The Bootle Boy

by Les Hinton

  We had no way of filing copy from the city, so Walker, who hadn’t yet left, agreed to head south to the British base at Akrotiri, where he could wire our story before the RAF took him home.

  ‘Get the office to call Mary to say I’m all right,’ I asked.

  When the phone rang at home, Mary was seven months pregnant with Thomas, our second son. She was standing on a stepladder repainting a bedroom for him and listening to news of the action on the BBC radio programme World at One.

  The UK had military bases on the island, but kept out of the fight, with orders only to protect British lives and defend the bases. British observation units placed themselves close to the invaders. We stood in trenches with them outside Famagusta watching dozens of tanks creeping eastwards through the dust, firing their guns towards no apparent targets. When a Turkish shell went awry, landing near the British observers, a major waving a white flag marched towards the advancing tank to berate a Turkish officer.

  After the first explosive days, an uneasy ceasefire was declared, but the danger and tension were still intense. Crossing the no-man’s-land Green Line dividing Greek and Turkish territory was a tricky procedure. Leaving the protection of the Greek zone did not guarantee a welcome from the Turks. For me, there was a particular difficulty. The Sun had fallen into serious disfavour in Turkey after Walker had written a vivid account of allegations of Turkish atrocities. Greek-Cypriot villagers caught in the first Turkish advance had told him terrifying stories of their ordeal, and The Sun had devoted pages to his account, describing the Turks in a large one-word headline as ‘Barbarians’.

  Sub-headlines included: ‘My fiancé and six men were shot dead. The Turkish soldiers laughed at me and then I was raped’; ‘The Turkish soldiers cut off my father’s hands and legs. Then they shot him while I watched’; ‘They shot the men. My friend’s wife said “Why should I live without my husband?” A soldier shot her in the head’.

  This story made The Sun the most loved and hated newspaper in Cyprus, depending on which side of the Green Line you were. The Turks were so furious that Greek-Cypriot authorities and the British military cautioned me about visiting the Turkish zone. I had no choice, but it was a tricky moment each time I presented myself to a zone officer who had the task of deciding who should be allowed to pass. The conversations invariably went the same way.

  ‘Hello, I’m from The Sun,’ I would say brightly.

  ‘The Sun? You think we are barbarians. What are you doing here? You told lies about us. You are not welcome.’

  ‘I didn’t write that,’ I would say. ‘I had nothing to do with it. I have no knowledge to make me believe that the Turkish people are barbarians. I am here to understand what is happening and to tell the truth to our readers.’

  In time, making the crossings became easier, but they reminded me often of their view that The Sun was guilty of a terrible injustice in allowing itself to become the victim of Greek-Cypriot propaganda.

  Walker’s story was the first contribution to what became a grisly contest by each side to establish the inhumanity of their enemy. Both sides produced persuasive evidence.

  After The Sun’s ‘Barbarians’ front page, the Turks organised macabre day trips for the media to the sites of purported Greek atrocities. The worst of them ranks above Ermenonville as the most horrifying sight of my life. What we saw in Maratha, a village in the eastern Turkish zone, was more terrible than an air disaster because it was not an accident but slaughter.

  Our mini-bus halted near the crest of a low dusty hill. Through the windows, we could see people wearing surgical masks, scarves, and handkerchiefs over their faces. Some were simply burying their faces in their raised, bent arms.

  ‘You will want to cover your noses when we get outside,’ a young Turkish lieutenant advised us as he tied a large white cloth around his head.

  The air was hot and windless, and dense with the sweet stench of rotting flesh. One reporter began to retch, another returned instantly to the bus. An old woman dressed in black came towards us, staggering and wailing as a boy, no more than eight years old, his two small hands clutching one of hers, tried to take her away from where the lieutenant was leading us.

  The bodies had been buried in the village rubbish dump for 20 days, we were told. When Turkey launched the second wave of its invasion, Greek-Cypriot nationalist gunmen had rounded up the Turkish villagers and shot them all. Turkish officers said 88 people were missing and they expected to find them in the dump.

  Their remains formed a long, low mound, and had been exposed by a bulldozer that was now nearby with its engine running. They were stacked in seams, layer upon layer, and only partly covered with flesh. You could tell many were women, and could see the tiny decaying frames and skulls of children. Some bodies were charred, and we were told they were set on fire after being killed. A uniformed Turkish-Cypriot said he had arrived on leave from his post in Famagusta to discover his family had been murdered — six sisters, one brother, and his mother. Soldiers were picking with shovels through the pile like archaeologists, keeping the bodies as intact as they could.

  Jon Akass, The Sun’s chief columnist, stood alone looking down on the scene. He had a pen in one hand and notebook in the other, but I didn’t see him write. Akass had seen the aftermath of Aberfan, had reported from Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Biafra, the Congo, and other African wars. He had been at the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. His piece next morning began: ‘Maratha is the most dreadful place I have ever seen.’

  The smell from that day was impossible to wash away. It was still there shower after shower, but I think by then it was only in my head.

  I left Cyprus within a few days of seeing the Maratha massacre. My departure was not straightforward; there were no organised flights or ships. The concierge at the Nicosia Hilton appeared to be the best connected man in the city, and he promised Barry Came of Newsweek and myself a comfortable passage by sea to Greece in return for a substantial amount of cash. The dockside was a crush of refugees, many of whom were left stranded as our overcrowded ship sailed away. Refugees were crowded on every deck, sitting and sleeping without access to food, drink, or hygiene. Came and I became popular when word spread that we had a cabin with a bathroom.

  That same year, I attended the revolution in Portugal. It was one of the century’s most peaceful, and became known as the Carnation Revolution. Crowds came into the streets with flowers, children pushed carnations into the barrels of guns, and the US government soon put aside its fears of a communist takeover. There were tanks in the streets, riots, and some people died, but my lasting memory was of the evening in Oporto, when I was hurrying to file after a town-square protest. Walking towards me as I raced down the street was Graham Greene, who loved to visit the world’s troubled places. When I smiled at him, he smiled back.

  These assignments gave me confidence. I was sure I was qualified to apply when I heard that Rupert Murdoch wanted someone from The Sun to join the all-Australian News bureau in New York.

  Ken Donlan glared over his desk. ‘You can forget about that, old boy,’ he said. ‘There’s a long queue ahead of you for that job.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Rupert’s raiders

  It’s a bad idea to put your self-esteem at the mercy of others. If your bosses have a low estimation of you, it’s fatal to let their opinions creep into your head. It was clear I had to outflank Ken Donlan, who was obviously a lousy judge of talent. I had no prayer of getting to New York if I relied on him.

  I first heard about the New York job while doing a good deed. Phil Rodwell was an Australian friend I’d shared a flat with when I was working at British United Press. He was at the BBC World Service then, but had returned to Sydney. I had good memories of Rodwell. We were both banned from our local in Kew Green after the landlord became convinced we were stealing those traditional big-handled English pint glasses — it was
tempting, but the truth is we had been set up by a larcenous friend from Brisbane. When Rodwell wrote to say he was coming back to London, I said I’d help find him a job.

  Murray Hedgcock was chief of the London bureau of News Limited of Australia that provided coverage for Rupert’s Australian newspapers. He was the rigorous editor who taught me, as a 16-year-old, what a split infinitive was, and warned me against other grammar crimes.

  Hedgcock had no opening for Rodwell, but told me of another that he knew would interest me. ‘I bumped into Rupert on the stairs yesterday. They’re looking for an extra body in the New York bureau. I suggested one of my people, but he said he wanted someone from The Sun.’

  This information led me to approach Ken Donlan, only to be sent away burning with the injustice of his disheartening response. Realising I must enlist outside help, I wrote to friends and colleagues across the company. Mark Day had been a precocious copy boy with me in Adelaide, the brightest of us all, who became editor of Adelaide’s The Sunday Mail at 26, and was by then editor of the Sydney Daily Mirror.

  I drove home to Day the importance of my all-purpose versatility as a Brit with a deep understanding of Australia, who could provide coherent copy to the many titles the company owned. Day promised to speak to Rupert. I wrote to Murray Hedgcock, whose support I could count on, and to the New York bureau chief Peter Michelmore. I sent a note to Rupert, but heard nothing back. I didn’t raise the subject again with Donlan; nor did I reveal what I knew about the vacancy to other reporters. I knew Donlan’s first choice would be Iain Walker.

  Four months went by without news. One afternoon, on my way to the lavatory, I passed Donlan’s desk. He stood and followed me.

  ‘About New York,’ he said. ‘You would have to agree to be there for at least two years.’

  We stood at the men’s room door to the sound of flushing urinals.

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘No problem at all.’

  ‘Ok. We’ll sort the details in a week or so,’ he said, and hunched his way back to the newsdesk. Donlan did not indicate any pleasure at giving me one of the opportunities of my life, which I took as conclusive evidence that my plan had worked and he had been thwarted from above.

  It’s important here to say that the act of going behind your boss’ back is recommended only as a last resort, and with extreme caution. It’s great if it works, but if it backfires you’re in serious trouble.

  I was invited to the inner sanctum of Larry Lamb, the fearsome editor-in-chief, with whom I had never exchanged a word. His office was away from the newsroom down a silent corridor of closed doors and clean, deep carpet. His large desk was strewn with page proofs, and none of the liquor bottles on the nearby table was full. Lamb was proud of his success; when Margaret Thatcher gave him a knighthood four years later, Lamb put a sign at his door, in type bigger than any front page headline, announcing: SIR LARRY LAMB.

  Lamb told me I would earn $20,000 a year in New York, which was about the same as the prime minister received. This made me happy, but only until I discovered the crushing cost of living there.

  In New York in 1976, I was the pauper of the Fleet Street Press corps. My peers worked on newspapers whose circulations The Sun was overtaking, yet they lived lavishly, claimed ridiculously fraudulent expenses without challenge, enjoyed the security of generous medical insurance, sent their children to private schools at the expense of their employers, and travelled with their families on regular office-paid holiday trips home. The harsh economies of Rupert’s companies had been familiar to me since, as a 15-year-old in Adelaide, I was required to hand in a pencil stub before I received a new full-length one.

  I did cheat the system travelling to New York. Larry Lamb’s office booked my flight and did what they always did — which meant I flew First Class on British Airways. But it was a hard landing when I started looking for somewhere to rent for Mary and myself and our sons, Martin and Thomas. Manhattan was far too expensive, so I travelled the Metro-North commuter line to Westchester County and found a two-bedroom ground floor apartment next to a busy railway line. We had no furniture. After several attempts by me, the office agreed to loan me $800, to be deducted from my salary over two years.

  Still, I bought a big American car — a five-year-old Chevy Caprice with two-tone green bodywork and an interior to match. It had an automatic transmission, air conditioning — which I hadn’t even known existed in cars — and electric windows. It was 18 feet long, a two-door coupe, with a V8 engine that consumed 12 miles per gallon when driven with care. It was exactly like those gleaming, cruising cars I had yearned after as a nine-year-old in Tripoli while I waited for a battered Army lorry to take me to school. I lived the dream for two years before trading it in for a sensible Buick Skylark, a car as tame as its name.

  Thomas was 18 months old and Martin was five, a finely spoken English boy whose accent was soon lost forever. They came to New York in 1976 and, more than four decades later, were still there. For them, the transition was painless, although Martin encountered early confusion as he worked to shed his accent. This was due to the Japanese pupils he sat by at elementary school. One evening, his right hand on his heart, he proudly repeated the lines he had learned for morning assembly: ‘I predge allegiance to the flag …’

  For Mary, it was a culture shock too far. Stranded and friendless in alien American suburbia, at first she wept and then grew angry with me. I had chosen our apartment while she was still home in North Finchley sorting out our affairs there. As soon as the two-year lease was up, and once I had squeezed more money from the office, Mary moved us to an apartment on Roosevelt Island in the East River, across from Manhattan. This was where many Australians, Brits, and junior diplomats from the United Nations lived with their families; Mary preferred the people and the lack of homogeneity. Our dark and compact new home did not impress Arthur Edwards when he came to visit. ‘It’s like a bleeding air raid shelter,’ he said.

  Although we couldn’t afford to live there, Manhattan was the magical America I had dreamed of. I had read about it, I had seen and heard it in films a thousand times — the tall and eternal avenues, the 24-hour wakefulness. The brightness of New York, its vivid yellow cabs, took me by surprise — it must have been due to too many black-and-white films.

  It looked the way I expected, but I wasn’t prepared for the wild pace. Midtown was an incoherent frenzy, like a beehive poked with a stick, with everyone in a head-down hurry. Shop workers served you with unsmiling blankness — and that was at the best of times.

  In a delicatessen on Lexington Avenue, I ordered a tuna sandwich. In London, it was a simple request, resulting in a thin layer of tuna inside two slices of pre-sliced white bread. But not in Manhattan.

  ‘What kind of bread?’

  ‘Err.’

  ‘So what do you want? White? Sourdough? Whole-wheat? Rye?’

  ‘Rye,’ I said, having no idea what it was.

  ‘What you having with the tuna? Mayo? Lettuce? Tomato?’

  I was still thinking when the man behind the counter ran out of patience, along with the people waiting in line behind me.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, with a despairing look at his waiting customers. ‘You never ordered a sandwich before?’

  When I left a bar, unfamiliar with the local custom of tipping for a drink, the barman’s farewell was hostile: ‘Hey, you jerk. Don’t bother coming back.’ For the same offence, the man who had given me my first ever shoe-shine, shouted after me across the vast concourse of Grand Central: ‘Fuck you, mister.’

  I would soon learn to avoid violating these local customs; that waiters and barmen needed tips to live; that previously simple dishes — fried eggs on toast — were offered in more than one form; and that, once you understand them, there is a raw kindness in most New Yorkers.

  Manhattan is an island of orderly joined-up villages, little communities repeating themselves mile
after mile. Each has its Italian and French restaurants, its corner store bodega, its dry cleaner and pharmacy, and a shop that will repair shoes, or polish dirty ones. Any item — a pint of milk, a three-course meal, an evening dress in need of urgent pressing — will be delivered to your door.

  E. B. White’s brief masterpiece, Here is New York, describes it perfectly: ‘Each neighbourhood is virtually self-sufficient. Usually it is no more than two or three blocks long and a couple of blocks wide. Each area is a city within a city within a city.’ White’s book was published in 1949 when New York was, in many ways, a different place. But for all its changes, his essay also understood the permanence. New York is a shape-shifter of destruction and creation, of vanishing streets and rising towers, eternally mutating its landscape and its population, digesting wave upon wave of immigrants of all colours and cultures into its swarming neighbourhoods. It is a masterwork that can never be completed. O. Henry, the great storyteller of New York, said: ‘It’ll be a great place — if they ever finish it,’ and he died in 1910.

  But, before White’s time and through the years, the villages of Manhattan have endured, and discovering them cheered me up. I decided that the city owed much of its success to the comfort and protection these ‘villages’ provided against the swirling metropolis, and that one day I would become a Manhattan villager.

  New York was not at its best when we arrived. It was virtually bankrupt, its infrastructure of roads and bridges was crumbling, and it was riding the greatest crime wave in its history. That year, 1622 people were murdered; in 2016, the number was down to 335.

  A drive down Fifth Avenue, from the heart of stricken Harlem at 125th Street to Jacqueline Onassis’s apartment 40 blocks south, was a 20-minute journey through the extremes of the American dream.