It’s the Mail to the rescue with PPE
Congratulations on the terrific Mail Force campaign that has been featured so triumphantly and justly in this week’s Daily Mail. Like marathon runners after passing the tape, many Mail employees must feel exhausted, but triumphant after arranging PPE for hospitals, care homes and charities. What they have achieved is proof that what you learn if you work on a top daily newspaper is to accept adversity, keep cool, act efficiently with calm speed and grimly enjoy being able to do that. i was seven when World War ii started and i had to practise reading the Daily Telegraph to my mother every morning while she was putting on her ARP warden uniform. she once told me that Lord Beaverbrook, who was Minister of aircraft Production, was disliked by many jealous war leaders because he was so successful at getting fighters and bombers made quickly in factories and up into the sky. she believed that because he was a daily newspaper man, ‘he knew how to get things done’. When i was a 29-year-old designer, i was appointed consultant to the Daily Mail to work with the Home Editor and the organisers of the ideal Home Exhibition. ‘What do you want to write first?’ asked the Home Editor on my first day on the editorial floor. ‘i can’t write!’ i said aghast, not having realised i was supposed to write an article a month. ‘Well, sit down and start,’ i was told. This taught me how to avoid writer’s block — and to read every boring word in a contract. Every morning, i would say hello to other journalists sitting at their desks and staring ahead. They never answered and i thought they were ignoring me. But i soon realised they simply didn’t see me because they were working with ferocious concentration. i learned to focus. i was taught to write by kindly, tough top writers when they had the time. One night, a grim sub editor called Derek said: ‘i’ve got a spare half-hour, so you’d better learn to sub in that time.’ Then i picked up editing. in 1968, i started Femail. The Mail trained me to make the most of my time on this earth: it taught me and many other grateful workers how to get things done. Thank you to the Mail for the tremendous PPE project. Thank you for saving human lives. Thank you for showing this newspaper knows how to get things done — fast — even if they seem impossible.