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| Sir Harold Evans 1928-2020 |
With my lockdown giving me more time to sit and think I have been concentrating on my time as a reporter, brought back to me by the death of Harold Evans, hailed as one of the best ever journalists.
Re reading his life story, I am struck by some of the similarities of our careers.
Not that they are truly comparable; his, meteoric, staying that way.
Mine fizzled out. But I do not regret that.
I went on to a different (and for me even more interesting career), and my experience made me appreciate the importance of accurate, honest, bold journalism, which he epitomised.
Harold Evans began as a teenage reporter on a paper in Ashton-under-Lyne in north west England in 1944.
By then I had been a reporter on the Penarth Times for over two years when I was called to army service.
He learned shorthand at a ladies college; I was taught in few weeks by a lecturer friend of my sister.
Neither of us had any reporting experience; we just wanted to get out and find news. He was paid £1 a week, I got 15 shillings, but money did not matter, we were on the first rung of the ladder.
In those days there was no formal training - the national scheme did not come until the 1950s.
We learned on the job as we walked the streets of our patch, Publication day - for me, Thursday - was the day to savour, the result of our efforts. No by-lines - by Harold Evans or by Bob Skinner - in those days.
I still remember my first front page lead more than five years later.
Among my early day colleagues were five men and one women, Rosemary Preece (above, on reporting duties), who took over on the Penarth Times when I left.
We all went to evening classes at Cardiff Technical College with lessons by an English teacher, not a journalist.
But all did well - all became national editors or reporters, leaving Rosemary and me to more modest roles.
There were few women reporters in those days - the Western Mail had just one - and Rosemary might have had a successful career had she not married me.
Harold Evans's career prospered under the Canadian newspaper tycoon Roy Thomson, moving onwards and upwards until the pinnacle, his 14 years as editor of the Sunday Times, which he transformed.
Those were in some ways the golden years for British journalism, especially investigative reporting, with lavish staffing, time and money to spend - many years on the thalidomide scandal, broken by dogged, brave Harold Evans.
My efforts were on a totally different scale but life was enjoyable and rewarding as I developed freelancing for national agencies and newspapers, and became a regular broadcaster for BBC Wales and ITV.
After twenty years I decided to leave reporting for a new challenge - public relations, prompted by my interest in local government.
It was bold and risky, but Rosemary agreed with me and for a time carried on our freelance and BBC work.
It proved the right move, giving me an unexpectedly exciting life with world travel and experiences for more than 40 years, ending with me as a Skinner Public Relations consultant, including a return to BBC work.
I do not miss reporting. I am relieved. In recent years standards in Britain have steadily declined in quality and honesty.
There is still some excellent journalism and reporters, but once influential papers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express are a disgrace to their proprietors and to the reporters who write to order.
Harold Evans's career also took a different turn; after an unsuccessful years as editor of The Times under Rupert Murdoch, he moved to America where he founded Condé Naste Travel and became publisher of Random House.
Quite a contrast with me although another similarity was that we both married reporters. Rosemary and my marriage lasted 66 years.
What would our life have been had I carried on in journalism?
There were times when I might have gone on to higher things.
Ken Loveland, long serving editor of the South Wales Argus, asked me to leave the Rhymney Valley to be head reporter and a few years later to take over from him. But I preferred my reporting life.
Through all the years Rosemary gave up what could have been her own successful career, supporting me in everything I did.
And I have many letters thanking and and praising her.
Our reporting life, so modest compared with Harold Evans's, was always interesting and worthwhile.
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