Tarot card seller gave me the devil of a good story (up to a point)

PRINCE OF DARKNESS: Terry Lovell ended up selling Bibles

By GEORGE DEARSLEY

The news agency copy looked rather bland to me, the stuff, at best, of a small feature in a local paper.

But Sunday People northern news editor Terry Lovell (aka The Prince of Darkness) was salivating like a starving man over an entrecote steak.

I read it again.

Ex-theology student Robin Smith, 22, has launched a new business making fancy gifts including Tarot cards.

“Great tale, George. Go and see him, we’ll turn him over.”

Mystified, I drove to Blackpool for a chat with the would-be entrepreneur.

The harmless chap explained that at one point he had thought about becoming a vicar but his passion now was design and printing.

Back in the office, Lovell was waiting with my “intro” already written out.

“A would-be clergyman has rejected God to become a disciple of the devil.”

I was learning a powerful lesson about writing for the tabs.

Lovell had seized upon the minority view that Tarot cards are somehow linked to divining the future by dabbling in the occult.

Smith’s innocuous venture had been given the red-top treatment. Big style.

I dutifully obeyed orders and carefully selected any quotes about his falling out of love with Anglicanism.

When the piece appeared, Smith rang me, more in dismay than anger.

At least his venture had earned valuable column inches in a national paper, I lamely replied.

Ironically, years later, Lovell eschewed Fleet Street’s dirty tricks, quit his lucrative job and became a born-again Christian, selling Bibles.

He said he could no longer countenance the cheating and conniving.

Funny old game.

Lovell died in 2018 aged 73.