WILLIAM KEEGAN

Shouting in the Street: Adventures and Misadventures of a Fleet Street Survivor Donald Trelford succeeded David Astor as editor of the Observer but certainly not as proprietor. The problems Trelford and the paper had with subsequent proprietors form the principal theme of this riveting book. It offers wonderful tales, including the lowdown on Trelford’s strange relationship with Pamella Bordes – which we are told was all to do with gaining information on the editorial plans of his great rival Andrew Neil.

The story of the Observer’s deputy editor Tony Howard’s failed attempt to unseat Trelford is also hilarious. Howard was unaware that his plotting on the telephone was overheard by Trelford’s loyal secretary. And he underestimated the strength of the relationship between ‘the two Tinies’ – a term coined by Trelford’s then wife to refer to the very tall Rowland and the not so tall Donald. The book also recounts how Trelford managed to keep himself and the paper going from 1976 until 1993, when, in the face of inescapable financial difficulties, it was acquired by the Scott Trust, owners of the

These long-awaited memoirs are a testament to his skills as a survivor.

Trelford tangled with would-be proprietors, such as Rupert Murdoch and James Goldsmith, as well as actual owners, such as the American oil company Atlantic Richfield (Arco), and, famously, or perhaps, infamously, Tiny Rowland of Lonrho. Some of his battles for survival were witnessed at first hand by journalists such as myself; others took place off-piste. He considered it his duty to interpose himself between Rowland and his journalists. Trelford encountered much criticism, not least for the ‘midweek edition’ of the paper, in spring 1989, containing what he regarded as a major scoop, which, he claims, the paper would have been banned, for legal reasons, from publishing, if it had waited until Sunday. This was the Department of Trade’s report on the purchase of the House of Fraser by Mohamed Fayed.

Urged on by Tiny, the paper had been reporting that Fayed had lied about the sources of funds for the purchase of Harrods. Trelford writes, ‘For the Observer, this was total vindication. The inspectors contrasted our reporting with the “lies” promoted by Fayed’s PR spin machine and accepted by other papers.’

Nevertheless, the midweek edition came as a shock, and damaged the reputation of the paper. It was the climax of a long campaign by Rowland, who had been allowed by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to purchase the Observer in 1981, at the cost of not being permitted to bid for House of Fraser, owner of Harrods. The midweek edition was the ultimate proof that the Observer had become the plaything of Rowland, who had been particularly interested in buying the paper because of its influence in Africa, where Tiny saw himself as a latterday Cecil Rhodes – but in the interests of black people, not whites. As proprietor, Arco never confronted what Trelford saw as the principal financial problem: the hold the printers had over management.

Arco brought in Conor Cruise O’brien as editor in chief. Though this was a threat to Trelford, the two reached an accommodation, with O’brien concentrating on his influential weekly column, and Trelford on editing. In the 1979 election, Trelford thought the paper’s support for Labour was unwise, but he was outmanoeuvred by O’brien. That caused Arco to lose interest. O’brien was a vociferous casualty of Lonrho’s purchase of the paper in 1981, but Trelford survived – even overcoming Rowland’s wrath when he reported atrocities perpetrated by Robert Mugabe’s forces in Matabeleland in 1984 – which led to what Trelford describes as ‘my

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