DIARY
ANTHONY HOWARD Clearing out your desk is a thoroughly therapeutic experience. The end of a seven-year stint at the Observer meant I had to do it last week — and I kept thinking of that phrase 'a little death' (usually, I know, used in quite another context). It must, I assume, have come into my head because departing from a job is always a reminder of just how little of what gets done in an office matters at all sub specie aeternitatis. All those endless mi- nutes of committee meetings carefully pre- served in a bottom drawer (and now gaily thrown away); the piles of bumf covering everything from circulation figures to iden- tikit descriptions of Observer readers; the fruits of lavish ventures into market re- search mounted with high hopes of action and normally ending in paralysis; the inter- nal memos commemorating long-forgotten quarrels and variegated insults (Tinally, may I say that I am not in the least surprised that you still find yourself a mere deputy editor after seven years'). Were they really things worth getting excited about? I suppose at the time they must have seemed so. But my posthumous melancholy reflection was: 'Yes, this was my life.'
No doubt shortly I shall be getting the annual form from Who's Who asking me to correct my entry and, if necessary, to bring it up to date. That, to be candid, is the moment I most dread. When I was last to borrow the tactful phrase of the acting profession — 'resting', I returned the form stating under 'occupation': 'Editor, New Statesman 1972-78'. They did not like that at all. In no time I received a telephone call saying it would be perfectly in order for me to tell them in confidence of my 'next appointment': I could rest assured that `nothing would be divulged'. My vain protests that I had absolutely nothing in mind seemed to strain their credulity. 'Oh well,' I was told, 'I suppose if that's really the case we had better simply put: "Jour- nalist and broadcaster".' I demurred — for some reason that has always struck me as a job description (rather like 'industrial con- sultant') carrying with it more than a trace of presumption. I think this time I shall ask them simply to say, 'Unemployed'. After all, there are still over two million of us.
One thing that has puzzled me down the years is the relentless regularity with which newspapers refer to the Princess Royal's husband as Captain Mark Phillips. He left the army (not the navy) over ten years ago and I was innocent enough to believe that only officers of field rank retained their military titles in retirement: even then there has always seemed to some of us something vaguely dodgy about mustachioed figures in the shires who insist on being referred to as 'Major'. True, a serving army officer is allowed to call himself 'Captain' in the 'Forthcoming En- gagements' column of a newspaper, where- as a subaltern or even a lieutenant is expected to describe himself merely as `Me; but that is a far cry from clinging to the wreckage of a military career long after you have separated from the colours. Mark Phillips appears so seldom nowadays in the Court Circular that I cannot recall what nomenclature is employed there; but it should not be beyond the wit of the Press Office at Buckingham Palace to send out a memo to newspapers reminding their edi- tors of what used to be known as 'Correct Social Usage'.
In all the fuss and din about Lord Rees-Mogg's Broadcasting Standards Council, I am surprised that more has not been made of the salaries its members are apparently to be paid. According to the trade magazine Broadcast each of them is to get £9,000 a year (more than double the salary of an ordinary BBC governor). Since the Council is envisaged to meet only once a week, that strikes me as a pretty generous stipend. And the mention of that word 'stipend' calls to mind the presence on the body of a wholly predictable figure — the ubiquitous, populist Bishop of Peterborough, 'Bill' Westwood (formerly of Edmonton). I've had my eye on him for some time and — to judge by his robustly right-wing contributions to Radio 4's Sun- day and Thought for the Day — have very little doubt that he sees himself, however absurdly, as making a late run to be Dr Runcie's eventual successor at Canterbury. Before that happens, however, I hope that the awkward squad within the C of E will feel disposed to ask some questions. One of them might be how the Father-in-God of some 356 parishes in north-east Cam- bridgeshire and Northamptonshire finds the time to supplement his salary of £15,975 as a diocesan bishop by serving to the tune of £9,000 a year as a supernumer- ary public official. And even should 'Bill' Westwood be able to claim that every penny of that is going to charitable pur- poses, maybe someone should risk a sup- plementary. How is it that a busy and caring rural bishop has been able to be a member of the Press Council (1975-81), the IBA Religious Advisory Panel (1983- ), the Video Consultative Council (1985- ) and now, to crown the edifice, an expensively paid member of the Broadcast- ing Standards Council as well? Bishops above all should be able to tell the differ- ence between being public-spirited and spiritually minded.
Ajob I have always managed to avoid in journalism is going to the Public Record Office (now translated from Chancery Lane to Kew) at the turn of the year to discover what the cat has brought in over cabinet and departmental papers under the 30-year rule. Actually, of course, it's a 31-year rule — which is why this year we have been reading about 1958 rather than 1959. I've never envied those who have to compete with each other to chase the various relevant volumes, all too often in limited supply. The PRO has its own tribe of votaries — who virtually live, move and have their being there. Pity the poor journalist jack-of-all-trades who is sudden- ly thrust into their temple in order to pluck out its secrets. The shrewder newspapers have already started hiring academics to assist them in their inquiries — made, of course, on the original unveiling days very much against the clock. Only one news- paperman ever had a real aptitude for the task in hand. He was the late, lamented Mark Arnold-Forster of the Guardian and that is by no means the only reason why he is still so widely mourned.
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