Memorial Service: Brian Macarthur

Former Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade paid tribute to his old friend and colleague Brian Macarthur at St Bride’s, Fleet Street.

‘Most journalistic careers are anything but linear,’ said Greenslade. ‘There are twists and turns that appear to defy logic. Brian’s career was replete with such twists, but there was a logical progression of sorts on his way to becoming, to quote The Oldie, “the sage of Fleet Street”.’

Greenslade recalled Macarthur’s report on a visit by the Queen to Belfast. He saw a concrete block hurled on to the bonnet of the Queen’s Rolls-royce:

‘Brian was scared that someone might identify him as the writer of a critical article, published in the Guardian the previous day, about the Rev Ian Paisley.

‘Brian’s description of him would certainly have aroused antagonism by those angry loyalists outside the phone box: Paisley, he wrote, “looks like a Rugby League prop forward and speaks like Hitler”.’

Greenslade told how Macarthur became education correspondent of the Times and later the first editor of the Times Higher Educational Supplement. He said Brian’s editing success was down to ‘inspired appointments, the nourishing of talent and ability to create a team spirit’. He also quoted Peter Hennessy, who said Macarthur was ‘relentlessly agreeable’.

He was deputy editor of the Evening Standard, and editor of the Western Morning News and Eddy Shah’s Today. A media columnist for the Sunday Times for 18 years, he also wrote history books.

Daughter Tessa Macarthur read from her father’s Penguin Book of Historic Speeches. Daughter Georgie gave a reading about his love of football. Daily Mail literary editor Sandra Parsons read from Robert Kennedy’s A Tiny Ripple of Hope. JAMES HUGHES-ONSLOW