LETTERS Golden English
Sir: Your Profile of David English (6 February) — marked, alas, more by envy than a just appreciation of a man who's made remarkably much of his life — isn't quite accurate in its details of your sub- ject's foray into the giveaway newspaper business.
David, then I think foreign editor of the Daily Express, Gerald McKnight, who'd been features editor of the Sunday De- spatch, my then business partner Anthony Aronsohn and myself (plus a fifth man, later bought out) formed a company with very modest funds to run a local tabloid newspaper funded entirely by advertising. Though a well-established concept in the USA where David and Gerry had learnt about it, it was almost entirely unknown here (forgotten, rather, since the days of the free press). The company prospered under Gerry as MD and with David's astute advice. It never provided the 'fat living' of your account, or indeed any living at all, because we ploughed back every- thing we made.
Our reward came within little more than a year when Rupert Murdoch, newly ar- rived with the acquisition of the News of the World, offered to buy us out. It fell to me to negotiate with him. We met at night in a large room in the News of the World building, me ill at ease because of my unfamiliarity with balance sheets, the newspaper industry at large, or top-level bargaining. In this condition I fell back on simply rejecting every offer Rupert made. The reason was largely that the drink with which he plied me — these Aussies are inexhaustibly hospitable — simply made me stubborn. Eventually when he got so exasperated that he stopped plying me I accepted the last figure he'd mentioned.
Up to Fleet Street I tottered and, David being on leave cruising the North Sea on his motor launch, I telephoned Gerry and Anthony with the news that we'd made about 700 per cent on our investment. We arranged to meet at the Wig and Pen Club. There my companions rapidly reached my level of intoxication.
We decided to get the glad tidings to David by means of the Express's radio link with him. Boozily we anguished over how to achieve confidentiality and prevent the Express staff catching on. Triumphantly we hit upon, 'Kangaroo buys for ix.'
The profound subtlety of this code re- sulted in the whole of Fleet Street believing that David personally had made an even greater killing than he in fact had, and legend has it that upon Vere Hannsworth hearing about his coup he offered him the earth to join Associated Newspapers, which he has served so well ever since. (The move greatly distressed Max Aitken, who told me of his immense respect for David's abilities.) The fable of his departure from the Express has echoes of an earlier tale about him at what you describe as his first real job, with the Daily Mirror. He was sent north to cover a story, missed it, and Cudlipp demanded his immediate return preparatory to sacking him. But on the way David chanced to be first at the scene of a major disaster, earning the Mirror a scoop and himself rehabilitation, prompting Cud- lipp to christen him Golden Balls English. A good story anyway. His whole story's good really. The sneery tone of your profile is a pity.
Rayne Kruger
Prudence Leith Ltd, 94 Kensington Park Road, London W11
Previous page
