Thanks to Elsie the lonely widow I got an early tip about the death of Elvis
By GEORGE DEARSLEY
Many a national newspaper journalist’s career once upon a time began on the less than glamorous “dog watch” or “graveyard” night shift, and mine was no exception.
I was delighted to join the Daily Mail in Manchester 1976, but after a few months the tedium of the 6pm until 4am slog was beginning to grate.
After midnight the only two people in the newsroom were me and sub editor David Symington, a cycling fanatic, who would bring his bike up from the downstairs garage to oil its moving parts.
He later convinced me to buy a bike and often we would cycle home for several miles before our ways parted.
Every couple of hours I was required to telephone around 60 numbers, of police, fire and ambulance stations across the North of England. They were rarely productive and any important breaking news was usually delivered by radio “hams” listening in to the emergency frequencies and who rang in for tip money.
Other incoming calls arrived from drunks, cranks, and weirdos, except for Elsie, a lonely pensioner from Stockport, whose husband had died and who would regularly call for a chat.
One evening, August 16th 1977, to be exact, Elsie called. “Shame about Elvis, ain’t it?” She said.
I wondered if she’d been on the Baileys. “What? Why?” I asked. She replied: “He’s dead.”
This was news to me, and indeed to the whole of the UK. Elsie, for reasons unknown, had been listening to American radio where the seismic announcement had just been made. I alerted London office and was told “you’ve got 20 minutes to write the obituary”. I called downstairs to the library (no Google back then) and minutes later an elderly gent dumped 14 shoe boxes filled with cuttings on my desk.
I won’t pretend my prose was as elegant as Vincent Mulchrone or James Cameron. But it stole a march on our rivals for the upcoming edition and earned a “herogram” from the Northern editor. All thanks to Elsie.
4 October 2024
I too was working that night and we received the news of Elvis’ death at around 10pm, we immediately rushed a slip edition through and it was on the streets shortly after the first edition — Ed