Mixture as before
THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY
It's an odd thing, but though there's only one Easter day without papers, there seem to be three days without news. I don't know why this should be, although I suspect it has some- thing to do with the physical and emotional exhaustion so many newspapermen feel after the annual Maundy Thursday office outing. In some cases, this exhaustion is so intense that it produces a feeling that the world has actually ended and therefore there cannot ever be any more news.
This feeling, though understandable, is mis- leading, and is perhaps the cause of the dire predictability of those papers that do come out over the Easter holiday. For example, I was prepared to bet there would be stories-of traffic jams on the way to the Lake District, the West Country, and on all roads out of London. There would also be stories of maniac driving on the motorways. The Beaverbrook press would have a jolly Britain-is-still-Great story on the front page and would keep details of death on the roads to an inside page in case they conflicted with that group's ardent belief that it's not the drivers who are mad, but the-roads the maniacs drive on.
There would be pictures of girls in Easter bonnets; of animals; of the Prime Minister, in or out of those unbecoming shorts (why doesn't Mary tell him?); and at least one pic- ture of 'a chick breaking out of an egg. Fine weather would bring happy headlines; rotten weather would produce waves breaking over sea-walls and stories proving that, whatever superficial impression of decay we give others these days, when it comes to the crunch, Britain can still take it.
I receive no pleasure from the fact that events proved me right. Give or take a few unimportant details, this year's Easter papers bore a remarkable resemblance to last year's. Or any other year's, come to that.
The News of the World, for instance, had a story on the front page headed 'It's Bloody Lunacy,' which suggests they are going to find themselves in trouble with the Mirror group, who alone have the right to use the word `bloody' in their headlines. The News of the World story, about motorway madness, was by Mr Edward Trevor. It was full of airy persi- flage intended to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. The opening paragraph was a real grabber: 'I took my life in my hands yesterday among the death-wish drivers of the motorways— suddenly the most notorious of all Britain's blood-smeared -thoroughfares. And I am not ashamed to admit'—there's honesty for you =that several times I found my hands trembling on the wheel.'
You'd think no story could follow that. You'd be wrong. Mr Trevor hadn't even started. Listen to this: 'The new- flashing £3,000=a-mile warning signs were almost totally ignored. As I obeyed their indication to reduce speed to 30 mph, honking, fist-waving drivers whipped past overtaking on both sides. A blue, bald-tyred Ford Cortina, with four children fighting in the back seat, flashed past me— and suddenly whipped across to the nearside lane without signalling as the driver spotted the exit lane he wanted.'
Phew! Near thing! My congratulations to Mr Trevor on his escape and on being able, as the Cortina- flashed past, to see that the tyres were bald and to count the fighting children in the back. But that wasn't the end. Quite suddenly a Vauxhall Victor driver 'over- took me, cut in a few inches ahead and braked fiercely. For the next mile he drove at 15-20 mph to "spite" me, grinning into his mirror and making V-signs.' The last paragraph of this gripping yarn alarmed me even more. It simply said: 'News of the World reporteri all over the country reported the same motorway Madness.' Did they, begod? It shows that it pays to keep a sharp lookout. Because David Benson of the Daily Express saw nothing of the sort: 'I have been doing my own personal survey over the Easter weekend. I have driven hundreds of miles on crowded roads and found little evidence of 'sheer carelessness.' Coming -from the Express that might seem predictable, of course; but I must add that I, too, drove a lot on motorways and I prefer Mr Benson's account to that of Mr Trevor.
Other things were much as expected. The People had an animal story as its lead, under a headline that must become a classic: 'British Dogs In A Jap Hell.' The Sun gave us the chicken-and-egg bit, but took the mickey out of it and themselves with one of the long captions that paper often goes in for: 'There are a number of ways of knowing that Easter 'is back again. Marchers, for instance, march. 'Conferences, for another instance, confer. People go into the parks in extravagant hats. The hardbitten photographer, who has spent the winter photographing hardbiting news, starts to sigh "Aarh" at the sight of an egg. The "Cheep-cheep', of a fluffy chick puts the spring in his tripod, a twinkle in his iris.' Well, that's one way of getting away with it. Five out of ten for cheek.
The Express did have a happy lead : 'The Sweet Dream QE2,' which told us that the boat is all it is cracked up to be, if you will pardon the expression. The Mail gave us a dose of 'The great spring sun tonic.' The Sun, telling us it was 'Warmer than Majorca,' also told us what rotten weather those foreigners had had, and serve them right. And generally it looked just like another Easter.
Well, in view of the weather we had, I'm not complaining. Except for one tiny thought. For nearly two thousand years Easter has been taken for a symbol of starting anew. Could newspapers just once—that's all I'm asking; just once—have a go at being different next Easter? Could they? It would be such a change.
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