KEN TYNAN FOR SIXPENCE
E.C. Hodgkin recalls his days on the editorial staff of the post-war Spectator I WAS fascinated to read Mr Edward Vale's piece, 'I was The Spectator's office boy' (16/23 December), being probably the only other survivor from The Spectator of those early post-war years. When I joined its editorial staff at the beginning of 1948, shortly after Mr Edward Vale left, most of those he mentioned were naturally still there. Mr Elliot still ran the advertising department, Mrs Gage still cleaned and handed out tea, and the editorial staff was the same: Wilson Harris, editor; Walter Taplin, deputy editor; James Pope-Hen- nessy, literary editor.
Mr Edward Vale has affectionate mem- ories of Wilson Harris and quite rightly so, for he was a kindly man. He had been MP for Cambridge University since 1945, and was saddened when his parliamentary career came to an end in 1950 after the Labour Government abolished university seats. He showed me a letter Attlee had written to him, rather on the lines of Cromwell's 'cruel necessity', and consider- ing how useful those MPs were (A.P. Her- bert, John Buchan, Eleanor Rathbone, etc.), and considering how unelitist univer- sities are these days, Mr Tony Blair might do much worse than restore a second vote to graduates. He won't, of course.
Wilson Harris wrote with great facility in a small neat hand, his mentor being his predecessor as editor, St Loe Strachey, who, it was said, like Shakespeare, never blotted a line. Honor Croome of the Economist, who sometimes wrote for The Spectator, pointed out to me that you could always remove the last sentence of any- thing he had written without its making any difference to the sense or argument. I checked and found this to be perfectly true, that sentence being more like an amen or an embroidered full stop. Though a good Quaker, Wilson Harris liked a flut- ter and used to telephone his stockbroker every morning.
There was an editorial conference in his office once a week; it was a small family affair, and more often than not attended by Peter Fleming, who was theatre critic and much else. He would drive up from Net- tlebed to 99 Gower Street in a Rolls-Royce station-wagon, the coachwork designed by himself. 'What do you need all that space for?' I asked him. 'I must have something I can put a stag in.' Fair enough.
Peter treated Wilson Harris like his commanding officer, calling him 'Sir', which Wilson Harris found rather embar- rassing, and sometimes the occasion became more like Monty conferring with his divisional commanders than a group of journalists planning the next issue of a weekly magazine. One appendix to this meeting which Peter Fleming did not attend took place two or three times a year, when a food parcel had arrived from a generous Canadian lady who admired The Spectator, and in those days of contin- uing rationing did her best to bolster the strength of its editorial staff. Wilson Har- ris would unpack the parcel on his desk while the rest of us looked on with feigned indifference. 'Bacon! Who had bacon last time? Mr Tap? Mr Hodg? My turn?' (No Christian names in those days.) But even if the bacon went elsewhere, the dried apri- cots and tea were always welcome.
The structure of the magazine then was much the same as today. There was 'A Spectator's Notebook', written by Wilson Harris (Janus), or in his absence by Peter Fleming (Strix) in a nice fourth-leaderish manner. Take, for example, this whiff of the green room, via Celia Johnson:
The other day an actress's small nephew was taken round to her dressing-room after see- ing the performance. After some general conversation about the production, he raised a point which obviously had been worrying him.
'I say,' he asked in a rather pregnant tone, `do you really kiss that man?'
`Well,' said his aunt, 'yes. As a matter of fact, I do.'
A look of revulsion, slightly tinged with incredulity, appeared on her nephew's face.
`Doesn't he mind?' he said.
Then came the 'Middles', six or more of them. In, I think, 1950, Wilson Harris start- ed an 'Undergraduate Page', a thousand words on any subject. This went on for about two years; most but not all of the contributors came from Oxford or Cam- bridge, and one of my jobs was to sort and select the manuscripts. I managed to get five cousins into print for the first time, a piece of nepotism which was subsequently more than justified. 'Marginal Comment' by Harold Nicolson came next.
Then the Arts. As already mentioned, Peter Fleming was doing drama with, for a time as relief, a bright young man from Oxford called Kenneth Tynan, who was once summoned to the office top be told by Peter that there was no need to be brilliant in every sentence. Cinema with Virginia Graham and Cyril Ray, ballet with Lillian Browse, music with Martin Cooper. The Spectator Competi- tion was further forward than today: 'A prize of £5, which may be divided.' No malt. The Books pages were as good as the New States- man's, if not better. L.A.G. Strong and Marghanita Laski reviewed new novels, and to supplement them (in the six months when Pope-Hennessy was away writing the life of Queen Mary, and I stood in for him) I recruited Olivia Manning, a friend from post- war Palestine.
The price of The Spectator in those days was sixpence, but the issue of 4 May 1951 contained a warning that it might have to be increased. The problem was discussed at directors' meetings, and members of the edi- torial staff (Wilson Harris himself a director) were sometimes brought in afterwards to air their views. The largest shareholders were Sir Angus Watson, the Newcastle skipper king, an austere and even Podsnapian figure, and Sir Evelyn Wrench, who had been editor of the paper 1925-32, having before that worked closely with Northcliffe as one of his `watchdogs'. How to stimulate sales? Various suggestions, and then Wrench: 'Northcliffe was always full of ideas. For example, he started a Daily Mail Hat — well, that certain- ly wasn't one of his successes, but it did get the paper talked about.' Wilson Harris, who had that capacity so necessary in an editor or prime minister of appearing to listen atten- tively to what was being said without having the slightest intention of doing anything about it, said, 'Thank you, Evelyn, very inter- esting', and passed on to other business. A Spectator Hat — one of the might-have- beens of journalism.
In October 1951, the price was raised to sevenpence, and since then, of course, it has gone up quite often and by quite a lot. It was early in 1952 when Peter Fleming said to me, `I think you ought to join the Times.' A lunch at the Garrick was arranged with William Casey, then the editor, at which much good claret was drunk and everything except work was discussed. This resulted in the offer of a job as a 'special writer', and 20 enjoyable years back again on a daily paper. But The Spectator held much of my affection. A good paper: still is.
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