The Fourth Estate (23 page)

The weekly
committee meeting held on the night before the vote dragged on, but Keith
derived considerable pleasure from the thought that this would be the last time
he had to sit through resolution after pointless resolution that would only end
up in the nearest wastepaper basket. He sat at the back of the room, making no
contribution to the Countless amendments to subclauses so beloved of Gareth
Williams and his cronies. The committee discussed for nearly an hour the
disgrace of the latest unemployment figures, which had just topped 300,000.
Keith would have liked to have pointed out to the brothers that there were at
least 300,000 people in Britain who were, in his opinion, simply unemployable,
but he reflected that that might be unwise the day before he was seeking their
support at the ballot box.

He had leaned
back in his chair and was nodding off when the bombshell fell. It was during
“Any Other Business” that Hugh Jenkins (St. Petees), someone Keith rarely spoke
to-not simply because he made Lenin look like a Liberal, but also because he
was Gareth Williams’s closest ally-rose ponderously from his seat in the front
row. “Brother Chairman,” he began, “it has been brought to my attention that
there has been a violation of Standing Order Number Nine, Subsection c,
concerning the election of officers to this committee.”

“Get on with
it,” said Keith, who already had plans for Brother Jenkins once he was elected
that were not to be found under Subsection c in any rule book.

I intend to,
Brother Townsend,” Jenkins said, turning round to face him, “especially as the
matter directly concerns you.

Keith rocked
forward and began to pay close attention for the first time that evening. “It
appears, Brother Chain-nan, that Brother Townsend has, during the past ten
days, been canvassing support for the post of chairman of this club.”

“Of course I
have,” said Keith. “How else could I expect to get elected?”

“Well, I am delighted
that Brother Townsend is so open about it, Brother Chairman, because that will
make it unnecessary for you to set up an internal inquiry.”

Keith looked
puzzled until Jenkins explained.

“it is,” he
continued, “abundantly clear that Brother Townsend has not bothered to consult
the party rule book, which states quite unambiguously that any form of
canvassing for office is strictly prohibited. Standing Order Number Nine,
Subsection c.”

Keith had to
admit that he was not in possession of a rule book, and he had certainly never
consulted any part of it, let alone Standing Order Number Nine and its
subsections.

I regret that it
is nothing less than my duty to propose a resolution,” continued Jenkins: “That
Brother Townsend be disqualified from taking part in tomorrow’s election, and
at the same time be removed from this committee.”

“On a point of
order, Brother Chairman,” said another member of the committee, leaping up from
the second row, I think you will find that that is two resolutions.”

The committee then
proceeded to discuss for a further forty minutes whether it was one or two
resolutions that they would be required to take a vote on. This was eventually
settled by an amendment to the motion: by a vote of eleven to seven it was
decided that it should be two resolutions. There followed several more speeches
and points of order on the question of whether Brother Townsend should be
allowed to take part in the vote. Keith said he was quite content not to vote
on the first resolution.

“Most
magnanimous,” said Williams, with a smirk.

The committee
then passed a resolution by a vote of ten to seven, with one abstention, that
Brother Townsend should be disqualified from being a candidate for chairman.

Williams
insisted that the result of the vote should be recorded in the minutes of the
meeting, in case at some time in the future anyone might register an appeal.
Keith made it quite clear that he had no intention of appealing. Williams was
unable to remove the smirk from his face.

Keith didn’t
stay to hear the outcome of the second resolution, and had returned to his room
in college long before it had been voted on. He missed a long discussion on
whether they should print new ballot papers now that there was only one
candidate for chairman.

Several students
made it clear the following day that they were sorry to learn of Keith’s
disqualification. But he had already decided that the Labor Party was unlikely
to enter the real world much before the end of the century, and that there was
little or nothing he could do about iteven if he had become chairman of the
club.

The Provost of
the college concurred with his judgment over a glass of sherry that evening in
the Lodgings. He went on to say, I am not altogether disappointed by the
outcome, because I have to warn you, Townsend, that your tutor is of the
opinion that should you continue to work in the same desultory fashion as you
have for the past two years, it is most unlikely that you will obtain any
qualification from this university.”

Before Keith
could speak up in his own defense, the Provost continued, I am of course aware
that an Oxford degree is unlikely to be of great importance in your chosen
career, but I beg to suggest to you that it might prove a grave disappointment
to your parents were you to leave us after three years with absolutely nothing
to show for it.”

When Keith
returned to his rooms that night he lay on his bed thinking carefully about the
Provost’s admonition. But it was a letter that arrived a few days later that
finally spurred him into action. His mother wrote to inform him that his father
had suffered a minor heart attack, and she could only hope that it would not be
too long before he was willing to shoulder some responsibility.

Keith
immediately booked a call to his mother in Toorak. When he was eventually put
through, the first thing he asked her was if she wanted him to return home.

“No,” she
replied firrnly. “But your father hopes that you will now spend some more time
concentrating on your degree, otherwise he feels Oxford will have served no
purpose.”

Once again Keith
resolved to confound the examiners. For the next eight months he attended every
lecture and never missed a tutorial. With the help of Dr. Howard, he continued
to cram right through the two vacations, which only made him aware of how
little work he had done in the past two years. He began to wish he had taken
Miss Steadman to Oxford with him, instead of an MG.

On the Monday of
the seventh week of his final term, dressed in subfusc-a dark suit, collar and
white tie-and his undergraduate gown, he reported to the Examination Schools in
the High. For the next five days he sat at his allotted desk, head down, and
answered as many of the questions in the eleven papers as he could. When he
emerged into the sunlight on the afternoon of the fifth day, he joined his
friends jas they sat on the steps of Schools devouring champagne with any
passer-by who cared to join them.

Six weeks later
Keith was relieved to find his name among those posted in the examination
school as having been awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree. From that day
on, he never revealed the class of degree he had obtained, although he had to
agree with Dr. Howard’s judgment that it was of little relevance to the career
on which he was about to embark.

Keith wanted to
return to Australia on the day after he learned his exam results, but his
father wouldn’t hear of it. “I expect you to go and work for my old friend Max
Beaverbrook at the Express,” he said over a crackling telephone line. ‘The
Beaver will teach you more in six months than you picked up at Oxford in three
years.”

Keith resisted
telling him that that would hardly be a great achievement.

‘The only thing
that worries me, Father, is your state of health. I don’t want to stay in
England if coming home means I can take some of the pressure off you.”

“I’ve never felt
better, my boy,” Sir Graham replied.’The
 
doctor tells me I’m almost back to normal, and as long as I don’t overdo
things, I should be around for a long time yet. You’ll be a lot more useful to
me in the long run if you learn your trade in Fleet Street than if you come
home now and get under my feet. My next call is going to be to the Beaver. So
make sure you drop him a line-today.”

Keith wrote to
Lord Beaverbrook that afternoon, and three weeks later the proprietor of the
Express granted the son of Sir Graham Townsend a fifteen-minute interview.

Keith arrived at
Arlington House fifteen minutes early, and walked up and down St. James’s for
several minutes before he entered the impressive block of flats. He was kept
waiting another twenty minutes before a secretary took him through to Lord
Beaverbrook’s large office overlooking St. James’s Park.

“How is your
father keeping?” were the Beaver’s opening words.

“He’s well,
sir,” Keith replied, standing in front of his desk, as he hadn’t been offered a
seat.

“And You want to
follow in his footsteps?” said the old man, looking up at him.

“Yes, sir, I
do.”

“Good, then
you’ll report to Frank Butterfield’s office at the Express by ten tomorrow
morning. He’s the best deputy editor in Fleet Street. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” said
Keith.

“Good,” replied
Beaverbrook. “Please remember me to your father.” He lowered his head, which
appeared to be a sign that the interview was over.

Thirty seconds
later Keith was back out on St. James’s, not sure if the meeting had ever taken
place.

The next morning
he reported to Frank Butterfield in Fleet Street. The deputy editor never
seemed to stop running from onejournalist to another.

Keith tried tokeep
up with him, and it wasn’t long before he fully understood why Butterfield had
been divorced three times. Few sane women would have tolerated such a
lifestyle. Butterfield put the paper to bed every night, except Saturday, and
it was an unforgiving mistress.

As the weeks
went by, Keith became bored with just following Frank around, and grew
impatient to get a broader view of how a newspaper was produced and managed.
Frank, who was aware of the young man’s restlessness, devised a program that
would keep him fully occupied. He spent three months in circulation, the next
three in advertising, and a further three on the shop floor. There he found
countless examples of union members playing cards while they should have been
working on the presses, or taking the occasional work break between drinking
coffee and placing bets at the nearest bookmaker. Some even clocked in under
two or three names, drawing a pay packet for each.

By the time
Keith had been at the Express for six months he had begun to question whether
the editorial content was all that mattered in producing a successful
newspaper. Shouldn’t he and his father have spent those Sunday mornings looking
just as closely at the advertising space in the Courier as they did at the
front pages? And when they had sat in the old mans study criticizing the
headlines in the Gazette, shouldn’t they instead have been looking to see if
the paper was overstaffed, or if the expenses of the journalists were getting
out of control? Surely in the end, however massive a papers circulation was,
the principal aim should be to make as large a return on your investment as
possible. He often discussed the problem with Frank Butterfield, who felt that
the well -established practices on the shop floor were now probably irreversible.

Keith wrote home
regularly and at great length, advancing his theories. Now that he was
experiencing many of his father’s problems at first hand, he began to fear that
the trade union practices which were commonplace on the shop floors of Fleet
Street would soon find their way to Australia.

At the end of
his first year, Keith sent a long memo to Beaverbrook at Arlington House,
despite advice to the contrary from Frank Butterfield. In it he expressed the
view that the shop floor at the Express was overmanned by a ratio of three to
one, and that, while wages made up its largest outgoings, there could be no
hope of a modern newspaper group being able to make a profit. In the future
someone was going to have to take on the unions. Beaverbrook didn’t acknowledge
the report.

Undaunted, Keith
began his second year at the Express by putting in hours he hadn’t realized
existed when he was at Oxford. This served to reinforce his view that sooner or
later there would have to be massive changes in the newspaper industry, and he
prepared a long memorandum for his father, which he intended to discuss with
him the moment he arrived back in Australia.

It set out
exactly what changes he believed needed to be made at the Courier and the
Gazette if they were to remain solvent during the second half of the twentieth
century.

Keith was on the
phone in Butterfield’s office, arranging his flight to Melbourne, when a
messenger handed hirn the telegram.

THE TIMES

5 JUNE 1945

S
etting Up
Control of Germany:

Preliminary
Meeting of Allied Commanders WHEN CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG visited
Der Telegraf
for the first time, he was
surprised to find how dingy the little basement offices were. He was greeted by
a man who introduced himself as Arno Schultz, the editor of the paper.