Never say never and all
that, but I can't picture myself ever going back to news journalism.
I'm fairly certain those days are over for me.
Still, I look back on
the 20 or so years that I gave to the Fourth Estate very fondly. I
had great colleagues and quite a lot of fun. There would always be
some drama lurking somewhere, poised and primed to punctuate the
mundanity of council meetings, court proceedings and no end of
sad-faced suburbanite families with potholes to point at. So I was
happy in my work, by and large, if not the most voracious careerist.
My only dream as a
young hack was to someday scribe a front page splash for The Daily
Mirror. This I eventually did: only to conclude mournfully that I had
been kidding myself. This had not been a burning personal goal after
all, I decided, just a random professional benchmark to work towards.
The much younger version of me always imagined having that first
front page framed and hanging forever in a hallway or study. Next to the Pullitzer which followed it, maybe. When it
came to the crunch, I didn't even keep a copy of the paper.
What I did hold onto,
though, is an arsenal of handy life skills which I acquired and
sharpened over years on the reporter beat. I still draw from these
today (even the shorthand). And, to toot my own trumpet, I got pretty
damn good at journalism. If a story was there to be found, I would
find it. And I would report it clearly and accurately. I became a
very good newshound.
I owe most of this to
an irascible old bastard called Rodney Hallworth. I was in my late
teens or early twenties when I first encountered this formidable
fellow with thick-rimmed glasses and an even thicker Stockport
accent. I was finding my journalistic feet on the Teignmouth News, a
sleepy weekly paper for a sleepy South Devon seaside town. Rodney was
my boss... kind of. His was a nominal kind of role as overseeing eye,
by which I mean I already had a news editor and editor to report to in the paper's sister office up the road in Dawlish.
Rodney just needed to be kept in the loop. Which I did through daily
phone calls, visits to his quaint little cottage in the neighbouring
harbour town of Shaldon, and lengthy sessions at his local pub.
Rodney was in his
fifties and veering ever closer to retirement by then, having already
lived out the most incredible journalistic life. He had earned his
stripes decades earlier as crime reporter for the Daily Mail and
Daily Express. Over multiple afternoon pints, he would roll out
anecdote after anecdote for me – I heard about his reporting of the
Great Train Robbery, about his relationship with Ruth Ellis, the last
woman to be hanged for murder in Britain (he accompanied her to the
gallows), about the Scotland Yard pepper-pot collection which he had
a hand in curating, and most notoriously about his key involvement in
the Donald Crowhurst round-the-world sailing scandal. But let's come
back to that...
Rodney and I warmed to
each other very quickly. I was full of youth and enthusiasm for my
fresh new career, and Rodney was, I think, delighted to have a keen
cub reporter to tell his stories to. He called me his protege quite
often, and occasionally he would introduce me to his friends and
acquaintances as that. He was full of advice, guidance and tricks of
the trade for me. It was Rodney who taught me, time and time again,
to write as if 'for the bloke in the pub'. To write news stories as if they
were for my mates to hear. Or, even better, for some dumb drunk
asshole who needs every stupid detail to be laid out in simple language.
Rodney's speech was
always colourful and kindly. He'd talk in terms of 'Christmas-ing up', of
being careful to measure out the right level of personality for each story – and
of sticking the boot in when it needed to be done. And each and every
week, when I would ride my moped (he called it my 'put-put') over the
bridge to the pub to deliver that week's freshly-printed paper, he
would go through its pages with me, pointing out what was good and,
invariably, what was bad too.
He had a temper, and no
end of times I would be on the receiving end of it. I remember Rodney
screwing our paper into a ball and throwing it to the floor,
bellowing his disapproval over the use of some headline or other. Tourists in the lounge bar fled. And
once, when I turned up to one of our boozy editorial meetings without
a penny to my name, he chose to really let rip.
“You do not – and
let me make this absolutely clear, boy – you do not EVER come into
a pub without any fucking money! Is that understood?”
Rodney suffered from
angina and complained about it regularly. When he died in 1985, aged
56 (I think) it came as no real surprise but it hit me very hard. Rodney
had become a huge part of my life.
His funeral,
choreographed in advance by the man himself, was memorable. The
service concluded with a solo trumpeter, in bowler hat and jazz
colours, playing 'Bye Bye Blackbird' at the church door. Back at the
pub, we discovered he had secretly put a significant amount of money
behind the bar for the purpose of his wake. I got smashed on whiskey and was soon in
floods of tears in the corner. The Mayor of Teignmouth, Cllr Peter
Winterbottom, put a comforting arm around me, saying: “We'll just
say you've got the flu.”
Of course, the many
little lessons I learned back then went on to serve me very well at work.
And they still do. Many years after he died, I tried to pay tribute
to him in my not-very-good speech on leaving the South Wales Echo.
But there's more.
There's a reprise. Rodney re-entered my life.
One night in 2006 I was
asleep in front of my TV in Kentish Town, London. The words coming
out of the box drifted in and out of my dream state, as they often
do. But then something incredible happened. I heard Rodney's voice. Clear as day. It was unmistakably him.
It was enough to shock
me awake. Good God! And there, indeed, he was – in full colour – talking on my television. It was the documentary 'Deep Water'. Rodney, filmed in 1968, was speaking about his role as Crowhurst's press guru. This was
staggering. It was surreal. Rodney in moving image form. Talking. The closest to being alive again that you can get.
A handful of
further little coincidences followed. A friend of mine turned out to be a friend of
the fellow who made 'Deep Water'. Some months before that, I happened across a copy of Rodney's book about serial killer Dr John Bodkin
Adams in a stall on the South Bank. A couple days later, I found
a second copy. More recently, I came across the Jonathan Coe novel 'The
Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim'. Rodney is mentioned in that, rather a lot.
And now a film, a
feature film, is being made about the whole Crowhurst affair. Colin
Farrell stars in it. Rodney's role has been taken by David Thewlis. I
decided I should do something to try to preserve something of
Rodney's legacy. So I wrote to Mr Thewlis's agent. I wrote to the
producers of the film too. This is part of what I wrote:
“Rodney was an
incredible character. Working under him as a junior reporter on a
Teignmouth newspaper, right up to his death in 1985, was a
life-shaping experience for me. He used to call me his 'protege' (as
well as some more colourful names when things weren't going well).
“His role in the
Crowhurst saga was incredibly dark, no doubt about that. And he spoke
about it a fair bit, even decades after the event. But there was a
warmth and simplicity to him as well. If Mr Thewlis has five minutes
to spare and thinks it might help to hear a few Rodney anecdotes, I
would be delighted to share them. Please let me know if this is
do-able. I feel I sort of owe it to Rodney to try to fly his flag in
some small way.”
I haven't had a reply. I'm sure whoever read the email consigned me to the 'nutter' bin.
I look forward to the film, of course. And I hope something of the
Rodney I knew will shine through it. But, as I heard somebody say the
other day, the movie is going to need a villain and Rodney – who
went on to sell Crowhurst's log books for a small fortune -
doubtlessly fills that requirement perfectly.
Like I said in my email
to the film people. I feel I owe it to Rodney to fly his flag somehow. Maybe
this 'Letter from Claptonia' will just have to do. Whatever happens, I'll
never forget good old Rodney.
