#86 British Journalists and Newspapers by Derek Hudson
My aunt, Bea Warren, was for many years secretary to the Chief of Staff at The Herald newspaper. At that time The Herald was Melbourne’s only afternoon newspaper. It was a broadsheet, and therefore “serious”. It shared sister paper status with The Sun News-Pictorial, the morning tabloid rag that was (and is) far from serious – although, to be fair, today as the Herald Sun it is full of news. Both newspapers were owned by the public company The Herald and Weekly Times Limited and, three years after that company was absorbed into Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited empire in 1987, The Herald was scrapped.
Now, being a secretary might not sound like a very fulfilling or exciting position, but remember that the “Chief of Staff” is the head of news, the boss of the reporters, and that all the day’s news is channelled through him – and, first, through his secretary. No outsider, but nobody, in those times had direct access to the Chief of Staff and, as I heard the story many times, even if the Prime Minister’s office came on to Bea’s phone asking that the Prime Minister be put through to the Chief of Staff Bea was instructed to say: “Put the Prime Minister on first, then I’ll switch him through!” The Herald’s Chief of Staff was a busy man, and didn’t have time to waste waiting for connections at the other end.
This anecdote, and numerous of its ilk, were the meat and potatoes of Aunt Bea’s life. I well remember her recounting of the day in 1970 when the Westgate Bridge collapsed during construction. The word came through to Bea’s phone, and elsewhere in the company, and spread rapidly. Not only an unprecedented tragedy [35 construction workers dead and 18 injured in the disaster], but the greatest “news story” of its time. Everybody at the Herald wanted to assist, to be involved, to be assigned some task. And Aunt Bea, as always, the focal point of the day’s news.
I tell this story because, to me, it somehow typifies what being a newspaper person is about. Obviously, not every day, not every week, has the frisson of a major story; but surely there’s something exhilarating in the air of newspaper production. Instance numerous Hollywood depictions of life in the fourth estate – Citizen Kane for example, and The Front Page (initially a play), and All the President’s Men. And instance the numerous biographies of newspaper people and their publishers.
But, sadly, there’s nothing exhilarating about Derek Hudson’s British Journalists and Newspapers. This is not simply because Hudson’s story ends in 1945 upon the publication of the book - such lack of topicality is an inevitable factor with this near-70 years’ old series. It’s because the telling is too structured, too much of a timeline, too comprehensive. No newspaper or newspaper figure of the previous three hundred years seems to have been omitted. Moreover, more so than with any other of the Britain in Pictures books reviewed so far, the intervening 70 years seems to have rendered the subject matter irrelevant, indeed boring.
It is now difficult to imagine or remember the world of newspapers - and the world of journalists - in 1945 when Derek Hudson wrote this book. For instance, in those days - and still in 1955 when I toured the premises of The Evening Standard in London – the text of the paper physically originated in hot lead linotype. I came away with a keepsake of my name set in a little bar of lead, just like a rubber stamp (and who remembers them?). By the way, The Evening Standard, founded in 1827, survives……..but, having been acquired in 2009 by Russian interests (sic.), has since circulated as a freesheet.
In 1945, London (and Britain) was awash with newspapers, but Hudson does not provide us with a comprehensive survey of the major papers being published at the time; indeed, the flap note indicates that Hudson “writes more of the journalists than of the papers in which they wrote, tracing the story of British journalism through the personalities of outstanding individuals rather than an impersonal survey of the rise and fall of successive newspapers and journals”.
But this claim is manifestly not true! A rough analysis shows that considerably more of the publication is devoted to stories of the newspapers (and their proprietors) than to the journalists. And, while the stories are interesting enough, when strung together they taste a bit like alphabet soup……but without the broth, and without the pasta.
So, having proffered such a trenchant verdict, I have worn sufficient guilt to read the book again – just to be sure. There is much of interest, but to whom? Although discombobulated, I feel the need to give Hudson the last word – this from his closing paragraph: “In the course of three hundred years, British journalists……have learned to perfect their calling. May its grave responsibilities, as well as its great traditions, inspire the journalists of the future to go forward as bravely……Freedom of the Press has not been won to be given away. To those who would venture to teach them their business……journalists might well reply with a memorable paraphrase from Kai Lung: “Refrain from instructing your venerated ancestors in the art of extracting nutrition from a coconut.” This, I expect, encourages you to tell your detractors to go suck eggs.
#57 Horses of Britain by Lady Wentworth
Given the meticulous presentation of the Britain in Pictures volumes it was a surprise to see the confusion that surrounded the naming of this book. In the body of the volume it is unambiguously named British Horses and Ponies, while on the dust jacket it has two (other!) names – on the flap: Horses and Ponies of Britain, and on the front of the jacket (and matching cover) Horses of Britain. And that’s how it’s shown in the series listings. So, after the book was printed there was clearly a decision to change the name (but too late to change the print-run); then in the ensuing printing of the dust jacket the publishers still got it wrong, using two versions.
Whether the mid-stream changing of horses was at the author’s instigation, or dictated by the publishers, we shall never know. The result is that “ponies” are no longer meant to occupy as much of the reader’s focus as originally intended.
As it happens the author, Lady Wentworth (1873 to 1957), had as interesting a pedigree as any of the horses she discusses. Or should that be bloodline? Her full name: Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth. She inherited the title (in 1917) from her mother Anne (who in turn was the daughter of the Earl of Lovelace). Additionally, Anne was the great-granddaughter of Lord Byron (and Lady Wentworth thus the great-great-granddaughter). Lady Wentworth added the Lytton appendage to her name after marrying the presumptive to the Earldom of Lytton. The marriage lasted from 1899 to 1923, although the Lytton bit seems to have continued on until Lady Wentworth herself expired.
Lady Wentworth’s interest in horses was lifelong. As a child she travelled through the Middle East with her parents where the parents purchased Arabian horses for their studs, one stud in Cairo and one back in England, Crabbet Park. Lady Wentworth, as she wasn’t early on, managed the Crabbet Park property and stud from 1904 until her death in 1957 - although there were significant ownership issues after her parents separated and later divorced (in 1923). These issues, relating both to the Crabbet Park property and to the stud horses, cluttered the courts for years; and there was one incident where Lady Wentworth’s father rustled the horses off the property, including horses to which he had no claim at all. Another time he shot a number of the horses…….unsurprisingly, court rulings went against him!
The Wikipedia entry for Crabbet Arabian Stud tells a story fascinating at all levels: the family obsession with the Arabian horse breed, the tragedy of family estrangement, the determination of Lady Wentworth to hold it all together notwithstanding, the later demise of the stud (in 1972) after Crabbet Park was split in two by the M3 Motorway from London to Gatwick and Brighton.
But, despite the multiple travails of the family and the stud, “at least 90% of all Arabian horses alive today trace their pedigrees in one or more lines to Crabbet horses.” And, interestingly: “Today, Australia now has a significant number of ‘pure’ Crabbet lines, undiluted by infusions from other sources, with possibly the highest percentage of straight-and-high-percentage Crabbet blood in the world.” That was in 1944, and I have no way of knowing whether the statistic holds today.
The author’s lifetime focus on Arabian horses clearly did not blinker her gaze to other breeds. In the book there is something there for you if your interest lies with “parade horses” (including black funeral horses, and circus horses), “utility horses” (including hacks, cobs and hunters), “ponies” (including Shetland, Highland, Dartmoor and Welsh Mountain). And there is the group categorised as “mixed light breeds”: post horses, coach horses, hunters, hackneys and polo ponies.
Of likely more general interest is the section on thoroughbred racehorses. This topic gets a guernsey in an earlier Pieces to Share blog on The Turf, posted in August 2020. There, there is reference to the three Arabian sires from whom all bloodstock is traced, and our present author confirms this point – The Darley Arabian, The Godolphin Arabian, and Byerley Turk.
Lady Wentworth’s knowledge (and her horse sense) as captured in this small volume is extraordinary. In one paragraph, for instance, she details the “points” of the Arab horse: “head small and profile concave, tapering to a very small muzzle; eyes very large and brilliant and circular, and placed much lower in the skull than the eyes of other horses; forehead extremely broad……..” and she continues for 147 words more! And concludes with: “A true Arab should be full of fire and vitality. A ewe-necked, weedy, lifeless stallion is not worth his keep, and stallions which look like mares should be avoided as sires. A sire should have a strong, arched chest and a flashing eye and be of a bold though good tempered disposition. Mares are quieter but should also be showy and striking to look at.”
One gets the sense that it was Lady Wentworth for whom the word “formidable” was coined.
#14 British Scientists by Sir Richard Gregory
A lab rat whose working life is spent in testing batches of rice bubbles to ensure their “pop” is up to scratch is a scientist. He is applying in a practical context the scientific knowledge gained by himself and others. Sir Richard Gregory’s book, however, makes little space for implementers; it concerns itself mostly with innovators. That’s okay, and it leaves scope for a successor volume on British Technology, say. The problem with British Scientists, though, is not its limited scope; the problem is that some parts of it are boring as bat shit. Indeed, it’s little more than a long list. And, to confirm the list-maker’s mind set, it concludes with a date-order listing of 104 British scientists – date order based on birth dates - that includes none still alive at the time of publication in 1941. Get that: no contemporary British scientist rated a mention. A way of managing production size maybe, but surely a slight on the then present generation.
I have not had the stomach for checking whether every one of the 104 is referenced in the text, but I do see that several mentioned in the text are not on the list! And the book has very little in the way of potted biographies. Furthermore, the book has little in the way of in-depth analysis of developments subsequent to a scientist’s innovative work, or of the consequences of later scientific advances. My complaint is that the book merely contains thumbnail observations about individual scientific achievements, and then moves on to the next dot point. But I exaggerate a little! and Gregory does become more anecdotal and fulsome when discussing scientists of more recent times.
Gregory is aware of the dichotomy between the “pure” science of imagination and research and the “applied” science of technology and implementation, as the following illustrates: “The inventions of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which brought about what is called the Industrial Revolution in England, came from the workshop rather than from the scientific laboratory.” So, hooray for applied science.
Sir Isaac Newton (who, fortunately, does get a mention in the book!) wrote in 1675 that “If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. This evolutionary aspect of scientific knowledge is not well documented in Gregory’s conspectus. His approach is to divide his “lists” into scientific groups - for instance The Earth and its Fossil Records, Radioactivity and Atomic Disintegration, Atoms and Their Structure, Modern Observational Astronomy – but these very groupings are an indication of how out of date a “science” book from 1941 must be. Gregory, however, cannot be blamed for the passage of time.
Sir Richard Gregory, the author, was no intellectual pygmy, indeed he was a person of some renown. The National Portrait Gallery web-site records seven portraits in the collection! He lived 1864 to 1952, and was a scientific writer and journalist, and Professor of Astronomy at Queens College, London. He was editor of the journal Nature for some twenty years. But, in British Scientists, I think his approach was wrong. This may well have been at the directive of the editors. No matter. As my favourite client used to say when I was proffering an unimpeachable reason for some delay in service: “The effect, Gary, is the same”.
One significant feature of the Britain in Pictures books is the illustrations that pepper each volume. After all, “pictures” is germaine to the series concept. I am mindful that my reviews focus on the text only, and this time is no different. But, as counterpoint to the general negativity of this review, I am happy to report that British Scientists contains 19 black and white illustrations (16 of which are portraits of scientists), and 12 colour plates (including 9 portraits). This number of illustrations is typical for the series and, as usual, those illustrations have been sourced widely. But it’s a bonus that on the page of a small book such as this, full-page portraits are somewhat more accessible than “distance shots” and landscapes, even though good looks are no criterion for selection.
One interesting aspect of reading a venerable technical source is the possibility, if not likelihood, that time will have altered some of that text’s verities; and, for today’s reader this might be an annoying distraction. What follows is one such distraction unwittingly put forward by Sir Richard Gregory: “Parts of a human skull and fragments of other skulls from neighbouring fields found at Piltdown, Sussex, in 1911-1915, show that a race of beings which approached the human type existed in England half a million years ago……….Two British scientists, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward and Sir Arthur Keith, are chiefly responsible for showing that the Piltdown remains represent an extinct genus of mankind.” Except that the skull of the “Piltdown Man” was a hoax perpetrated by local amateur archaeologist (and solicitor), Charles Dawson. The truth of the fraud was not revealed until 1953, long after Dawson’s death (in 1916), and long after British Scientists was published.
Gary Andrews
