Goodbye to the London Evening Standard

The London Evening Standard is going weekly starting September 26. The last daily edition was published on September 19, 2024

My very first foray into journalism was as an intern on the Londoner’s Diary, the widely read gossip column on the Evening Standard. I was assigned a very basic story about a young lord engaged to a titled young lady. I wrote: “Lord X was today engaged to Lady Y and the marriage will take place in six months’ time.” There were details about the wedding venue and the couple, their ages, parents and backgrounds.

I took it to the Diary editor, Nicholas Tomalin. He read it. And ripped it up.

I was shocked. But I never forgot what he said next: “Your job as a writer is the creation of interest. This is boring. Rewrite it.” With the help of a seasoned reporter I did, and it was published, all 100 words.

After I graduated from the London School of Economics and edited the London University student newspaper, Sennet, Charles Wintour, the renowned and highly respected editor of the Evening Standard since 1959 (and father of Anna Wintour, current editor in chief of American Vogue) offered me a job as Education Correspondent. This was in 1964.

So began my career in journalism.

In the mid 1960’s the Evening Standard was widely read, with a paid circulation of close to a million copies. Londoners could pick up a copy at every street corner on their way home. In 2020, before Covid, the circulation was 800,000. By 2024 it had diminished to 300,000 and was no longer profitable.

The Sixties were a time of great change in the world of education. Harold Wilson was elected socialist Prime Minister in 1964 and he was determined to do away with privilege and open quality education to every British child. 

His education minister, Sir Anthony Crosland, was appointed in January 1965 and I attended his off-the-record briefings in Whitehall. My great “scoop” was to obtain the draft of the White Paper, which proposed to do away with all the selective grammar schools and replace them with comprehensive schools. 

At that time to obtain a place at a state grammar school a child had to pass the infamous 11-plus exam. Only one in four succeeded and were immediately launched onto the fast track to university, better jobs and a higher standard of living. The exam was heavily biased in favor of the middle class. Those who failed the 11-plus exam were placed in secondary modern schools, which had lower academic standards. Comprehensive schools would replace both and combine them.

The Evening Standard published the draft White Paper with my byline. My face, with my fashionable Vidal Sassoon haircut, was on all the Evening Standard delivery vans buzzing around London. I had achieved notoriety. Sir Anthony Crosland, at a conference in Birmingham, was put on the spot and denied it all. And, for a short while, I was famous.

Other writers on the Standard were well known. Milton Shulman, the feared drama critic, was once described by Mike Leigh as someone who “would hang-glide to the Orkneys to give a writer a bad review.” Alexander Walker, the film critic, collected art by the young David Hockney. Maureen Cleave, a friend of John Lennon, wrote about The Beatles.

My favorite reporter was the burly boxing correspondent whose desk was next to mine. His name was Walter Bartleman. Everyone called him Bart. He had commanded a tank regiment in the Second World War, was from the East End, and spoke with a serious Cockney accent. Occasionally he would arrive in the office carrying several whole smoked salmon wrapped in newspaper, which he would hawk around the newsroom. I even bought one once, for a party, and discovered it was full of bones. Having no idea how to debone and carve it, I had to throw it out.

Walter gave me good advice. “Keep your bleedin’ head down.” “Write it fast and accurate.” “Get the story in.” “Don’t worry what anyone else says.”” Keep your contacts to yourself”.

Walter and the paper taught me how to be a reporter and a writer. I will always be grateful to Charles Wintour and the Evening Standard.

Top photo: Bigstock