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THE THINGS THEY SAY
There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them — Sylvia Plath
Daily Express celebrates 125th anniversary today
THE Daily Express was once viewed as a young upstart as it challenged the dominance of the Daily Mail in the early years of the last century.
Today, April 24 — the day after St George’s Day no less — the paper celebrates its 125th anniversary. A facsimile of the first front page in 1900 is pictured left.
To mark the occasion yesterday’s Express carried a double-page spread written by acclaimed Daily Drone columnist TERRY MANNERS.
The Express editor was gracious enough to add a credit, pictured below, to the Daily Drone which supplied pix.
A full transcript of of Terry Manners’ piece is available HERE
News you may have missed
Bonfire of
the subs
It’s all kicking off in Kent according to the Messenger, reports
BRIAN EMSLEY
Former Daily Express chief sub BOB WATSON spotted this howler in
Mail Online
The three amigos
PUB CHUMS: Craig Mackenzie, Tony Boullemier and Alastair McIntyre
It was Easter, so it must have been time for lunch, although to be honest, when isn’t it time for lunch?
Former Express and everywhere else chums Tony Boullemier, Craig Mackenzie and Alastair McIntyre glanced in to the Flintgate pub in Oatlands, Surrey, for a glass or two and a catch up. Tony was visiting family up the road in Weybridge and as Mackenzie and McIntyre live locally a meeting was a no-brainer as they say these days.
There’s not much more to report except that a good time was had by all and old stories and jokes were told and laughed at as if they were new (they weren’t).
Picture: RIC BOULLEMIER ric@generatemedia.co.uk
HACKED DOWN BY HICKEY
THEY do look grand, don’t they? His Serene Highness Prince George de Chabris and his Princess — or so they claimed.
In reality de Chabris was a political swindler and his companion was better known as Jan Jackson, a bit-part actress from Wisconsin.
De Chabris tricked Jeremy Thorpe into selling him the National Liberal Club in London but guess who helped bring the fraudster down? Why, William Hickey of course.
Former Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON has the full fascinating story
THE HONOURABLE MEMBER
Remember the Country Boys, the gay little column that ran in the Drone for years? Thought not.
Well listen, luvs, Oliver is back! This time as a Labour MP. Ooh, just fancy that! And we all look forward to him standing erect in the Chamber for his maiden speech, don’t we? Oh, please yourselves. Interested? Read on … you know it makes sense! (It doesn’t — Ed)
IN WHICH I FIND THAT ABSINTHE REALLY DOES MAKE THE HEART
GROW FONDER
A Remembrance of Newspapers Past by PAT PRENTICE, a new weekly memoir only in the Drone
Amid the inevitable back-tracking (‘What, did I really say that? — I can’t remember’) that will follow the Supreme Court’s trans ruling, it’s, perhaps, best not to forget that Sir K in 2021 slapped down the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield for having the temerity to claim that only a woman could have a cervix and Calamity Lammy condemned, as dinosaurs, feminists challenging trans extremism. Proof, were it needed, that we are hardly living in a new Age of Enlightenment.
Elon Musk,14 children with four women, puts a high price on avoiding ‘harem drama’, says The Wall Street Journal. That’s why we may never know how many kids he actually has. For instance, when author Ashley St Clair told the world’s richest man she was pregnant, he offered her $15 million up front and $100,000 a month until the child turned 21 to keep its existence secret. Silly Ashley. She ‘took to social media’ to reveal her son, Romulus, was Musk’s.The $15 million was withdrawn and the monthly stipend cut to $20,000.
Securing a coveted place for your child at one of the world’s most prestigious universities is big business. Christopher Rim, founder of Command Education, offers everything from exam prep to cultivating a ‘compelling hook’ to win over admissions staff. That’s up to $750,000 a pop, by the way. One British client asked Rim to sign a 40-page NDA; another offered him £1.5 million not to promote any other pupil in his child’s class.
Tanks Germany sent to aid Ukraine‘s war effort are a flop on the battlefield, according to a report by Ukraine’s military. The Leopard 2 is hopelessly vulnerable to drone strikes and, when damaged, is almost impossible to repair in situ.
I see Sir K is named among Time mag’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025. But then so is Snoop Dogg.
The great slang fightback has begun! After years of the creeping influence of Americanisms on language in Britain, the success of TV shows such as Love Island and Adolescence is reversing the process. Queue, not Line, is gaining traction as is Maths over Math. More Americans are using Cheers for Thank you. Other words being adopted by Americans include Wonky (Aaaaaagh! — Ed), Nutter, Bonkers, Trousers, Bugger, Kerfuffle, Posh, Flummox and Banter.
Celebrity Big Brother ‘star’ Patsy Palmer, who played Bianca in EastEnders, likes to be recognised, apparently. A fan who did a double take after spotting her in Brighton, says she shouted at him: ‘YES, IT IS ME!’
Zhúlóng, which could be the universe’s most distant spiral galaxy, has been identified by the James Webb telescope, says my geek with the crick in his neck and the staring eyes. It closely resembles the Milky Way from a billion years after the Big Bang and challenges theories about how quickly large galaxies form.
Well done to Deborah Ross in The Times for her paean of praise for actress Aimee Lou Wood without once mentioning the T word.
The EC is giving burner phones and basic laptops to staff visiting the US to avoid the risk of espionage, says the FT. It’s a precaution usually reserved for visits to China and is designed to prevent access to the commission’s IT systems. Says one official: ‘It’s a sign that the transatlantic alliance is over.’
It’s an ill wind etc. The decline in the use of cash has yielded an unexpected benefit for children’s health: they are swallowing fewer coins. The number in England needing surgery to remove foreign objects fell from 2,405 in 2012 to 1,716 in 2022, a 29% drop.
If you’ve got shares in the fridge magnet industry dump them fast. Anything that deals with rare earth metals and magnets is about to feel China’s export freeze. After weeks of tariff threat and counter threat, China threw its most painful punch, says The New York Times: halting shipments of rare ‘earths’.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘For those of us lucky enough to live the America Dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us.’ — JD Vance, writing in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which, with respect, it might be as well to read before hasty, ill-informed judgments are made.
Fossilised footprints 100 million years old have been discovered in the Canadian Rockies. They are believed to be the first known tracks of an ankylosaur, a three-toed, club-tailed armoured dinosaur thought to have been 30ft long and weighing 10,000 lb.
NMPKT: The average person has 1,000 unread emails, research reveals.
ThisSportingLife: Hampshire cricketer James Vince’s winning century for Karachi Kings v Multan Sultans in the Pakistan Super League deservedly won him the Player of the Match award — a hairdryer.
InflationWatch: Balenciaga is selling a handbag disguised as a takeaway coffee cup for $5,500.
CueWhatAScorcher! Play in World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, Sheffield, suspended as air conditioning fails. (It’s not and it didn’t but when did you let the facts get in the way etc? — Ed)
Biscuits takes a break from the Mail … who could blame him?
HOBNOBBER: Palmer
Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday travel and property editor Mark ‘Biscuits’ Palmer is standing down at the end of May after nearly 17 years at the titles.
Palmer, a member of the Huntley and Palmer biscuits family, was formerly executive editor of the Daily Express. He was dunked into this exalted role by his old chum Richard Addis, a member of the Addis lavatory brush clan and a former monk, who inexplicably had been made editor of the Express. Crazy times, crazy guys!
Biscuits will be on a retainer to continue writing features across both Mail titles under the auspices of his company, Mark Palmer Associates, which he set up before joining the Mail.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
MICHAEL HELLICAR has a great story about Jack Nener and Dick Dinsdale upsetting patrons in Blackpool's swanky Imperial Hotel with their effing and blinding
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW
The piss-poor Daily Star’s circulation continues to fall but not as much as its credibility. Nor that of its clickbait crap cowboys masquerading as journalists. On Monday, April 14 it warned that, within days, ‘a huge Arctic ice bomb is set to smash into the nation sending temperatures plummeting to as low as -6.’ Well, we all know what happened (or, rather, didn’t) just as we all know what will inevitably befall the Star and its hapless hacks. Jameson and Turner must be spinning etc.
Easter bunnies, hunting for eggs, inordinate ingestion of chocolate? Not if you’re in Norway. There, where 85% identify as Christian, Easter is marked by the consumption of graphic, intense crime fiction. The resurrection of Christ is, somehow, paired with the enjoyment, as a family, of Påskecrims, particularly bloody Nordic noir crime stories set in bleak Scandinavian settings.
No kewpie dolls for knowing that the most popular language being learned throughout the world is English: top in 134 countries, according to language-learning app Duolingo. Spanish is most learned in 33, French 15, German 5, Japanese 4. Also no prizes for knowing that Italian is most popular choice in just one country — Vatican City.
A reader writes: ‘Hey, H, what’s gone wrong with the Daily Drone and its tungsten-sharp news sense? It’s more like a cross between Saga Magazine and Hello! these days. Grinning geriatrics posing outside a pub, aged voyeuristic boulevardiers snapped spying on a lone woman MP: there’s even a society wedding, FFS! It’s all about ‘page views’, I suspect. Have a word with him, will you?’ (Orliff, meet me and HR in the Arliss Hitchen Conference Room at 9.30am tomorrow) — Ed.
You may wish to look away now but boffins in Tokyo have grown nugget-sized chunks of ‘chicken’ in a lab. They feed nutrients and oxygen to poultry muscle cells through straw-like microfibres. Lab-grown chicken nuggets could be commercially available in five to 10 years.
Talk about lucky escapes! Singer Clodagh Rogers, who has just died at 78, recalled that on the last day of a nationwide tour of Blood Brothers a huge bouquet arrived at the theatre signed by Ian Hislop and asking for a date. She said: ‘Everyone thought it was the editor of Private Eye but there was this man at the stage door who turned out to be a dentist.’ Phew!
It’s all redolent of Miley Cyrus in the Last Song, as you remember (actually, I don’t — Ed) but sea turtle populations in more than half of the world are recovering from threats including hunting, pollution and coastal development. ‘It’s one of the real conservation success stories,’ says my tame ecologist with an aversion to a certain type of soup.
Fast, clean airborne ferries are set to launch worldwide. A battery-powered ferry in Stockholm uses hydrofoil underwater wings to skate through currents at 30mph, twice the speed of a typical craft while producing only 2% of the carbon emissions. Expect an initial rollout of electric vessels to Lake Tahoe and Berlin and, later, to Saudi Arabia’s planned city, Neom.
A cancer sufferer given less than 18 months to live has vowed to spend the time performing voluntary service — in all 50 states of America. Texan Doug Ruch, 55, has already worked in nine states helping the homeless and delivering meals to the housebound. He said: ‘I have two choices: I can sit at home and wait to die or go out and live.’
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Liberals tend to choose feeling good over thinking hard.’ — the FT’s Janan Ganesh.
A message in a bottle thrown into the sea in Massachusetts has been found 1,300 miles away, nearly 50 years later. The Pepsi bottle containing the note, written by 14-year-old Peter Thompson, was retrieved on a remote island in the Bahamas.
Remember those Buy British campaigns back in the day (cliché alert)? Me neither — much too young, darling. However, according to the FT’s Valentina Romei, a survey reveals 71% of respondents said they wanted to support domestic businesses by buying more items ‘Made in Britain’ after Trump’s 10% tariff was announced.
When a book shop had to move around a corner, the owners faced packing 9,100 volumes, transporting them and unpacking them. Until they decided on a novel (see what I just did there?) approach: a human chain of 300 customers. The books were lifted off shelves in one shop in Chelsea, Michigan, passed from hand to hand and put on shelves in the other.
Just when you thought they’d found a way of transplanting anything, beards are now top of the list. The procedure consists of pulling hairs from the back of the head and inserting them in the face through cuts in the skin. Harley Street practitioner Nadeem Khan charges between £3,000 and £7,000. He says inquiries have tripled since 2020 and his team are performing up to 100 transplants a year.
It’s an ill wind etc. Auto glass businesses in San Francisco are closing because car break-ins are at a 20-year low, dropping from 28,500 in 2017 to 8,500 last year following a police crackdown.
StatsLife: The average age of the Dr Who TV audience is not 12 but 45, says Rod Liddle in the ST.
OldJokesHome: I went to a zoo and all it had was one dog. It was a Shih Tzu.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger etc’ — New York mag.
The things they used to say in the Boulevard
of Broken Dreams
By PAT WELLAND
With nothing better to do, I’ve been re-reading a couple of books about the Boulevard at a time now seen – as one of the authors remarks – “as remote as the Byzantine empire”.
From political commentator Alan Watkins’ excellent A Short Walk Down Fleet Street, two conversations between Jack Nener, “a foul-mouthed bow-tied Swansea boy” who was Mirror editor 53-61, and his deputy, Dick Dinsdale:
1. “What we need on this paper, Jack, are a few Young Turks.”
Nener: “I can see we could do with a few new faces about the place, but why in fuck’s name do they have to be Turkish?”
2. “The sub-editors, like most people who work long shifts in unchanging company, had a number of catchphrases, or joke sentences. One of them – it comes from the film of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, rather than from the book itself – was: ‘Flashman, you are a bully and a liar, and there is no place for you in this school.’
Nener was overheard asking: ‘Who’s this Flashman, then, Dick?’
‘Flashman? Flashman? I don’t think we’ve got any one of that name on the paper, Jack. Is he a reporter or a sub?’
‘I don’t give a fuck what he is, but get rid of him fucking quick. He’s a bully and a liar’.”
3. From Matthew Engel’s equally enjoyable Tickle the Public – 100 years of the popular press: “There is a story that around 1926 John Logie Baird went into the Express office anxious to show his new invention (TV, as any fule kno) to the editor (Beverley Baxter). Baxter, in keeping with the paper’s reputation for percipience, sent down the message ‘Get rid of that lunatic. He may have a knife'.”
MANN OVERBOARD
Last of the Reach print editors axed as Daily Star’s Denis is shown the door
(but at least he outlasted the lettuce)
EXCLUSIVE by SPIKE DIVER
DAILY STAR print editor Denis Mann, who dreamt up the Liz Truss lettuce campaign, has been fired by Reach, after only three months in the chair.
An insider told the Drone that he turned up for work, was summoned to a meeting and told to go home. His work email was immediately disconnected.
Mann, pictured, a former night editor of the Daily Express, is the last of the Reach print editors to get the chop.
His predecessor Jon Clark was shown the door in January after seven years as editor and replaced by online editor-in-chief Ben Rankin. Mann, formerly deputy editor, reported to Rankin as print editor of the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday.
Clark said of Mann’s lettuce brainwave: “Denis spotted a line in The Economist about the shelf-life of a lettuce and mentioned it to me at the start of the day. We instantly saw the potential of pitting a real lettuce (60p from Tesco) against Wet Lettuce Liz Truss to see who would outlast the other. The video team threw their all at it and Lettuce Cam was born.”
Congrats Kelvin!
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie has married his partner Lesley in London. They are pictured at Claridges after the ceremony. The Daily Drone wishes them every happiness for the future.
Our man Clements lands major six-figure deal with Viking
EXCLUSIVE By RICHARD DISMORE
Best-selling author Rory Clements, a former Expressman, has landed a six-figure deal to write three books for a new publisher, Viking.
Clements, whose historical novels have sold more than a million copies in the UK alone, has twice won the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger Award.
His first book for Viking, part of the Penguin publishing group, is called Evil in High Places and is due to come out in hardback in August. It comes on the heels of his final book for Bonnier Zaffre, A Cold Wind From Moscow, which is in bookshops now and on Amazon. Evil in High Places is set during the German Olympics of 1936 and is his second book featuring a new protagonist, Detective Sebastian Wolff.
The synopsis reads: “All eyes are on Bavaria for the upcoming Olympic Games. As athletes fight for gold and the Nazis fight for power, Detective Sebastian Wolff faces a battle of his own: a spate of murders has left Munich’s aristocracy shaken and he has been ordered to solve the case, fast.“But this is a country arming for war, and corruption runs deep. In a search that will take him from high society to the city’s darkest corners, Wolff will soon learn just how fine the line is between justice and jeopardy.”
Viking editorial director Rosa Schierenberg said of her new star signing: “As a longtime fan, I am delighted that Rory has decided to make Viking his new home. He is a superlative storyteller who combines the flair of his very best espionage with the rich historical detail and brilliant plotting of authors like Robert Harris and Philip Kerr.
“We have hugely ambitious plans for Rory and can’t wait to introduce thousands of new readers to the inimitable detective Sebastian Wolff.”
Clements, who lives in Norfolk with his wife, the painter Naomi Clements-Wright, said he was “thrilled” to be joining the Viking team. “Their energy and creativity inspires me with great confidence for the next stage of my career.”
The Daily Drone understands that Clements, 75, did not seek to switch publishers but was “head-hunted”. Penguin Viking, which also publishes Richard Osman, John le Carré and the Obamas, approached his agent, Teresa Chris, and negotiations began. Bonnier fought to keep him but lost out.
Clements came to novel writing after a successful career as a Fleet Street journalist. He was a sub-editor on the Daily Express and had senior roles on the Daily Mail, Today and Eve Pollard’s Sunday Mirror.
Garth Pearce dies at 77
LAST PICTURE: Garth with his wife of 52 years, Davina, and other members of the family at his Berkshire home on Christmas Eve 2024
ONE of the great Daily Express Showbusiness Editors, Garth Pearce, has died at the age of 77 after a short illness.
His daughter Dulcie Pearce, Deputy Head of Features and Film Critic at The Sun revealed the shock news in an email to the Drone last night.
Dulcie said in the message also signed by her sister Gemma: “It is with deep sadness that we share the news that our darling dad, Garth, died yesterday.
“After a very short illness with cancer, he passed away at home on Wednesday, February 5th with his beloved family by his side.
“After only six nights in hospital — starting on January 16th — he came back to his home in Swallowfield, Berkshire, where he wanted to be surrounded by his family, his things, look out at the countryside and, most importantly, ‘watch Sky Sports on the telly’.
“With a lifetime of exceptional health, he’d only had one other night in hospital in his 77 years — in 1955 at the age of seven to have his tonsils out.
“So when told of the aggressive cancer, he was typically stoical about it. “Many might say ‘why me?’ But I just think ‘why not me?’”
“He spent the last weeks reflecting on his wonderfully exciting life — how he married his teenage sweetheart, travelled the world twice with rock stars and on film sets and said yes to every opportunity.
“‘I’ve lived the life of a celebrity without having the misfortune of being one,’ he said.
“Along with our mum Davina, his wife of 52 years, we had the opportunity to reminisce, laugh and hold on to him over the last few weeks, which has been such a blessing.
“As many of you can imagine, he remained the best storyteller until the very end. He will not be remembered for this terrible illness that has taken him from us, but instead for the incredibly generous, thoughtful man — and hilarious raconteur — he was.
“We would appreciate it if you could pass the news on to others we may have missed. And also share your stories of dad with each other; laugh at fond memories and raise a glass of good quality wine to him.”
His former Daily Express colleague MAUREEN PATON told the Drone: “I just wanted to say how sad it was to hear of Garth’s demise — quite a shock. My deepest condolences to his family.
“I remember him as a kind and helpful colleague in the Daily Express showbusiness department. For all his considerable achievements, there was nothing grand about him — and he was always quick to give praise where it was due.
“But for a while, I was in awe, not just because of all those exclusive interviews but because there was always an aura of glamour about a man named after my mother’s favourite Daily Mirror superman comic-strip hero. And Garth’s suntan and suits certainly lived up to that image.
“Apart from a baffling devotion to football, I can’t fault the man. RIP, Garth.”
GARTH’S DAILY EXPRESS MEMORIES
The shrinking Express
Staff numbers have been slashed
By THE EDITOR
What a difference 30 odd years make. These were the serried ranks of the Daily Express news, sport, features and picture desk staff on just one night in 1991 at the new Blackfriars offices in London.
Today things are looking a little different. The Drone was shocked to hear the current state of staffing on the paper.
All the news subs now work from home and there is normally only about five or six of them. The only people in the office are the newsdesk and the night editor plus one other, normally Mark Hoey, sometimes it’s only Mark. The middle bench help out with subbing for the first couple of hours of each shift.
This contrasts with the situation when I joined the Express 50 years ago. There were desks for 16 news subs which were filled most nights. There were also five seats on the backbench — night editor, deputy night editor, foreign page editor, copytaster and revise editor.
There was also a chief foreign sub, splash sub and a parly sub. Some nights there were so many subs that there were no desks for them and they had to sit in the reporters room.
There were, however, quite a few vacant desks after 10pm when the action moved to the Popinjay, the Old Bell, The Cartoonist and the Albion.
It was much the same in the 1980s during Saturday afternoons on the Sunday Mirror. Little work was done during our well-paid six-hour shift. More time was spent chatting, doing crosswords and eating tea and biscuits. There was also a little sport — flicking rubber bands at the fluorescent lights and trying to get the bands lodged in the plastic cover. This was harder than it sounds.
After five hours of this chief sub Malcolm Munro-Hall normally let us go an hour early. Then it was up the stairs to the cashiers — fondly known as Sky Bank — to collect one’s generous winnings.
Tell that to the kids of today and they wouldn’t believe you …
Pictured above from left are: Frances Jennings (Sports Secretary), Alan Hill, Chief City Sub (in glasses behind Frances), unidentified woman, Phil Osborn (Sport), Simon Moon (Features sub, behind Osborne), Linda Mackay, Stephen Kahn (City Editor in light-coloured trousers), Ken Weller, Liz Wilson, David Richardson (Foreign Editor), Clive Goozee (Sport, in background behind Emery), David Emery (Sports Editor), Chris Djukanovic (Picture Editor, behind Kahn), Alastair McIntyre (Chief Sub-Editor in bow tie), Mike Parry (News Editor), Steve Martin, Sir Nicholas Lloyd (Editor), Terry Manners (Night Editor), Larry Ellis (photographer), Terry Evans (Picture Desk, behind Ellis), Clive Bradley (Art Desk), Roger Watkins (Assistant Editor), Fred Boyce (Art Desk), lan Benfield, Jackie Wood, Dave Grayson, Heather McGlone, Bill Montgomery (behind Heather), Rosemary Carpenter, Maurice Hibberd (Night Picture Editor), unidentified woman, Dick Dismore (Sunday Express Night Editor), Philippa Kennedy, John Sebastian, lan Walker (Deputy News Editor), unidentified secretary, Jeremy Gates (Travel Editor), Peter Grosvenor, Literary Editor. Kneeling at the front are: Valerie Marsh (Picture Desk Secretary), unidentified, Wendy (Editor's Secretary), Annie Leask (Showbiz Reporter), Louise Gannon, Jane Woods (Picture Desk), Caroline Hendrie.
Lord Drone is honoured for 20 years of his Fleet Street organ
LORDING IT: Drone as imagined by Scott Clissold of the Sunday Express
THE Daily Drone is 20 years old? Shurely shome mistake. Believe it or not it is true and to mark the anniversary His Worship Lord (Bingo) Drone was presented with a magnificent caricature hand-tooled by Scott Clissold, talented cartoonist of the Sunday Express.
The ceremony took place in front of disinterested diners at the Boulevard Brasserie in London’s Covent Garden, the venue for numerous drink-sodden gatherings of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club.
The brasserie is a favourite with WGLC members not just for the excellent cuisine but also for the fact that Le Patron provides old-age pensioners with half-price food.
Lord Drone gave a long address of thanks to gently sleeping members which can be summed up as “thanks awfully chums”. He left shortly afterwards in a sedan chair after proffering his fondest thanks to Roger Watkins (chairman), Terry Manners, Dick Dismore, Alan Frame and Pat Pilton for their generous gesture. (Will that do M’Lud? — Ed)
It’s never too late to write my first novel, says our Maureen
And talking of days gone by …
At an age I can hardly bring myself to mention, I’m making my fiction debut on 10 April with a post-war crime novel — The Mystery at Rake Hall; C.S.Lewis Investigates, writes former Daily Express feature writer MAUREEN PATON.
Published by Swift Press, it reimagines the university don and future Narnia creator as a secret detective in 1947 Oxford when one of his female students goes missing and racketeers are on the prowl.
Droners will note the ink splashes on the retro cover, left, a nod to the hero’s status as an author that certainly knows his way around an inkwell.
But although he's loosely based on the real Lewis, rest assured that I haven't let the facts get in the way of the fiction. A second book in the series will follow next year.
SIR JOHN JUNOR: THE ROCK‘N’ROLL YEARS
Still on the subject of literature, Maureen Paton’s civil partner NORMAN JOPLING has a book out too. It’s about legendary Sunday Express editor (and Aston Martin DB4 owner) John Junor's flirtation with the pop press during the Sixties.
It is exclusively revealed in Shake It Up Baby!, Jopling’s account of being a pop-music reporter from 1961-72.
After starting out as the office boy at Record Mirror, Norman later interviewed everyone on the scene from the Beatles and the Stones to Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton (a lucky pillion passenger several times on Norman's scooter).
Originally published by Rock History, the memoir is now in its second edition via Gladiola Publishing and available on Amazon.
Shag night on the Express
THAT caught your eye, didn’t it? Actually the shag referred to here is the tobacco variety and there was a distinct cloud of it in the Daily Express subs room when this pic was taken back in the day.
Terry Manners, who unearthed the photo during his history researches, is trying to date it. The pic shows a reporter giving his copy to the Chief Sub who is polluting the atmosphere with his shag-filled pipe.
Rory’s new spy thriller
OUR friend and colleague Rory Clements has a new book out, A Cold Wind Wind From Moscow, a wartime spy thriller.
The synopsis reads: Winter, 1947. Britain's secret services have been penetrated. The country is more vulnerable than ever — and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin knows it. He decides it is time to send his master of 'Special Tasks' to create extra chaos.
But Stalin has a more important motive than mere disruption. He has a man on the inside who must be protected at all costs — a communist super-spy who has the secrets of the atomic bomb at his fingertips.
Freya Bentall, a senior MI5 officer, no longer knows who to trust and is left with one option: to bring in an outsider whose loyalty is beyond question - Cambridge professor Tom Wilde. His task: to find the traitor in MI5.
BESPECTACLED BALDIES ARE BIG IN THE DRONE
Gary goes electric
Former Daily Express editor Gary Jones has joined Dale Vince-owned Ecotricity as head of public affairs.
As Express editor Jones worked with Vince on the paper’s Green Britain campaign which sought to create “a green revolution that will create jobs, prosperity and a cleaner planet for our children”.
Jones was Express editor from 2018 to September 2024. In 2021 the Express picked up the British Journalism Award for environment journalism.
Jones said: “We are in the midst of a green revolution which will define our future and that of generations to come and I want to be a standard bearer for that change. In the past I too was sceptical about the dream of a truly renewable way of living, but Dale’s vision I am convinced is the road to making it a reality.”
He added: “Only the Labour Party can steer Britain towards clean energy independence and only with the support of entrepreneurs like Dale can the nation reach that goal, lowering prices and improving quality of life for all.”
Jim goes to cheers
When a boss announces their departure, you can tell a lot from the reaction of their employees. In Jim Mullen's case, his announcement that he was stepping down as CEO at Reach had a reaction both on social media and in his own offices, of unadulterated joy.
You can hardly blame Reach employees for rejoicing. During his six-year tenure, Mullen saw newsrooms close, buildings sold, thousands of job losses, a pay dispute, a strike and journalists being told to hit page view targets.
Given the constant redundancy runs — which one staff member told Mullen made him feel suicidal in their last emoji-filled all-company Zoom call — the bossman always remained resolutely upbeat.
His cheery emails, which always began with 'hi folks' about swanning around the country meeting people, hit a particularly sour note for reporters and editors scrambling to hit his page view targets and fill his newspapers.
Source: Popbitch
Chat that inspired Jon Akass in the King and Keys
PAT PRENTICE once nipped out for a livener in the King and Keys between editions on the Telegraph only to bump into the great columnist Jon Akass.
Prentice gave Akass, pictured, his opinions on current affairs and went back to work. Picking up a paper a few hours later he discovered that Akass had told the world about what his friend had told him in the pub. ‘He was quoting me,’ said Pat.
ONLY ON DRONE TV
Fleet St in the Blitz, plus a cameo by legendary Daily Express editor
A DRONE DISCOVERY! A fascinating film of how newspapers were distributed during the Blitz in London — with a cameo performance by legendary Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen at the end.
Runtime 6 minutes
REMOTE CONTROL AT MAIL
Bothermore works from home in Florida while staff have to labour
on in cramped London offices
ALTHOUGH he once took a dim view of his hirelings working remotely, Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere has been spending increasing amounts of time in the United States, writes TIM WALKER in his Mandrake column in the Byline Times.
Rothermere has acquired a property in Florida and his wife, Claudia, has been preoccupying herself with breeding horses in North Carolina.
Back in his media outfit's cramped London office — its grand former headquarters opposite now permanently abandoned — morale is low, with more than 50 staff facing redundancy and more to be announced shortly.
The now seven-day combined print and online Mail operation is majoring on lurid sex stories and a pro-Trump agenda in which columnists ask questions such as “why are Europe's leaders intent on keeping the moronic Ukraine war going?”
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!
Torygraph axes Alex cartoon
Alex Masterley, the cartoon cad of a banker, has been sacked by the Telegraph. The cartoon strip, created by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor, has been satirising the City financial world five times a week for 38 years.
Alex has poked fun at, and in many cases anticipated, every Big Bang, Boom, Crash and Crunch in these last four seismic decades, through the eyes of Alex, a materialistic, status-obsessed, Boomer banker, wholly unreconstructed by change and progressive opinion.
Peattie, who draws the cartoons, as well as writing the jokes with Taylor, said: “I’d say our faces didn’t initially fit at the Telegraph but we developed a good relationship with the readers.”
AND HE’S OFF!
Reach boss Mullen canters to Jockey Club with £662,000 bonus in his saddle bag
SO farewell then, Big Jim Mullen. The former bookie’s runner is leaving Reach and trotting off to head the Jockey Club.
We don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mullen has led Reach, publisher of the Express, Star and Mirror titles, for the past six years. He will be replaced as chief executive by Piers North, currently the comany’s chief revenue officer.
Reach said the change in leadership would take place with immediate effect.
Mullen, 54, was chief executive of high street betting chain Ladbrokes between 2015-18 before joining Reach.
He leaves clutching a £662,000 bonus which took his total pay last year to £1.25m. He will continue to be paid his £530,00 salary until he starts his new post on 1 June.
Mullen earned all that cash by growing operating profit to £102.3m last year on declining revenue of £538.6m but it came at a cost … headcount at Reach has fallen from 4,772 in 2018 to 3,579 at the end of last year.
The Drone, as readers might have noticed, has been no fan of Big Jim, taking him to task for sacking hundreds of journalists at the same time as trousering more cash than he can possibly need.
Whether his departure is good news or not, only time will tell.
Colleagues remember Terry Caleno who has died at 73
By KEVIN WALKER
Terry Caleno, a respected former member of the Express Art Desk, has died aged 73. There was no funeral, as he had wished for a direct cremation.
Past colleagues from the Express and Sunday Mirror Art Desks met in the cellar bar of the Walrus & Carpenter, in the shadow of the old Express building in Lower Thames Street, London, for a reunion and tribute to
‘Our Tel’.
Gill Hayden read a wonderful eulogy spiced with humour and along with a few tears. The Sunday Mirror tribute is below.
Shed full of memories of Giles (whose real name was actually Ronald)
The Daily Express has devoted a page to its legendary cartoonist Carl Giles. His real name was Ronald and Carl was a nickname. Friends had called him Karlo because they thought he looked like the actor Boris Karloff. This was shortened to Carl and Giles was registered with this name when he died in 1998 aged 78 and it appears on his gravestone in Tuddenham St Martin, Suffolk, pictured below. Not many people know that — and fewer give a toss.
Fleet Street in the 1930s, note the barber named Sweeney Todd … just the place for a close shave
THEN NOW
Yes, we get the connection, but quite why you would name a hairdressers after the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is anyone’s guess. Close shave, sir?
Back in the 1930s no one seemed to be worried about a salon in the Boulevard of Broken Dreams named Sweeney Todd but maybe they didn’t make the connection.
Next door on the right at 153 Fleet Street was Alderton & Sons, tailors, with Bouverie House to the left. The building on the right was Edgley’s which sold secondhand office furniture, above were the London offices of the Eastern Daily News.
The two buildings on the left no longer exist but the one on the right is still there, now occupied by Wrap It Up which sells salads and wraps. It would have been meat pies back in the day.
The adverts on Sweeney Todd’s were less healthy and more in keeping with the character of Fleet Street — Guinness and Combe’s Brown Ale. The shop below was Prosperity Kandy Store displaying placards for The Jockey racing paper.
VICTOR WATERS writes: The building next door is 151 Fleet Street, not 153. I know this because my office in the 1960s was at the top, behind those distinctive round windows. (The mighty Presswise Ltd and London Picture Service Ltd were my businesses, housed in four scruffy old rooms.)
Access to those upper floors is only possible now from a side door in Wine Office Court and I think all of the upper floors are part of an ad agency. In the 60s King magazine began up top of 151, before Conor Walsh and Ted Simon (both of the Sketch) moved it to Salisbury Square, and I took over their rooms and their press relations business.
Some readers might remember the Sunday Mirror's Matt White and Ronnie Maxwell (dec.) who rented one of our rooms for their freelance work on the US rags, Midnight and National Enquirer!
MP Kim joins the Drones for lunch
(Er, up to a pint m’lud)
LUNCH BUNCH: Alastair McIntyre, Alan Frame and Roger Watkins and the delightful Kim Leadbeater all by herself on the pavement
EXCLUSIVE By BRUNCHTIME O’SNOOZE, Postprandial Editor
THE fame of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club is spreading, so much so that London’s most sparkling celebrities are flocking to its side. (Eh? — Ed)
If you look carefully at the pic above you can see Labour MP Kim Leadbeater (pink top stylishly teamed with a striped jacket) enjoying a half litre carafe of house white at the Boulevard Brasserie in Covent Garden. Also on Kim’s table are a flagon of tap water (the bottled stuff is such a rip off, darling) and a copy of Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd, which she was pretending to read.
The WGLC members agreed that the lunch would have been so much more jolly if the fragrant Kim had not been separated from them by a window. She was outside enjoying the spring sunshine and they, er, weren’t.
Lord Drone confessed that he had always quite fancied the graceful MP for Spen Valley but was disappointed to be informed later that she plays hockey for the other side. Oh well …
What a load of bollocks, you’re fired Brunchy — Ed
The Daily Drone is published, financed and edited by Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre with contributions from the veteran journalists of old Fleet Street, Manchester, Glasgow, Welsh Wales and the worldwide diaspora. Dedicated to scribblers everywhere.
©Lord Drone, Whom God Preserve 2005-2025
