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The Remarkable Lives of Bill Deedes

Putting the Boot in

Stephen Robinson
Little Brown, 480pp, £20,

Peregrine Worsthorne

Tuesday, 18th March 2008

Peregrine Worsthorne on Stephen Robinson's biography of Bill Deedes

All changes suddenly with the fall of the house of Berry, which Deedes, still editor out of deference, had done nothing to avert, explaining his inaction by claiming absurdly that ‘it was not the job of the adjutant to tell his commanding officer how to run his show’. At this point Conrad Black gains control, appointing Max Hastings as editor who promptly sacks all Deedes’s team except the man himself. Deedes, who has made no effort to defend his old colleagues, now shamelessly re-invents himself as dear Bill and becomes the globe-trotting old-timer who turns up wherever trouble looms, accompanied by a beautiful, young female companion — never one of his own daughters — spreading sweetness and light. At last he has found his role, which fits him like a glove. He is the good Telegraph cop, with Hastings the bad one. What a combination! Even when Hastings is sacked the show goes on, with Deedes recruiting Princess Diana into the act, which has become by then a national institution, like Peter Pan. The nastier British journalism becomes, the more dear Bill stands out as its saving grace.

Eventually, with Bill in his nineties, like all other good things, the show had to come to an end, and in this book that end is dramatically recorded. For almost on his deathbed, throwing caution to the winds — as he must frequently have done all those years ago on the field of battle — Deedes does the duty which any journalist worth his salt must do at least once in a lifetime. Dear Bill lets his last colleagues feel the rough edge of his tongue, calling them ‘a stinking mob’. Not exactly sinuous prose this time, but at least there is one phrase to remember.