and finally...


I miss the papers, even those I didn’t much like


The social impact when a title closes is all too often overlooked, says Chris Proctor


I


’ve never been to Denmark, and know very little about that land apart from bacon, Lurpak and that it’s


probably on Trump’s ‘to buy’ list. I knew it had a Post Office – PostNord – because I once interviewed one of its officials but I had little detailed knowledge of its activities except that it delivered letters. Well, from the end of this year, it’s stopping that. It seems a rather unusual business plan for a postal service but I gave up trying to understand capitalism when I realised Karl’s magnum opus lacked brio. But, although I never felt affection for the Scandinavian post, I mourn its passing. I feel the same about chilblains and the Hillman Imp – not to mention the News of the World. People don’t appreciate the social


impact of losing a newspaper. The demise of the NoW means that vicars with a penchant for knickers and nude skiing can now run around scot-free, confident that no correspondent lurks in the bushes eyeing their eccentricities. Ladies Whiplash flaunt themselves with abandon knowing no newshound peers through their grubby windows. Pop singers consume Mary Juana in open view and Fake Sheikhs, having no natural habitat, are consigned to the dole queue. I had no great affection for the News of the World but I miss it. For one thing, it gives me one less subject to complain about, which is the essence of the column writer’s trade. It also removed a vital tool from my mother’s identification kit for which of our neighbours were ‘common’.


And now the Indie has gone underground and the Observer is threatened with being run out of town by a ruddy tortoise and London’s Evening Standard totters under an assumed name once a week on its rusting newsstands. My melancholy about the Standard


surprises me as I only picked it up for the Friday crossword and I nurture a particular dislike of ex-Chancellor Osborne who edited it for a bit. His only journalistic experience was a short spell as a freelancer – and suddenly he’s an editor. Funny how everyone can do our job. Ozzie’s weird. When he was 13, instead of playing marbles and learning to smoke like the rest of us, he was busy changing his name, adding George to Gideon and Oliver. Maybe he thought Gideon was too common. More pertinently, a friend of mine


was given the pokey from the ES Diary, accused of gross decency. The Standard also fed the public a


daily diet of disaster about the capital’s transport system. You would see grown men sobbing into the newsprint as they despaired of ever seeing home and family again. Every issue featured electricity failures, malign leaves, undefined incidents and/or staff shortages.


The Standard once ran a front page


blazoning the dubious ‘news’ that Great Western were using second-hand braking systems they had purchased from Tyres Are Us (Belarus). This was on a day that complementary copies were placed on the tables of westbound trains as a treat for passengers. It was a splendid sight to see them being retrieved, snatched from commuters’ hands. Understandably, the train company didn’t want ticket holders to ease themselves into their


seat and peruse a story advising them that they were slap in the middle of a major safety hazard. The property section dwarfed the


news pages. It heaved with adverts for houses I couldn’t afford to stand outside, never mind live in. Who, apart from Feathers McGraw, is interested in details of a five-bed semi in Belgravia? Yet I miss it. Like when you get used to a rash and look for it in the morning. Do you remember when you looked


down the Tube and every face was covered by a newspaper? It looked like a line of washing. And they were useful things to hide behind when someone with a crusty guitar started shouting Streets of London at you. Yesterday’s paper Ralph-McTelling yesterday’s news. Mind you, the editions that remain


are now scrutinised more diligently since we began worrying that we’d never see another one. At three quid a throw, there’s no more browsing and skipping. Every page is regarded with gimlet eye. I even look at the motoring section. Then there are the largely


“ ”


You would see grown men sobbing into the newsprint as they despaired of ever seeing home and family again


unconsidered ecological side-effects of diminishing newsprint. No fire was raised in the grate without the assistance of yesterday’s papers. Every washed floor was laid with newsprint for its drying capacity. The final buff of a polished shoe relied on them. Not to mention chips. Their unavailability has led to wasteful petroleum firelighters, microfibre absorbent cloths, synthetic sponges and polystyrene boxes. These considerations alone should be sufficient to insist on the retention of proper paper newspapers. One day, we will come to appreciate


how much we are losing as newspapers become critically endangered. We will value our departing friends. Generations to come will be seen trawling the streets, seeking out back copies in bins, like Danes searching for a letter box.


theJournalist |27


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