The History of the Times

by Graham Stewart

  Such opinions were not given rein by Murdoch or Douglas-Home when, on the morning of 28 February, they stood at the Gray’s Inn Road entrance to greet the Queen and Prince Philip. The visit of the Head of State and her consort was no mere courtesy call. The royal party sat in on the morning editorial conference, Prince Philip proving keen to join the discussion on what the day’s top stories were. They then spent a couple of hours being shown round the various departments and returned in the evening to watch the paper being put to bed. In the photocomposition area, Prince Philip enquired how a gap on the sports page was going to be filled. The compositor replied, ‘If nothing comes through we’ll put in a panel saying: “Read the Telegraph. It’s best for sport.”’ Moving on to the publishing hall, the Queen asked one not especially hard-pressed operator what he was doing. He assured her that he was counting the pages in the paper. Philip interjected, ‘Haven’t you done the crossword yet?’71

  The visit was marred only by Paul Routledge who repeated a conversation he had with the Queen about the miners. Introduced to the labour editor, the Queen had expressed the view that the miners’ strike was all down to one man. Routledge begged to differ, suggesting that it was also about jobs and livelihoods. In the course of a BBC Radio 4 interview about the royal visit, he referred to the incident and stated, ‘I think she felt that the dispute was essentially promoted by Mr Scargill.’ Repeating the conversation was not only a breach of protocol, it gave the impression the Queen had adopted a political position. Seething with anger, Douglas-Home rushed to limit the damage, disclaiming the interpretation of the Queen’s words which, he said, Routledge had only ‘half heard’. Few journalists at Gray’s Inn Road were less susceptible to bullying than Paul Routledge and it was a sign of how much pressure was placed upon him that he was forced to agree to a statement in which he said, ‘The Queen said the strike was very sad. We had a discussion about the focus now being on one man but she never said the strike was promoted by Mr Scargill.’ For his pains, Douglas-Home was deluged with ‘disgusted’ readers demanding that Routledge be sacked (some got carried away and demanded his head). The editor did not wish to lose one of his star reporters and opted instead to issue him with a rebuke while assuring those who wrote in that Routledge was ‘fully aware of the shame he has brought on the paper’.72 Although blown up out of proportion – not least by those who wanted to see some rain fall on The Times’s parade day, ‘Times editor’s apology to the Queen’ was the front-page headline on the Daily Mail – it was an unfortunate incident in an otherwise good-natured and highly successful visit.

  The Queen and Prince Philip were far from being the only guests who came to celebrate the bicentenary. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret also made royal progressions through Gray’s Inn Road during the course of the year. The highlight was the bicentennial gala hosted by Rupert and Anna Murdoch at Hampton Court Palace on 11 July. Any suggestion that The Times was no longer special could be dispelled by a guest list that included the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Prime Minister, the leaders of the SDP and Liberal parties (Neil Kinnock had to bow out at the last minute), three former Prime Ministers (Home, Wilson and Callaghan), most of the world’s ambassadors to the United Kingdom and six hundred other guests. Indeed, everyone appeared to be there apart from the actual journalists, some of whom took their exclusion as a snub and organized a rival event in a pub called the Hampton Court near Elephant and Castle. The egalitarian spirit of this alternative attraction was somewhat undermined when non-journalist members of staff like the secretaries and clerical employees were declined entry on the grounds they were not proper hacks. This was an example, if one was needed, that in Fleet Street hierarchy was alive and well in some of the most unlikely places. For those who made it to the real Hampton Court, the experience was one to be savoured. Even those used to State occasions were taken aback by the grandeur of the display. Reflecting on the event eighteen years later, Sir Edward Pickering, the executive vice-chairman of Times Newspapers, described it as one of the greatest evenings of his life.73 The guests perambulated through the main rooms of the palace, navigating a route around string quartets, harp trios and piano duos. The Band of the Scots Guards, with pipes and drums, marched through the courtyards and there was a profusion of period recreations from the London of 1785, including a hurdy-gurdy player, a troupe of acrobats and other entertainments typical of the Vauxhall and Ranleigh pleasure gardens in vogue when John Walter’s money-spinning venture first went to press. Dinner was held in the Great Hall. Murdoch proposed a toast to the Queen; Prince Charles proposed a toast to The Times. After dinner, the guests made their way down to the riverbank to watch the fireworks. It was, by common consent, a magical evening. Most importantly of all, The Times had made it to its bicentenary, an achievement that had looked in great doubt only four years earlier.

  VI

  For one guest in a wheelchair the gala evening in Hampton Court was particularly poignant. Diagnosed with myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, and with his own time running out, Douglas-Home had at least lived long enough to see the newspaper he edited through to its bicentenary. For the past two years, he had been not only acclimatizing himself psychologically to approaching death but also dealing with acute pain. His fortitude inspired his colleagues. By the end of 1982 he had already succumbed to crutches, his degenerative illness compounded when, returning from Scotland in the New Year, he was hit by a swinging car door and knocked over, badly injuring his hip. On arrival back in London, he had to be anaesthetized by an ambulance crew to get him out of his driving seat.

  For six weeks in January and February 1983, Douglas-Home edited The Times from his bed in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Propped up by pillows, he continued to write leading articles. Murdoch visited him there twice, expressing his pleasure at the way the paper’s fortunes were being turned around and repledging his intention to maintain investment. From all but his closest colleagues, Douglas-Home concealed the truth that he was dying. He thought Murdoch did not know and was certainly keen that it should stay that way. In fact, the proprietor knew from early on, opting to pretend otherwise. It suited both editor and proprietor that it should be this way. Douglas-Home certainly need not have feared being seen as a disposable liability. On the contrary, Murdoch made clear to senior colleagues that he was totally supportive and that everything was to be done to assist him in his last battle. Quietly, Murdoch took steps to ensure that, when the time came, the pension provision was adequate for the family Douglas-Home would be leaving behind.

  Even some of the most eagle-eyed reporters were slow to realize that the editor’s health and increasingly regular hospitalization were indications that he was suffering from a degenerative illness. Initially, many merely assumed that he had fallen off a horse again. But by late 1984, and without there needing to be any formal announcement, staff gradually became aware that he was involved in a personal battle. As his illness worsened, so he became less mobile. First he hobbled back to Gray’s Inn Road on one stick. Then two sticks became necessary. There were moments when the pain was so excruciating that he had to take some conferences while lying flat on his back on his office floor. But he carried on. Then he was confined to a wheelchair. Next, a swelling started to appear across his forehead. This increasing immobility meant that he could not get around all the departments as much as he would have wanted and became increasingly confined to his office, from where he continued to write leaders. His deputies, Colin Webb and Charles Wilson, did much of the floor prowling on his behalf.

  For Douglas-Home, part of the process of coming to terms with his physical degeneration was, if anything, to sharpen his appreciation of life. His wife observed in him ‘an even greater ability than before to perceive and understand situations which other more restless and preoccupied people often preferred not to see’.74 Reflecting on the lessons of Christ’s birth for what would prove to be his last Christmas Eve leading article, the editor wrote:

  At the darkest
moment there is the promise of daylight … For the noon day sun the darkness which lies ahead is no external enemy but its own internal guarantee of another noon to come … The beauty and the joy of a birth and the joy of life itself should dispel the unusually intense fear of death which seems nowadays to have whole societies in its grip. A wasted life is a living death long before the clock actually strikes the hour. Fear of death is identical with not wanting to live. Both attitudes negate the possibility of life’s completeness. They both negate the affirmation of life as an element in the natural order of things.75

  Douglas-Home’s spells in hospital grew more frequent but still he refused to give up. Webb took the morning conference. A telephone was installed for him and this made editing the paper from a hospital bed a little easier. When it was time for the leader writers to gather, Douglas-Home, laid up again in the Royal Free Hospital, ‘joined’ the discussion with the help of a squawk box attached to his bedside table. The clarity of the speaker box was so good that he claimed to be able to hear Ivan Barnes’s eyebrows rasing. He was spending long periods having radium treatment and sometimes his commentary would have to be interrupted while doctors and nurses attended to him. His secretary, Liz Seeber, performed sterling work running his office and easing his burdens. Towards the end, he tended not to see most of the page proofs any more but a messenger was dispatched from Gray’s Inn Road with the leader and feature pages for his perusal and approval. Among his private bedside visitors was the Prince of Wales. Although Douglas-Home was actually his wife’s relation, Prince Charles had long been a close friend. Laurens van der Post had brought the two men together in a shared interest in spiritual questions. The Prince took as much time out as his duties permitted to visit and wrote encouraging letters both to Charlie and to Jessica Douglas-Home. His sentiments were heartfelt and touching.76 Those closest to the editor professionally – his secretaries, his deputies Webb and Wilson – also did their best. It was important that he went down editing to the last, and every effort was made to ensure he did so. ‘He used The Times as his therapy, his inspiration, his reason for living,’ concluded Wilson. Although not given to sentimental hyperbole, Wilson never ceased to regard Douglas-Home as a ‘great guy, a wonderful man. He was the bravest man I ever met.’77

  Charles Douglas-Home died in the Royal Free Hospital on 29 October 1985. He was forty-eight. At Gray’s Inn Road, The Times staff rose as one for a minute’s silence for him at 4 p.m. – the moment he would normally have opened the afternoon editorial conference. Tributes poured in from peers and princes. ‘His very name spells courage,’ said Margaret Thatcher, who also wrote a moving letter to Jessica. Neil Kinnock also sent a kind and touching note. Murdoch offered his own salute: ‘Charles walked the corridors of power in continual pain, but with dignity and incredible courage.’ From New York, Anna Murdoch even offered to fly over to stay with Jessica and her young family if she thought it would help. A lengthy telegram was received – unsolicited – from President Reagan: ‘the United Kingdom, the English speaking world, indeed, all friends of freedom, have suffered a great loss,’ announced the President as part of a generous appraisal of his contribution that was followed up with a personal letter to Jessica.78 In the days and weeks ahead, she was deluged with letters from those who had worked with him and admired the man or, if they were strangers, merely wanted to salute his contribution to public life.

  In the Spectator, Paul Johnson suggested that among the ‘foetid odours’ of Fleet Street, ‘his personal example’ had shown that journalism ‘can still be an honourable trade’. The magazine devoted part of its leading article to Douglas-Home, calling forth his ‘zest for action and his gift for cheering people up’ and painting a wider picture:

  The Times he dreamed of and, in a miraculously short time, created, was not the old, shuffling Times of the 1930s and 1940s. It was brisk, aggressive, occasionally vulgar (or jolly, to put it another way), sometimes wrong, but never, if he could help it, bland. And people wanted to read it.79

  More than a thousand mourners attended Douglas-Home’s memorial service in St Paul’s Cathedral, among them the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the royal family, the Prime Minister and senior members of the Cabinet, four earls, eighteen barons and thirty knights. Having helped in the selection of the order of service, Prince Charles read the first lesson. The correspondent for the UK Press Gazette described it as ‘the most remarkable tribute to a journalist I have ever attended’.80

  Douglas-Home had inherited a newspaper in crisis and left it reinvigorated and self-confident. In the space of three and a half years he had earned the right to be considered one of its great editors. Commercially and professionally, he had presided over a period in which The Times had achieved the most difficult of tricks: rapidly expanding its circulation without greatly demeaning its quality. The growth would not have been possible without the accompanying investment that Murdoch was prepared to put at the editor’s disposal, sums which he had balked at giving Harold Evans. Unlike Evans, Douglas-Home had gained and maintained the proprietor’s confidence. This had been achieved through strength and independence of mind and certainly not by sycophancy or subservience. As Murdoch later assessed the relationship, ‘he was always terribly straight with me and stood up for the paper if I criticized it’. Those criticisms did not touch upon the political slant of the paper (there was little to trouble the proprietor there) but rather in its handling of news. Murdoch wanted The Times to ‘go for the jugular’ of the Daily Telegraph in the sharpness and selection of its news coverage. Instead, he had to accept that the editor simply ‘didn’t buy into that’.81 There certainly was much the paper could learn from its younger, more popular rival, especially when it came to sporting coverage and news stories with a human angle, but essentially Douglas-Home was right to play to The Times’s strengths. It was in this respect that his success could not be attributed to Murdoch’s money alone but to the editorial judgments he made alongside Webb and Wilson. As has been noted, the great surge in circulation was well underway before the Portfolio promotion commenced. Only in one area did the need to make budget cuts seriously reduce the quality of the paper and this was in the business pages where the attempt to offer serious competition to the FT was abandoned. It would take more than a decade before the damage to this important part of the paper was properly repaired. In other respects, the legacy was a positive one. Aside from his professional judgment, it was in his own conduct that Douglas-Home set the highest standard. ‘Even when he was ill, his authority inside the office was unquestioned’ was the verdict of Sir Edward Pickering, a man who, with the better part of forty years experience in Fleet Street’s senior ranks, had seen his fair share of careers wax and wane. He considered Douglas-Home’s swansong ‘an act of devotion and courage which I don’t think I have ever seen rivalled in any newspaper office’.82

  Douglas-Home’s personal courage inspired those who knew him. His professional judgment nourished The Times’s commercial recovery. His editorship, though, had a wider significance in its contribution to the intellectual fortification it provided for the centre-right during a tense period in the Cold War. At the time, this was controversial. Those who took the view that ‘serious journalism’ was ‘journalism which causes serious trouble for people who have real power’ had not welcomed Douglas-Home’s appointment as editor. The New Statesman, edited by Bruce Page, had asserted that Douglas-Home’s ‘record in serious journalism is wholly negligible’ and that ‘while Rupert Murdoch’s nominee holds the chair at The Times, the rich and powerful will never need to toss upon the pillow’.83 Given that as a reporter in 1968 it had been Douglas-Home who had revealed the concealed presence of 25,000 Soviet troops on the Slovak-Polish border waiting to crush the Prague Spring and been arrested trying to get a closer look, the New Statesman clearly set a high bar on what constituted serious journalism. Perhaps this was because exposing and undermining the Conservative and Republican administrations in Westminster and Washington wa
s the great prize for investigative journalists in the 1980s. In his newspaper, Douglas-Home never ceased to provide a platform for Thatcher and Reagan’s battery of critics – as any glance at the contributors to the Op-Ed comment page would attest – but his own contribution, expressed through the leading articles he penned himself, was to oppose the widely expressed belief that there was a moral equivalence between liberal-capitalism and Marxist-Leninism and between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. He was an ex-soldier and ex-defence correspondent and this doubtless sharpened his attitude towards the Cold War division. Yet, what gave his contribution weight was his ability as a committed Christian to engage in intelligent argument with those, especially in the churches and peace movements, who demanded rapprochement with Moscow.