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This book finally gives Fleet Street's pioneering women their due
- Roy Greenslade, Media Guardian
Ladies of The Street
By Liz Hodgkinson
ISBN: 978-0-9558238-5-5
It is now more than 100 years since the first woman became editor of a national newspaper.
She lasted in the job only a few weeks... before being replaced by a man.
Since then, scores of determined and ambitious women journalists have stormed the newspaper offices of Fleet Street, gradually beating down all the barriers that tried to keep them firmly out.
 Who were these extraordinary pioneering women? Their stories are all here, from the superstars such as Marje Proops, Claire Rayner, Jean Rook, Anne Robinson, Katharine Whitehorn, Jilly Cooper, Felicity Green, Nancy Banks Smith, Doreen Spooner, Julia Langdon, Sheila Black and Mary Stott, to the supporting cast who largely toiled without any recognition.
Many of these women blasted their way into jobs previously reserved exclusively for men and they dared to write about things that had never been written about before in the public prints, for a large and grateful readership.
Here is the story of Fleet Street in its bold, brash, powerful, influential – and often alcohol-soaked – heyday, and of the women who, by their courage, persistence and sheer talent, feminised and humanised national newspaper journalism.
This book is a celebration of the pioneer and leading women of Fleet Street, the courageous spirits who paved the way for current and future generations of female journalists. The book records the outstanding contribution made by these women, and in particular, in their bravery in writing candidly and honestly about subjects that had never been covered before – at least in the public prints – and who brought into being a whole new style of personal, intimate journalism that is now being avidly copied by today’s male journalists.
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Ladies of the press
By Adam Trimingham (Brighton Argus)
Being a woman in the world of Fleet Street journalism was hard in the 1960s and 1970s, as Worthing’s Shan Davies discovered.
But she passed her initiation test with flying colours following an assignment with photographer and real ale specialist Stan Jaanus.
After they had interviewed the world’s most tattooed woman for the Sunday People, they popped into a pub for a drink.
Later, back in the office, Jaanus told colleagues: ‘This girl can beat all of you wimps. She has just drunk six pints of real ale.’ Davies said later: ‘That changed everything. I was in.’
She went on to become one of the first women to join a national newspaper’s crime team and was often in dangerous situations.
Her assignments included pretending to be a prostitute, locking up a murderer in her bathroom and having Charlie Kray, brother of the infamous twins, as her minder.
Davies gained such a reputation for being tough, that when she was sent to walk in the footsteps of the Yorkshire Ripper, someone asked about protection and the response from the office was: ‘The Ripper can look after himself.’
She left the People on her marriage to veteran comedy actor Hugh Lloyd, and came to live in Worthing, working on the Brighton and Hove Leader. Shan died last year aged 55, only six months after the death of her husband.
Many other Sussex-based Fleet Street pioneers feature in a new book by Liz Hodgkinson, including the inimitable Julie Burchill, who lives in Hove.
Burchill’s first job was as a ‘hip young gunslinger’ on the New Musical Express, progressing to become a highly-paid columnist for the Mail On Sunday June Penn, who began her career on the Brighton and Hove Herald, later moved to The Argus before becoming resident astrologer for several Fleet Street papers.
She was discovered by Derek Jameson, who gave her a job on the Daily Mirror. Later he bought a house right next to hers on Hove beach.
Penn, now 81, told Hodgkinson she was born with psychic gifts and believes everyone’s future is predetermined. She added: ‘The main point about newspaper horoscopes is that they give hope.’
Another former Brighton journalist who did well in Fleet Street was Cathy Couzens. She said: ‘No one ever talked about self-esteem or sexual harassment in the workplace. We thought all that was part of the job.’ Hodgkinson, who also lives in Brighton, joined the People in 1973 when there were just four women out of a total reporting staff of 150.
For months she walked down Fleet Street in a kind of dazed awe that she was actually part of this glamorous and exciting newspaper world.
She says the paper would have been happy not to employ women at all but some were needed for fashion stories and to carry out undercover work.
Hodgkinson says in the old days there was a powerful men’s-club atmosphere in Fleet Street, which discouraged all but the most ferociously ambitious women.
She adds: ‘The 20th century can be seen as the era when women finally came into their own and nowhere more spectacularly than in the somewhat disreputable and frightening but hugely entertaining world of Fleet Street.’
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An entertaining historical overview
Ladies of The Street by Liz Hodgkinson
(Revel Barker Publishing)
202pages. ₤9.99
By Roy Greenslade (Media Guardian)
Reading this book brought back vivid memories of my earliest days in journalism. On my first day as a cub reporter on a local weekly I was delighted to discover that one of my journalistic colleagues was a woman.
It may have helped that she was attractive, though I like to think it would have made no difference if Lesley Brown, as she then was, had not been the most desired female reporter for miles around.
It didn’t strike me as the least bit odd to accept her advice and suffer from her sarcastic asides. She was a talented journalist with a tad more experience than me.
She was a good enough reporter to have landed an interview with The Beatles at the height of their fame, and she wrote features at amazing speed.
As Lesley Salisbury, by then married to an Olympic medal-winning athlete, she eventually moved into magazine writing, becoming Hollywood correspondent for the TV Times and a stringer for national papers.
She was certainly not the only woman in the East London local newspaper community in the 1960s. There were plenty of females on the journalism training course we were required to attend each week at a West Ham college.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that we were on the cusp of a change. National papers were virtually male-only clans. And there was also a north-south divide.
It wasn’t until I started to sub on the Daily Mail in Manchester in 1968 that I became aware of prejudice against women. There were shock waves when the first woman sub-editor was appointed. The older subs were particularly upset, wondering how she should be accommodated.
One said that should she be promoted he would resign because he wasn’t prepared to take orders from ‘a bloody woman.’
Another gallant gent made a formal complaint to the night editor about the threat to the subs’ ‘traditional badinage’. This was a polite way of asking whether subs could go on swearing in front of the female recruit.
He also argued that she couldn’t possibly be expected to work on the stone (an all-male preserve) because of the printers’ ‘rough language’. He was not, however, genuinely concerned about the woman’s welfare or her sensibilities. He was trying to prove that she would inhibit ‘normal working’, that she also wouldn’t be able to carry out the full range of subs’ work and was therefore likely to obtain special treatment (which would be unfair to men).
Liz Hodgkinson has taken this long history of newspaper chauvinism on board in Ladies of The Street by recounting the way in which the women who did make a name for themselves in newspapers were required to be extra special.
Her history shows that although there were plenty of women journalists around, including fashion writers, feature writers, columnists, reporters and sub-editors, there were very few at executive level. For a long time they were confined to ‘women’s page’ ghettos.
Even men who thought themselves enlightened could be guilty of narrow-mindedness. A news editor once told me women reporters ‘had their uses’. They could empathise with women who were reluctant to speak to men, especially those who were bereaved, and they could also ‘use their charms’ to persuade men to talk.
Hodgkinson deals with this aspect in her entertaining historical overview, charting the gradual rise of women into positions of power and influence.
Among her pen portraits, several stand out: the pioneering Sheila Black of the Financial Times, the wonderful Nancy Spain, the unstoppable Ann Leslie, the crusading Mary Stott, and three Daily Mirror staffers I came to know well, Marje Proops, Anne Robinson and Felicity Green,
It was Marje, whose Mirror advice column ran for 40 years, who wisely observed: ‘In the man’s world of newspapers... we just stand out a bit from the crowd because there are comparatively so few of us.’
Early in her career Anne suffered the indignity of being fired from the Daily Mail after marrying her deputy news editor, Charles Wilson, because of a custom that forbade married couples working in the same office.
Felicity, who became Fleet Street’s first female associate editor, combined grace with determination and was one of the most skilful office politicians I ever met. She explained that she took her tactical lead in how to deal with obstreperous men who thought they knew better than her from the Mirror editor, Lee Howard. ‘He once told me, “let them leave the room with their bollocks intact”, so that’s what I always tried to do.’
As Hodgkinson notes, Felicity quit the Mirror Group in 1978 after discovering that, as a director, she was paid £14,000 while the Mirror editor, Mike Molloy, got £26,000. ‘It was because I was a woman,’ she said.
Nor was the bigotry confined to popular papers. When Liz Forgan was women’s editor of The Guardian in the late 1970s, she thought ‘the macho, heavy-drinking, show-off male culture... very strong... The daily banter was... openly and crudely sexist’.
But it’s all changed now, hasn’t it? If you read Hodgkinson’s book right to the end you’ll surely wonder at the way in which, grudgingly, women do seem to have achieved equal status with men on newspapers. But it took far too long and this book finally gives Fleet Street’s pioneering women their due.
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Who's in it?
To save potential customers the embarrassment and self consciousness of standing in a bookshop and thumbing through the back pages to find out whether they are in it, before deciding to buy a copy...
Here's the index:
Aden Chronicle
Adler, Sue
Adburgham, Alison
Allingham, Margery
Amiel, Barbara
Amies, Hardy
Amis, Kingsley
Amis, Martin
Andersson, Hilary
Andrew, Prince
Appleyard, Diana
Archer, Jeffrey
Artz, Sally
Ashley, Iris
Astor, David
Astor, Nancy
Athenaeum Gazette
Atkins, Anne
Bailey, Sly (Sylvia)
Ball, Graham
Balmain
Bancroft, Anne
Banks Smith, Nancy
Barry, Iris
Barnes, Susan (Susan Crosland)
Beaton, Cecil
Beaverbrook, Lord
Bedell, Geraldine
Beecher Stowe, Harriet
Beer, Rachel
Beloff, Nora
Belsky, Margaret
Bernard, Jeffrey
Biba (Barbara Hulanicki)
Bingham, Stella
Black, Conrad
Black, Sheila
Blyton, Enid
Bolton Evening News
Bogard, Gary
Bonner, Hilary
BourkeWhite, Margaret
Bower, Tom
Boycott, Rosie
Bown, Jane
Boxall, Patricia
Brayfield, Celia
Brereton, Sandy
British Journalism Review
Brittenden, Arthur
British Medical Journal
Bryant, John
Brown, Arthur
Brown, Tina
Burchill, Julie
Burrington, Ernie
Burton, Richard
Butterfield, Jill
Byrnes, Sholto
Cairncross, Frances
Cairns, Julia
Callan, Paul
Callan, Jessica
Cameron, Julia Margaret
Campbell, Alastair
Capp, Andy
Cardin, Pierre
Carmichael, Pamela
Carter, Ernestine
Carter, Graydon
Casali, Kim
Cassandra
Cashin, Fergus
Castle, Barbara
Castle, Ted
Catholic Herald, The
Chanel
Chapman, Patsy
Christiansen, Arthur
Claridges
Clyne, Simon
Cole, Peter
Colvin, Marie
Colwell, Maria
Conran, Shirley
Conran, Terence
Cook, Margaret
Cook, Robin
Cooper, Jilly
Cooper, Leo
Cosmopolitan
Courreges
Couzens, Cathy
Cowardly Lioness, The
Crosland, Anthony
Crossley, Bill
Cudlipp, Hugh
Cudlipp, Percy
Cvitanovitch, Frank
Dacre, Paul
Daily Courant
Dale, John
Davies, Hunter
Davies, Nick
Davies, Shan (Shan Lloyd)
Day, Elizabeth
Delano, Tony
Dempster, Nigel
Devil Wears Prada, The
Devlin, Bernadette
Dhaliwal, Nirpal
Dimont, Madelon
Dior, Christian
Disney, Anthea
Dobson, Jean
Donlan, Ken
Douglas, Sue
Dover, Clare
Drabble, Margaret
Dundy, Elaine
Dunne, Colin
Durrant, Sabine
Ebbetts, Lesley
Eckersley, Jill
Edwards, Anne
Edwards, Bob
Eliott, Tony
El Vino
English, David
Equity, the Actors’ Union
Emin, Tracey
Esquire
Evans, Harold
Evening Standard
Express, Daily
Express, Sunday
Farr, David
FauldsWood, Lynn
Fawkes, Sandy
Fawkes, Wally (Trog)
Femail
Ferguson, Niall
Field, Xenia
Financial Times
FitzSimon, Stephen
Flair
Flat Earth News
Fletcher, Kim
Follett, Ken
Forgan, Liz
Forsyth, Frederick
Frankin, Olga
Frank, Debbie
Franks, Lynne
French, Howard
French, Nicci
French, Philip
French, Sean
Front Page, The
Frostrup, Mariella
Fuller, Margaret
Fyfe, Henry Hamilton
Garner, Lesley
GeddesBrown, Leslie
Gellhorn, Martha
Gerrard, Nicci
Gill, Eric
Givenchy, Hubert
Glendower, Own
Good Taste
Good Times, Bad Times
Goodman, Elinor
Gordon, Jane
Graham, Polly
Grant, Cary
Grant, Linda
Grant, Mary
Green, Felicity
Greene, Graham
Greenslade, Roy
Greengross, Dr Wendy
Greer, Germaine
‘Grey Cardigan’
Griggs, Barbara
Grove, Trevor
Grove, Valerie
Guardian, The
Hadley, Katharine
Hall, Anthea
Hall, Maggie
Hall, Unity
Hanks, Howard
Hann, Judith
Harmsworth, Alfred
Harmsworth, Madeleine
Harpers Bazaar
Hartnell, Norman
Hastings, Macdonald
Hastings, Max
Hawkins, Felicity
Hagerty, Bill
Heller, Lukas
Heller, Zoe
Helliwell, Arthur
Henry, Wendy
Herald, Daily
Hercombe, Sue (Sue Frost)
HeskethHarvey, Kit
Heston, Charlton
Hetherington, Alastair
Hilsum, Lindsey
Hilton, Tessa
His Girl Friday
Hobson, Judy
Hodgkinson, Neville
Hodson, Philip
Hoggart, Simon
Holland, Mary
Hollinger
Hollingsworth, Clare
Honey (magazine)
Hopkirk, Joyce
Home, Evelyn
Houghton, Liz
Howard, Lee
Howarth, Mary
Howe, Peter
Hudson, Val
Hull Daily Mail
Idle, Eric
In the Mink
Independent, The and Independent on Sunday
Inglis, Brian
International Publishing Corporation
Ironside, Janey
Ironside, Virginia
Jaanus, Stan
Jameson, Derek
Jane (cartoon strip)
Jeanne Heal’s Book of Careers for Girls
Jeffries, Stuart
Jeger, Lena
Jerman, Betty
John O’London’s Weekly
Johnson, Frank
Johnson, Hugh
Jones, Liz
Jones, Sylvia
Junor, John
Keeler, Christine
Kennedy, Jackie
Kennedy, Philippa,
Kemp, Ross
Killing of Sister George, The
Killing Time
King, Cecil Harmsworth
Kingsley, Hilary
Knight, John
Knight, Victor
Knowles, Paul
Kurtz, Irma
Kynaston, David
Labour Weekly
Lamb, Albert (Larry)
Lamb, Christina
Lambert, Angela
Lancaster, Osbert
Lancaster, Shan
Lancet, The
Landreth, Amy
Landesman, Cosmo
Langdon, Julia
Langley, Lee
Laski, Marghanita
Lawson, Nigel
Lawson, Nigella
Leapman, Michael
LeePotter, Dr Jeremy
LeePotter, Lynda
Leicester Mail
Lejeune, C.A.
Leslie, Ann
Letts, Quentin
LewisSmith, Victor
Levy, Philip
Linacre, Anthea
Littlewood, Joan
Live Television
Lloyd, Hugh
Lloyd, Nicholas
Lockhart, Freda Bruce
Lovell, Terry
Lyall, Gavin
Lyndoe, The Great
McCann, Eamonn
McElvoy, Anne
MacCarthy, Fiona
McCartney, Paul
McDermid, Val
McEwen, Ian
McFerran, Ann
McGowan, Frankie
McLoughlin, Jane
McKenzie, Kelvin
McQuitty, Jane
McSharry, Deirdre
Mail, Daily
Mainbocher
Maitland, Lady Olga
Makins, Clifford
Manchester Evening News
Manifold, Laurie
Marshall, Rita
Matthias, Sue
Matthews, Joy
Matthews, Lord
Maxwell, Robert
Mayhew, Victor
Memoirs of an Unfit Mother
Menkes, Suzy
Messud, Clare
Michael, Princess
Middlesex Independent
Milligan, Spike
Mills, Heather
Minton, John
Mirror, The (Daily and Sunday)
Mirror Pensioner Online
Modern Mother
Moggach, Deborah
Moll: The Making of Molly Parkin
Molloy, Mike
Mooney, Bel
Moore, Dr Barbara
Moore, Victoria
Moraes, Dom
Moran, Caitlin
Morgan, Piers
Morrell, Lady Ottoline
Morris, Jan
Mortimer, Penelope
Mowlam, Dr Marjorie (Mo )
‘Mrs Whish’
Mulchrone, Vincent
Murdoch, Rupert
My Seven Selves
Myskow, Nina
Mystic Meg
My Word (panel game)
Nash, Geoff
Nash, Gresby
National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
National Housewives’ Register
Neesom, jDawn
Neil, Andrew
Nener, Jack
Neustatter, Angela
Newcastle Evening Chronicle
Newcastle Journal
Newland, Martin
New Musical Express
Newton, Sir Gordon
New Statesman
News Chronicle
News of the World
New Yorker, The
Northern Echo
Notes on a Scandal
Norton, Jon
Nova (magazine)
O’Brien, Conor Cruise
Observer, The
O’Kane, Maggie
On Chesil Beach
Orr, Deborah
Orr, Marjorie
O’Sullivan, Sally
Owen, David
Pacesetters
Pacey, Ann
Papworth, Veronica
Parkhouse Geoffrey
Parkin, Molly
Parsons, Tony
Pearls
Pearson, Allison
Peccinotti, Harri
Penarth News
Penn, June
Penrose, John
People, The (Sunday)
Perrick, Eve
Perrick, Penny
Petrie, Ellen (Ellen Jameson)
Petticoat
Phillips, Kathy
Picture Post
Pinnington, Geoff
Platell, Amanda
PlunkettGreene, Alexander
Points of View
Pollard, Eve
Potter, Dennis,
Powell, Dilys
Prentice, EveAnn
PreSchool Playgroups Association
Press Association
Press Club, The
Press Gazette
Print unions
Private Eye
Proops, Marjorie
Proops, Robert
Proops, Sidney
Pumpkin Eater, The
Punch
Purves, Libby
Quant, Mary
Raeburn, Anna
Ray, Cyril
Rayner, Claire
Rayner, Des
Readers Digest
Reece, Peter
Reed, Jane
ReesMogg, William
Reger, Janet
Reid, Piers Paul
Rhodes, Zandra
RiceDavies, Mandy
Riches, Valerie
Ridley, Yvonne
Riley, Catherine
Ritchie, Jean
Rix, Brian
Robinson, Anne
Robinson, Jancis
Rohde, Shelley
Rook, Horace
Rook, Jean
Rowe, Bridget
Russell, Rosalind
Rudge, Gerald
Saga
Sanders, Deidre
Sands, Sarah
Sarler, Carol
Saunders, Kate
Savoy, The
Scardino, Marjorie
Schiaparelli, Elsa
ScottJames, Anne
Seddon, George
Settle, Alison
Setterfield, Ray
She (magazine)
Sheffield Telegraph
Shone, Tom
Short, Clare
Shrimpton, Jean
Shrimsley, Bernard
Sketch, Daily
Sieghart, Mary Ann
Simmonds, Posy
Slagg, Glenda
Slaughter, Audrey
SlipUp
Soames, Sally
Spain, Nancy
Spare Rib
Spectator, The
Spooner, Doreen
Spooner, Ted
Sporting Life, The
Stamboul Train
Stapleton, John
Star, The
Stewart, Gloria
Steven, Stewart
Stoppard, Dr Miriam
Stott, Catherine
Stott, Ken
Stott, Mary
StreetPorter, Janet
StreetPorter, Tim
Streets Ahead
Sun, The
Sunday Correspondent
Sunday Pictorial
Sunday Sun
Superwoman
Swaffer, Hannen
Sylvester, Rachel
Take A Break (magazine)
Talk (magazine)
Targett, Jocelyn
Tatler,
Taylor Bradford, Barbara
Taylor, Ernest
Telegraph, The
Telegraph, Sunday
Tennant, Catherine
Thatcher, Margaret
Thomas, Leslie
Thomas, Yvonne
Thompson, Alice
Those Glory, Glory Days
Time Out
Times, The
Times, Sunday
Today (newspaper)
Took, Barry
Toynbee, Polly
Trelford, Donald
Treneman, Ann
Trinity Mirror
Tugendhat, Christopher
Turner, Anthea
Tweedie, Jill
Twiggy
Tyrrell, Rebecca
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Wade, Judy
Wade, Rebekah
Wadley, Veronica
Ward, Christopher
Washington Post
Waterhouse, Keith
Waterman, Ivan
Watts, Michael
Weakest Link, The
Weaver, Tina
Webb, Duncan
Weightwatchers
Weisberger, Lauren
Welch, Julie
WernerLaurie, Joan
West, Rebecca
Weston, Bernice
Wheatcroft, Patience
When the World was Steady
White, Eirene
Whitehorn, Katharine
Whitehouse, Mary
Whiting, Audrey
WhittamSmith, Andreas
Who’s Who
Wicked Whispers
Widdicombe, Ann
Williams, Shirley
Wilson, Catherine
Wilson, Charlie
Wilson, Harold
Windsor, Duchess of
Winkleman, Claudia
Winn, Godfrey
Wintour, Anna
Wintour, Charles
Withers, Audrey
Woodhead, Jan (Jan Fairfax)
Woods, Natasha
Woman (magazine)
Woman and Home
Woman of Substance, A
Woman’s Hour
Woman’s Own
Women’s Penny Paper, The
Woman’s Mirror
Women’s Wear Daily
Wright, Pearce
Vagina Monologues, The
Van Damn, Sheila
Van der Post, Lucia
Van der Zee, Bibi
Vanity Fair
Verschoyle, Derek
Vincenzi, Penny
Vizineczey, Stephen
Voak, Sally Ann
Vogue
Von Strunckel, Shelley
Yorkshire Post
Young, Toby
Youngman Carter, Philip
Zec, Donald
Zelger, Esme
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