so get back to work. NOW." Our FoC, to his eternal credit, told Mr Keys and his mobsters where to go and what to do with himself when he got there and walked out. He was more angry that I have ever known him in 40 years and immediately called a mandatory chapel meeting to report what had happened. The Godfathers had told management they could settle it and the craven fools went along with them.Every man (and woman) jack of us was onthe way out of the building when the management realised the gaffe they had committed and began trying to resolve the issue. Soon afterwards there was a "management reshuffle!" In my earlier post I mentioned the inkies demanding - and getting - danger money. I also recall that during one particularly hot summer they demanded - and got - hot weather allowance....again paid in cash and even paid to those who were on holiday, off "sick" or on days off.
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 21, 2012 at 01:59 PM
Althought the Inkies at the Sunday Times mostly worked for other papers during the week they had a racket which required them to turn up only every second or third shift at Grays Inn Road but still get paid. Their jobs were covered by other Inkies who shared the perks and the spoils. And there were also pay pockets for people who did not even exist which were opened and the cash divided in the local pubs.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 21, 2012 at 03:15 PM
M.Mouse and D.Duck as I remember Chris.
Posted by: Derek Black | January 21, 2012 at 03:24 PM
Not just those two, Derek, but many many more. At one stage the Inland Revenue grew a pair of balls and put taxmen into the newspaper pay offices. Remember that the vast majority of inkies were paid in cash on the night. Shockwaves, tremors and tsunami-like waves of outrage quickly replaced with fear abounded as the inkies realised the guys sitting in the pay stations were taxmen and would not pay out without production of union cards and other ID. Managements ran for cover explaining they were powerless and even the inky union godfathers didn't have the stupidity to take on the Revenue. One blatant scam was for an inky to sign himself on for work with two "Colleagues", but only he would do the shift. The others were signing in three handed at places like the Mail, Express, Telegraph and collecting three paypackets at the end of the night in names like Bill Shankly, Lester Piggott, Matt Busby etc. Two comps on the Daily Mail were reputed to be so well paid that they sold their houses in Kent, moved to France and opened either one large or two very good B&Bs and commuted to Fleet Street flying their private plane to Biggin Hill for their three shifts a week! My understanding is that most of the inkies were "employed" by their union rather than the papers they were supposed to work for. They also had thieves' kitchens in most newspaper offices where knocked-off suits, booze, cartons of fags, sports gear and hardcore porny mags and videos could be obtained. One guy had even commandeered an unused storeroom in theold Mirror building to stash his stolen gear and threatened the security and fire people when they demanded he open it - he had changed the locks - with all sorts of retribution. And he told one manager who said he would report him that if he did so the inkies would walk out. Anyway the City of London's Finest staged a series of raids and confiscated the booty but didn't manage to feel any collars. One newsroom messenger was a go-between/agent for Great Train Robber Buster Edwards who ran a flower station near Waterloo Station. You couldn't make some of this stuff up...
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 21, 2012 at 03:38 PM
I well recall the Sunday Times canteen being virtually out of bounds for exhausted and hungry journalists on Saturdays. Why? Because these insufferable people had taken over the tables with stuff that fell off lorries, hoping for customers.
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 21, 2012 at 04:00 PM
After a week of mayhem, including hazarding a guess as to what was wrong with my sow, I eventually put my feet up on Friday night after investing in the Bel Tel.
Kevin Myers was quite brilliant on American Presidents. This sentence I love.
Referring to Barack Obama he said:
"Moreover, there was something really unnerving about Obama actually arranging to have his photograph taken while avidly watching the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.
I wonder, did he pluck wings off butterflies as a kid?"
Myers is a one off.
Posted by: ruthie | January 21, 2012 at 08:28 PM
Quite right Alistair and Cal, I should have mentioned the Dirty Digger and even more so his predecessor Eddie Shah -- remember him?
They opened the floodgates for the tide which swept away union abuses. As you say, too bad that journalism has suffered collateral damage.
Posted by: Michael | January 22, 2012 at 01:06 PM
A new newspaper? I hear that the new Belfast Times has gone into print and is available at St George's Market today. It has existed on line for a while now. I wonder do they know about the original Belfast Times, our strike paper back then?
Posted by: Derek Black | January 22, 2012 at 02:30 PM
I find that I am wrong in linking Rupert Murdoch to the French “Merdique”. Further research shows that the name originated in Ireland as Muiredach, a member of the O’Daly family who had a literary role as a bardic clan by the 12th century. According to Seamus McManus in “The Story of the Irish Race”, Muiredach was highly respected as the King’s Poet at the court of Cathal Crodhearg of Connaught. However, he was forced to flee to Scotland in 1113 after refusing to pay rent to the steward of the powerful O’Donnells. Muiredach’s response to the cheeky steward (doesn’t this have a familiar ring to it?) by “splitting the steward’s head with a battleaxe.” He then recited a poem which wondered what all the fuss was about. Muiredach settled in Islay, becoming great friends with Donald, Lord of the Isles. Muiredach subsequently became funder and namefather of the MacMhuirrichs (a contraction of the Scots Gaelic patronymic Mhuireadhaigh son of Muiredach. The native Scots claimed Muiredach as their own, bestowing on him the title Muiredach Albanach and warmly welcoming Muiredach’s new-born son, Lachlan.
Well, no surprises there!
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 22, 2012 at 02:57 PM
for "funder" above read "founder".
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 22, 2012 at 05:31 PM
So, what WAS wrong with the sow?
Posted by: Mitch Smyth | January 22, 2012 at 06:27 PM
I had occasion to query a Toronto Star copy editor (sub) on Saturday and got her reply immediately: from WASHINGTON DC. That's right: parts of the TORONTO Star are being subbed 500 miles away. How crazy is that? How long before I get a reply from Calcutta?
Posted by: Smyth again | January 22, 2012 at 11:05 PM
I see that Lady Lucy Faulkner has died, aged 87. But surprised that BBC NI news website does not recall her very dubious conduct during the infamous Real Lives affair which rocked dear old Auntie to her foundations.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 23, 2012 at 03:25 PM
Pray refresh our memories...
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 23, 2012 at 08:24 PM
There was an excellent article in the Review section of the Daily Telegraph a week or so ago, but sadly it did not appear online so I could not find a link. I wrote to the Telegraph and they kindly sent me a copy of the article, so here is it is ... a worthy piece of journalism for the copyboys to read at their leisure ...
MINE IS A JOB
TO DIE FOR ....
As a new festival explores our attitudes to death, Telegraph obituaries editor Harry de Quetteville reveals why dealing with it every day can be uplifting – and why we all want to be on a page we'll never read.
As obituaries editor of the Telegraph, I'm often asked if I find my job depressing. "Doesn't it get you down?" people say in hushed, sympathetic tones, as though we were huddled together in the plushly upholstered confines of a Mayfair undertakers. "I mean, dealing with that relentless tide of death…"
At which point I trot out a line well worn by those in my particular line of journalism: "Obituaries are not about death," I insist. "They are a celebration of life."
To illustrate my case, nothing more is required than a quick reference to the lives that have crossed my desk that day. How about the chap who traversed the Himalayas in a hovercraft? Or the spy who saved Churchill at the Tehran Conference? Or even the man who provided the voice for the puppet George (a "shy, pink and slightly camp hippopotamus") on the children's television programme, Rainbow.
In the obituary world, all human life is there – every barmy, uplifting scrap of it.
And if by some chance my morale was to falter for a second, then a moment's reflection on the existence of Gay Kindersley, the amateur jump jockey who died last April, would restore the spirits. He wasn't particularly famous, or the finest horseman of his generation, but as our obit recalled, Kindersley was "blessed with a barrel–load of charm".
It must have come in handy when he conducted the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on a tour of his house at East Garston, only to step into a room with the royal visitor and find a couple in flagrante. "How nice," she murmured. It's hard to get too down in the dumps when presented with tales like that. And on the obits desk we are constantly presented with tales like that.
It seems that we are not the only ones to take this view. Next weekend London's Southbank Centre is running a festival entitled "Death: Festival for the Living". It aims to examine the rules and regulations, customs, traumas, idiosyncrasies, mysteries – and, yes, even joys – that surround mankind's attitude to mortality.
According to Jude Kelly, the Southbank's artistic director, it will be anything but melancholy. "I expect it to be a very jolly event," she says. That sounds about right to me. After all, the most celebrated sketch in British comedy involves death (albeit of a certain Norwegian Blue parrot: "He's a stiff. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed him to his perch he'd be pushing up the daisies!") Visitors to newspaper offices have been known to inquire: "Who are those people over there, laughing?" only to receive the answer, "Ah, that's the obits desk."
We do laugh. And it is precisely because obituaries are about the juicy stuff of life that we do not usually mention the dry details about causes of death, unless they are strictly pertinent. When subjects have made a shockingly youthful departure, we will include a brief note to illuminate readers, who are naturally curious to learn what it was that killed a brilliant cellist, for example, just as she was reaching her prime.
Some of our counterparts on American newspapers extend this principle to the very elderly, and insist on noting that the centenarian hero they are obituarising was dispatched by congestive this, or complications of an infectious that. But we assume that our readers, if they feel the need to muse on what has done for a 117–year–old veteran of the silent film era, will assume that he or she has simply succumbed to old age. Or, as I've heard it put, "contracted an incurable case of death". We all catch it in the end.
Similarly, it is rare for us to reflect on funeral arrangements, although there are exceptions. It may be fitting to note that a Spitfire will fly over the church where a Battle of Britain fighter pilot is being buried, or that the proprietor of a famous haunt for sozzled actors has asked for mourners to come to his funeral in costume and make up. Rob Buckman, the doctor who died last October after a career which was devoted to improving the way medics counsel the terminally ill, left instructions for a recording to be played at his own interment. It was to run: "Thank you so much for coming. Unlike the rest of you, I don't have to get up in the morning."
The Southbank weekend's Sandi Toksvig Memorial Lecture (presented by Sandi Toksvig) will explore this link between merriment and the macabre. "However grim death is, people laugh," says Kelly. "Humour provides a safety mechanism." True enough, but there's no pretending that it is more than a mechanism.
For all the anecdotes, the stories, the celebration of lives well lived, there is an inescapable anguish about life's end. Kelly knows this as well as any, having lost a younger sister at an early age as well as her baby son, Johnny, in June 1988, when he was just three months old. "I was at work, auditioning," she says. "He died in a lunch break. It was hugely traumatic."
While she was pregnant, however, Kelly had watched a documentary about stillborn children. It turned out that if the baby's body was preserved for a few days so that parents could form a bond with it before burial, they were better able to deal with their grief. So she persuaded her doctor to allow her this period of grace with her own dead son. "He had never heard of the idea. But he allowed me to make that decision. And being allowed to shape some of that experience was incredibly helpful.
The fact is that I had some information about death, and so things didn't just become a blur."
As a result the festival is to be loaded with similarly helpful information, from funeral rituals around the world to the realities of death in the internet age. What do you do with the Facebook page of someone who has died?
Many people wouldn't have a clue. At one of the Southbank events, a panel of children with terminal illnesses will be talking about their experiences and outlook. They, no doubt, would have very certain views on potential immortality on the web. If there is one thing that I have learnt on this job, it is that those most intimately acquainted with death are the least bashful discussing it.
This dawned on me one morning at my desk when I answered the telephone to hear the perfectly composed tones of a woman who explained that her husband had died, and "would we consider publishing an obituary?" I offered my condolences and ran her through the process.
Some people imagine the compilation of an obit to be a mysterious, near alchemical procedure, in which a grain or two of basic information can sprout magically into a fully formed portrait of the subject.
Unfortunately this is not the case. The "process" usually involves assembling as much detail as possible from many sources, before simmering it all down into a narrative that is not only interesting but also happens to be true. Middle names, school records, father's profession, places, jobs, dates – we want it all. As a colleague points out, obituaries must have the highest ratio of facts per article of any page in the paper. That also means that there are an awful lot of potential mistakes to make.
One of the questions we pose at the outset is about the date of death. This is because we tend not to print obits more than two or three months after this point. On the telephone that morning I eventually got around to asking my beautifully mannered caller when her husband had, in fact, died. "Oh," came the reply, "about 15 minutes ago. He's right here."
It was, for me, a very poignant moment. This couple had spent most of their lives together, and had prepared for the end in partnership too. When the moment came, a widow of just a quarter of an hour's standing had known exactly what to do. "We drew up a list," she explained. And it turned out that not very far down on that list was to call the Telegraph.
It is an enormous honour for the obituaries desk and for the paper as a whole that we are held in such regard, and we never forget it, or – levity and laughter notwithstanding – treat it flippantly. Tim Bullamore, who writes obits about classical musicians for us, will be among the speakers at the Southbank's weekend season.
He is just one of an array of contributors that we can call to provide material of real insight on every conceivable topic – from mountaineering to movie moguls, big–game hunting to ballroom dancing.
But above all the credit for coming up with a page upon which so many people wish to appear, even if they know they will never see the result themselves, must lie with former Telegraph staffer Hugh Massingberd.
He entirely recast the paper's obituaries in 1986, championing the illuminating anecdote over the dusty details of the curriculum vitae. His insatiable thirst for the Wodehousian character sketch, underpinned by what his own obituary (he died in 2007) described as an "encyclopedic knowledge", has been the model for each of his successors.
It is a measure of his success that the obituaries page has become such a central feature of so many newspapers around the world. It may be immodest to say it, but I still think that those in the Telegraph are the best. That is because we cherish above all the Massingberd mantra: that in each life, no matter how it's lived, there is cause for fascination and – often – delight. And that is not depressing, but supremely cheering.
*'Death: Festival for the Living' runs from Friday to Jan 30 – details at southbankcentre.co.uk. Harry de Quetteville's collection of the greatest Telegraph obituaries will be published in October by Aurum Press.
*January 21, 2012 from the Daily Telegraph.
Posted by: Blogmaster | January 24, 2012 at 05:27 PM
Sorry for the delay. Lady Faulkner, as the BBC governor for NI, was party to the unprecedented editorial interference with the ''Real Lives" documentary in the late eighties, which featured Martin McGuinness and Gregory Campbell. The row was manufactured by Barrie Penrose of The Sunday Times in one of the most disreputable episodes in the history of the paper. The Government demanded the programme should be banned creating a major confrontation with the BBC and also within the BBC between Governors and editorial management. In the end, Jimmy Hawthorne, the NI controller, who had threatened to resign at one point, won the argument and the documentary was transmitted without any of the doom laden consequences foreseen by the government or the BBC bigwigs. Lucy Faulkner's role in the affair, in the final days of her tenure, was entirely misplaced and misguided. It is rather shameful that the BBC website report of her death completely failed to reflect her role in the affair which shook the entire organisation to its foundations. Equally the Daily Telegraph failed in this regard. I was not involved in the story in anyway but was ashamed at the way Penrose created the row. Incidentally at the Smithwick Tribunal (investigating alleged Garda collusion in the IRA murder of two senior RUC officers) in Dublin, a few weeks ago, the highly controversial double agent known as Kevin Fulton, named Penrose as "an MI5 asset". I leave Copyboys to draw their own conclusions.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 26, 2012 at 04:41 PM
Wow! There was always something penumbral about Penrose who worked for The Sunday Times during my final years with that paper. But I had no idea that he had friends in high niches, as has been suggested. He was quite close to his then editor, Andrew Neil, who used to visit Penrose at home and entertain, or be entertained by, his children. In the paper's Kemsley days we assumed there were unhealthy links between the secret services and some correspondents, but during the Harry Evans editorship these assumptions faded away.
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 26, 2012 at 05:21 PM
In order that I do not infringe the laws of libel or defamation I will not repeat the details of an extraordinary covert coach trip to Albania undertaken by Penrose and my recently deceased friend, Peter Dunne. According to Peter, there was more than a whiff of 003.5 about the whole business.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 26, 2012 at 06:25 PM
Surely the practice of secret service organisations utilising journalists as sources of information, either willingly or as paid agents, is as old as newspapers. But few have chosen to acknowlege the connection and I fear, even the suggestion might damage repuations. I would not wish to inhibit anyone's freedom of speech and would be wounded to think that anyone would sue individual copyboys for libel. But I would be more wounded if they sued the Copyboys. Don't know about you but I can't afford to say 'Hello' to lawyers never mind fight a libel action. I fear there is a fine line between nostalgia and defamation. Sadly MI5, 6 or 7 has never offered myself any money to spy. Why should they when they could read everything I know in the papers?
Posted by: Chairman | January 26, 2012 at 08:17 PM
You would never guess it from the BBC headline but this story says that the Belfast Telegraph is to be printed in Newry on weekdays with loss of jobs. More sad news from Royal Avenue.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-16747368
Posted by: Derek Black | January 26, 2012 at 08:24 PM
Mr Chairman, I feel sure that, without meaning it, you have intimated a suspicion that it is almost inevitable for journalists to ally themselves (to some degree or other) with the underground agencies of government of whatever stripe. Please be less fatalistic.
Posted by: Cal McCrystal | January 26, 2012 at 08:38 PM
I have taken great care not to expose either myself or other Copyboys. Posing questions is neither libellous or defamatory.
And for the record, as I recently testified at the Smithwick Tribunal, I was lured to grand lunch at the Culloden one day in the 1970s, after which I was propositioned to assist the spooks in my role as a journalist. I gave an uncompromising turn down to the person concerned.
Despite this, and during questioning at Smithwick, I have often been portrayed as a secret agent. Not true but I wonder if there were indeed any of my former Sunday Times colleagues who compromised themselves, their profession and their newspaper. To coin a phrase. I think we should be told.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 26, 2012 at 08:48 PM
Penrose, at one stage, came to the Mirror offering his services as an "investigations specialist." We had a look but he didn't cut the mustard. He was prone to ingratiate - or to try to ingratiate - himself with the bosses and look down his nose at the reporters regarding them as inferior to those he had left behind at The Sunday Times. He was soon disabused of that notion. Like The Best Chairman We Ever Had I'm beginning to feel a trifle left out as I have never had an approach from spookery either.
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 27, 2012 at 10:13 AM
Chris. I have already lamented the fact that no one from the security services, not M or Q or any other letter of the spy alphabet, has approached me with an offer to become an agent. I'm intrigued by the approach to you, Chris. Did they at any time mention money. Lavish remuneration with vodka shaken not stirred and beautiful seductive Russian sex-traps. I would figure that as a member of the NUJ you might have enquired. Sadly any illusions I may have had of being combat material disappeared one afternoon in Belfast's City Hall, when the then Prime Minister, Edward Heath, visited. The secret service bodyguards were scanning the room with their cold, calculating eyes, on the look out for anyone who looked like a dangerous man. And Belfast had its share back then. Some of them were in the room. These were being watched closely. When they came to me, standing there with my biro and notebook, I was cruelly dismissed in a nano-second as the least dangerous man they'd seen that day. One quick glance and they read me perfectly. No threat to anyone. It might have been the suit, it may have looked a bit lived in. Anyway, I was hurt at the time by this dismissive glance from a spook. Its the kind of look I used to get from women, but that's a different story.
Posted by: Chairman | January 27, 2012 at 08:00 PM
I can't remember whether it was Ted Heath or Maggie Thatcher who appeared in Manchester after one of the bombings there. It was decided she would hold a Press conference in the Piccadilly Hotel. In the audience - but in different places - were Mr Chris Ryder, Mr Samuel Edward Oliver and myself. Each time one of us asked a question in a Belfast accent the SB goons homed in on us. Eventually they just gave up as they realised we were extracting the urine from them big time.
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 27, 2012 at 09:29 PM
My Irish accent got me into regular trouble. One day the Manchester SB were contacted by somebody who had sat beside me in a chair at a barber shop in Altrincham. It was a few days after one attack or another and the sleuth reported that the man with an Irish accent was clearly tryiing to have his appearance changed. The SB contacted the said barber, ascertained the name and then rang me to confirm that the tonsure customer was indeed myself. At teatime that evening, I appeared on BBC Nationwide doing a bit of punditry about the incidents. Later one of the SB officers said they had told the sleuth to watch tea time TV. They said he was mortified when he saw me and realised my real role as an ST analyst.
Remember the day in the Piccadily well. It was Heath in fact. And one of the goons later became protector of various NI ministers and became a good friend. Enjoyed many scoops with him.
Unfortunately the spooks did not offer me money, women or other perks. I actually think they were taken aback by the ferocity of my refusal that they judged any further inducements would be futile. As they would have been.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | January 27, 2012 at 10:17 PM
If only Hugh McClory was a contributor to the copyboys ... he would know great headlines of the day. Thanks to Mitchell Smyth, we have a good one to show you and it now rests in the Pictures album. Try and guess the main headline on the Texas Daily Sentinel on the day JFK was shot dead in his motorcade? Bet you can't work it out ... Go and react with Shock, Horror, Amusement and maybe tell us of other headlines that got past the chief sub ...
Posted by: Blogmaster | January 29, 2012 at 09:59 AM
Get that main picture, LBJ! Guess there was no point in running a photo of JFK: everybody knew what he looked like.
Posted by: Smyth | January 29, 2012 at 03:18 PM
Was Penrose John Penrose ?
Just being nosy.
Was he married to Ann Robinson or am I off the mark ?
Posted by: ruthie | January 30, 2012 at 11:47 PM
No - he was Barrie Penrose. John Penrose was married to Annie but they divorced a couple of years back leaving JP VERY rich!
Posted by: A.McQ. | January 31, 2012 at 09:07 AM
Some intriguing figures from Jim Allister who reckons there may be more press officers than journalists in Belfast. In fairness, the Executive inherited the lot from New Labour, who believed in government by press release. I will post link to his press release in a moment
Posted by: Derek Black | February 01, 2012 at 04:42 PM
Here it is:
http://www.tuv.org.uk/press-releases/view/1431/stormont-spend-five-million-on-spin-doctors
Posted by: Derek Black | February 01, 2012 at 04:45 PM
This extravagant propaganda machine might be defensible if it really contributed to an understanding and identification with public policy and governance matters. But from long experience, so called press and information officers, habitually suppress, selectively disclose and frequently conceal totally details of matters which are not only in the public interest but are of entirely legitimate interest to the public. Leveson is looking at the conduct of the press - quite properly because of longstanding misconduct. But who holds the government propagandists to account for their activities not least the scandalous way the provisions of the Freedom of Information legislation are circumvented and even ignored.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | February 01, 2012 at 06:35 PM
The thought of us giving Jim Allister publicity here saddens me deeply ... what also irks me even more is when colleagues refer to the press ... instead of the Press, as I was taught days after I entered journalism.
Posted by: JC | February 01, 2012 at 06:57 PM
Sorry JC but forget about the messenger. I just thought that the remarks were of special interest to our wee group.
Posted by: Derek Black | February 01, 2012 at 07:30 PM
I am afraid that there is a fashion for lower case in situations where I would have instinctvely gone for a capital letter. Interesting how lower standards become commonplace and slip into accepted usage.
However, my apologetic tone must be discontinued hereafter. Although Jim Allister is something of a political flat-earther in the eyes of many people, I think the facts he has gleaned are of great interest to what DB calls "our wee group".
I have heard the word 'churnalism' used to describe the increasingly common habit of papers to repeat verbatim and uncritically what are clearly well pitched press releases from government and public sector bodies.
The conduct of such propagandists must be of concern to anyone anxious to maintain a free press and their practices need to be thoroughly scrutinised. Mr Allister has done us a service and in calculating that there are probably more press officers than journalists at work today, he focuses on an uncomfortable reality about the way both government and the news media presently operate.
This must be a cause for concern.
Posted by: Chris Ryder | February 01, 2012 at 09:05 PM
Less generated stories, fillers with press releases and pages of tripe reduce circulation big time.
Is it any wonder papers are losing profits.
The few tough reporters in NI deserve every penny they get.
I never buy a paper which runs stories on roadworks and traffic congestion more than ten times a year.
They know who they are
No wonder they have piles of returns each week.
Posted by: Ruth | February 03, 2012 at 11:44 AM
Was sent this series of jokes about things a court reporter sometimes hears ....
IT CAN BE HARD KEEPING A STRAIGHT FACE AS A COURT REPORTER
These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said , 'Where am I, Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you sex_ ually active?
WITNESS: No , I just lie there.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do..
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes , voodoo.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor , isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep , he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son , the 20-year-old , how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20 , much like your IQ.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you kidding me?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them.. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral , OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral...
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not , he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
And last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
Posted by: JC | February 04, 2012 at 10:40 AM
Loved the McNarry interview on Nolan the other morning.
It was loaded.
Belfast Telegraph interview McNarry and he gets his butt kicked by Mr Tomato Face.
Hope more dailies get stuck in to the boys on the hill, plenty of page leads there.
Just bin all the press releases and generate more biggies.
Posted by: ruth | February 04, 2012 at 01:56 PM
The lead story on the BBC NI website at the moment is about an aircraft making an emergency landing at Belfast - a classic example of bad reporting, bad news-desking and bad subbing. Nowhere in the copy does it say what TYPE of aircraft it is, only that it is operated by Thomas Cook and was going to Tenerife. Imagine trying to get copy with that glaring omission past the likes of John Rooks or some of the old-time BT subs. Just another example of the bad journalism at BBC NI ofter referred to by others on this forum.
Posted by: A.McQ. | February 07, 2012 at 04:58 PM
The BT report that it was an Airbus 320 ... and provided a graphic of how it spent an hour flying around to use up fuel.
Posted by: JC | February 07, 2012 at 05:06 PM