The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Ideas? Not for the likes of
It’s probably (in fact, definitely) a bit late in the day but I’m going to take a little, good, old-fashioned career advice from a slim volume recently discovered in a second-hand shop by a pal of mine and passed on to me by another thoughtful and like-minded friend.
It’s called Journalism for Women and it dates from 1949, costing six shillings and sixpence in old money. Written by a lady called Molly Graham, it’s the sort of thing you can hear in your head as you read it, with a voice-over in cut-glass tones that only Englishwomen of the Celia Johnson era could possibly attain.
Who could not warm to such sage statements as: “Ideas, or what to write about, is one of the least of the troubles of the experienced journalist.”
I’ll say. You are currently reading the latest meanderings of a woman who once got 850 words out of the varied subjects of porridge, the pronunciation of Leuchars, dead cats, lametta (look it up) and the use (youse?) of the word “youse”.
Or how about: “Articles are divided into four main groups. The first is factual. Containing facts.” There’s not much passes her by, I tell you.
Dated it undoubtedly is, although I was intrigued to see, in a list of potential subjects (leaving aside bell ringing, domestic service and spinsters), there came plastics, elephants, emigration and romances of self-made men. No change there, then… It also gives, for the time, and in many respects, for our time, too, good advice on the practical how tos and what not tos of everything from writing captions to interviewing “interesting” people. And timeless points are made about making the proper contacts, doing your homework, aiming for accuracy and pith and maintaining strict integrity. Maybe some things don’t (or at least, shouldn’t) date that much, after all…
Brave in the extreme
I’m afraid that, in spite of the tennis, the football and the tug-of-war match that passes for government in this country at the moment, what is currently foremost in my mind is the fact that the 12 boys of the Wild Boar soccer team and their coach have all been extracted safely from the flooded cave complex in Thailand where they were trapped for two weeks. Football is coming home, indeed – home to families and friends frantic with worry but living in hope, faith and love that their boys would soon be back where they belonged.
There’s not much brings a tear to my particularly jaundiced “gless ee” these days but this did. Partly because of the horror of imagining what they were going through, metaphorically and, when you hear about their exit via pitch black spaces full of water that were less than 16 inches high, quite literally. And partly because of the amazing, selfless, well-organised and incredibly brave actions of the rescuers, one of whom died in the attempt. It was a mix of Thai nationals and foreign volunteers who made this happiest of happy endings possible through their own hard-won abilities, courage and – speak it softly – their determination to work together across borders and boundaries.
Maybe there is a place for experts and cooperation in the world, after all.
As for our own reigning political confusion, I yield to no one in my state of flummox and utter inability to understand what the hell is going on. I make no claim to predicting the future or reading the political runes in any way, shape or form. In fact, I have grave doubts about the wisdom of trying to see into the future or even wanting to know what’s coming. What’s fur ye, as they say in these wild Northern fastnesses, will no’ go by ye. And at the moment, what is fur us certainly seems to be staying obstinately put, partly, I surmise, because it has no idea where it’s going or why.
So I am going to take a leaf, literally, out of Molly Graham’s book of good advice for the bewildered hack and refer back to my “cuttings library”.
I wrote the following in the column of February 26 2016. I refer you, for comparison, to the events of this week. And then, for once, I shall say no more.
“Brexit, shmexit, I say. There are people of genuine sincerity who believe we should come out of Europe in its current form and I have no doubt that they will argue cogently if called upon. But pardon me if I don’t particularly believe that Boris and Co are amongst them or that we will necessarily, if we follow their pied piper tootling, end up possessing or playing a stronger hand of cards in the great European game than we have at present.
“You just get the feeling that many of the major faces supposedly heading gaily for the “Out” door aren’t really in the market, common or otherwise (for those of us old enough to remember such terminology), for anything other than self-aggrandizement and getting their mitts more securely on the levers of power here in good old Blighty.”