Northern exposure
Sir: Simon Hoggart (`The thirty years war', 10 October) says that the Observer was the only paper interested in Ulster affairs before 1969. That may be. But in 1968, when I was Northern editor of the Daily Telegraph, I sent an experienced reporter to Northern Ireland to investigate rumours that tension there was growing.
He wrote a report, which I printed in full, to the effect that the situation was ready to explode and the IRA meant business as never before. I expected that at least some of this story would appear in the London edition, but the then night editor, Peter Eastwood, spiked it. When the Manchester story aroused favourable comment the next day, he intensified his personal vendetta against Manchester, and me in particular, which continued after his appointment as managing editor and until his retirement.
It cost the paper much in money and staff morale. He was not a nice man, as I believe you yourself can testify, but he was
LETTERS
normally a good journalist and this lapse can only be explained by the fact that the story originated in Manchester (where, ironically, he was born).
Michael Kennedy
Sunday Telegraph, Longbridge Road, Parkway Estate, Manchester
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