fleet street news agency

When I was seventeen, it never occurred to me that it would be hard or anything, to get a job. I just thought you walked in and told the person what you’d decided to do, and that would be that. So I wasn’t surprised at all when, after telling the advisor I wanted to be a journalist, he went away and came back shortly afterwards with a form. He read me the details; there was a vacancy for a trainee reporter, over sixteen years of age, at the Fleet Street news agency on Exmouth Market. It was full time, and the pay was nineteen pounds a week. I could have an interview fixed for the next day if I wanted.

I was thrilled going home – eagerly looking forward to seeing my father’s expression, and he didn’t disappoint. I watched his face closely, out of the corner of one eye so he couldn’t see me doing it, and I was very pleased with the result. He looked totally baffled at the idea of anyone giving me any money to do anything useful.

I didn’t know my father very well at all. He’d been forty-six when I was born and so he was very, very distant, both in age, and in his expectations of what children were supposed to be like. He was away an awful lot – traveling all over the world as a journalist, but even when he was at home I can’t ever remember him playing with me, or anything like that.

When I was younger I thought what he did sounded really exciting. I remember hearing my mother tell my grandmother that a checkpoint somewhere had been bombed seconds after he’d left and I thought that must have been thrilling. When I was about eight, I begged him to let me come to Africa with him. I’d been born there and had no memory of it, but it sounded fascinating from the Ladybird book I’d read. He said I couldn’t because there were too many flies and a war going on. They sounded like pretty lame excuses to me.

Most of the time the conversation went on over my head, in French, which I wasn’t supposed to understand, although I did a little, because of course, listening is the best way of learning a language. Very occasionally we were taken up to visit him in Portland Place, through endless corridors and into smoky offices where I would have to remember which hand it was you had to use to do a correct handshake with all the people I would be introduced to. Sometimes we’d be on holiday and someone would be assassinated, or an election would be announced, and we’d have to rush back to London. From time to time, I’d be allowed to stay up late, to watch or listen to him if it was thought suitable.

I can remember him being angry often, if I bent the corner of a book for instance, but as I got older I didn’t care so much about being a disappointment. When I was about eleven I showed him something I’d written at school, which I was really pleased with. He read it quickly and then started marking up the mistakes I’d made. I suppose it was second nature to him to automatically edit anything but I was furious and I snatched it back and stormed off. I think that was the last thing I ever let him see.

At thirteen I had developed a perfectly blank stare, which I used whenever he got angry, and I really enjoyed the fact that it seemed to make him even angrier. By the time I was seventeen he’d given up on me and I’d given up on him. If I saw him on the tube on the way home, I would sidle into the next carriage.

The following morning I asked him what his exact job title was, and wrote it carefully on a piece of paper – it was quite long and I didn’t want to forget it. I knew that was the way most of my friends had got their jobs, and although I was pleased I’d found mine on my own, I wasn’t going to let an opportunity slip if I thought it might give me more of a chance.

I think Exmouth Market is near the Royal Opera House. In 1977 it was a busy, grimy little street with proper market stalls down the middle – the kind that sell fruit and vegetables. Crossing the road you had to watch out for the little piles of discarded, rotting food. I can’t remember any interesting shops – just places that catered for office workers - cafes, pubs and newsagents.

I had to go up some stairs to get to where my interview was going to be. Outside the door there was a small sofa and sitting on it was a boy around the same age as me. He was wearing a suit and also clutching a piece of paper. We said hello to each other, and then he started telling me about himself. I didn’t like him much at first sight, and the longer he went on telling me about himself, the more I made a mental note to avoid him whenever possible in future.

You could tell from the start that he thought he was a very special person. “I am a Shuttleworth” he said. I tried to look interested, and said “oh?” I had no idea what he was talking about. He gave me a pitying look and explained about the famous Shuttleworth guides to something or other. They sounded incredibly tedious. I thought he was a pompous wanker and I hoped they weren’t all going to be like him beyond the brown door.

I can’t remember which of us went first. The interview was in the newsroom itself. It wasn’t very big. The noise of typewriters and people talking on telephones never stopped. At the far end of the room was a window looking out onto the market, and with his back to the window, sat the Editor at a big desk. Arranged around the rest of the room, against the walls on either side, was a long stretch of table covered with newspapers, telephones, typewriters, notebooks and ashtrays. There were about twelve other people, all facing away from me.

I liked the Editor. He had a moustache and a half-amused look on his face. He had kind eyes. I tried to look intelligent. I can’t remember what he asked me now – the only clear memory I have is being annoyed with myself for not having learned my father’s job title by heart. It meant I had to fumble around, opening the bit of paper, to get the wording right, and I felt like I wasn’t coming across as very sophisticated. He was really nice about it though, and after a short while he told me he’d take chance on me and I could start the following Monday.

Like all my friends starting out, I was the lowest of the low. I didn’t mind most of it. The notebook they gave me soon filled up with pages and pages of lists of the endless coffees and teas I was sent out to buy from the café across the road. I quickly got used to balancing the heavy box full of Styrofoam cups, climbing the stairs, trying not to spill any on the way back. After lunch the box would be harder to manage, because it would be full of glasses from the pub next door and they didn’t have any helpful lids. The older reporters would use the pub as an annexe to the office and I would often be sent there with little messages, weaving my way through the smoky crowds, trying to find the right person.

I think they must done features and things too, and there was also another part, up a further flight of stairs, where I was sometimes sent, to a fat, jolly man with a blond beard called Neil who was the Pictures Editor. Mostly though, as it seemed to me, they would gather small stories – deaths. accidents, fires and arrests, and then sell them on to the Nationals.

There was a list of fire, police and ambulance stations, and every hour or so I had to phone them up and ask if they had anything for us. If the story was insignificant enough, I would be allowed to write it up myself, and then take it over to the Editor who would show me where I’d gone wrong. He was so lovely – he was endlessly patient and never made me feel stupid, and I soon got the hang of what I was supposed to do.

One of the things I disliked was when I had to use the black books. We weren’t supposed to have them at all. They were like telephone directories, only you could look up phone numbers from an address as opposed to a name. If someone’s child, or husband for instance, had been injured, or arrested, I would be asked to call them to see if they wanted to make a comment. It was horrible – I always felt so intrusive doing that. I would stumble over my words in embarrassment, but oddly, quite a few of them did say things to me – they seemed to think it was perfectly normal. No one ever asked how I had got their number.

I can’t remember many of the other people who worked there. The nicest was a girl about a year older than me. She was Asian and had already left home after a huge row. She was so much more confident than me, and she was always happy to help whenever I got stuck with something. She made the teasing from some of the older men more bearable because she would tell them to fuck off and leave me alone which I was never brave enough to do.

After a while, I was allowed to go out to do stories. I made friends with other reporters – they were all really nice. There was a boy a little older than me who worked for a radio station. He was funny and we’d always stand around together waiting endlessly outside courtrooms and police stations, passing the time of day joking with each other. It was very strange – he was perfectly normal most of the time, but whenever he had to phone in his report, he’d find a telephone box, unscrew the bottom half of the receiver, plug something in, and then magically, his voice would change, and he’d sound about ten years older. I was full of admiration.

Everyone was generous to each other when they were out and about. Quite often, they’d decide which one of them would go and attend the court case, or the tribunal or whatever. Then the others would go to the pub, and when it was over, they would write their copy from the one source, making sure it was just a little bit different from the original.

It was always me who got chosen to do celebrity weddings. Probably because I looked least like a journalist and I spoke nicely – they thought I stood the best chance of getting through the door of the church. When I came out, I’d have to describe to them what she was wearing, what he said, anything interesting that happened. Nothing interesting ever did happen, and I always felt bad that I was never that good at describing the dresses. I didn’t really feel like I was paying them back enough for their kindness to me.

The thing I hated and dreaded most of all was what I had to do every single day. My heart would sink and my mouth would go dry when someone put a piece of paper in front of me and said; “ring this through would you?” It would be a story that had been written up. The youngest person (always me) would have to ring the nationals one by one, ask for the copy department, introduce myself, wait for the inevitable sarcastic comment about my name, and then read the lines slowly and clearly, speaking the punctuation, ending each section with “point par”.

I never saw the inside of a copy room but it always sounded crowded – a babble of voices and typewriters in the background. The copytakers were horrible – every single one. They took the piss out of me each time I phoned. Once they broadcast me over the whole room – I could hear it – and they gave me a round of applause at the end. Quite often I felt like crying once I’d finally put the phone down.

Life got more interesting when Matt started working there. Because he was older and more experienced, he’d be left in charge and we would often have the newsroom to ourselves during the night shift. We would do a line of speed, or get drunk together, and then we’d make up stories – really unlikely ones – and Mat would ring them through. Some of them would actually make it into the dailies the next morning. No one ever noticed.

Eventually, I was standing outside Clarence House on the Queen Mother’s birthday, watching her wave from her balcony, and trying to get quotes from the American and Australian tourists and just plain, barking mad English people who would turn up covered in union jacks. I was chatting to a man from the Guardian, complaining about how boring it was, and he said if I went back and got a degree – any one would do – I could join a graduate trainee scheme – and then it would be less boring. That sounded like a good idea to me, so I went back to the office and told them I was leaving.