On being sacked

It was a shock but not really a surprise. I came back from holiday at the beginning of August to find an item in the UK Press Gazette saying that Decca Aitkenhead had just been appointed chief interviewer at the Sunday Times, and an email from the Sunday Times magazine editor, Eleanor Mills, saying we needed to meet. It was not difficult to put two and two together.

Eleanor suggested we meet at the Flask in Highgate — which was kind because it’s near my home — and when I arrived she was already sitting there with a glass of red wine lined up for me. Such unprecedented thoughtfulness made me wonder for a mad moment if she was planning to offer me a rise instead of sacking me, but no. She announced within seconds that she had been ‘rethinking contracts’ and that mine was for the chop. But, she added, she would pay me till the end of September, which she seemed to think was generous and I thought was bloody mean, given that it was already August and I’d been at the Sunday Times for nine years. So then I drank up my wine and went home and read my contract (possibly for the first time) and found that the paper could indeed sack me at a month’s notice, and for no stated reason. This was ironic because my contract ran from October to October and I’d habitually spent every September worrying about whether they’d renew it and then going ‘Phew!’ in October thinking I was safe for another year. But actually I was never safe.

How do I feel? Well, naturally I feel bruised but, as I say, not really surprised. It had been more or less open warfare with Eleanor Mills ever since she arrived at the magazine three years ago (I got on fine with her predecessor, Sarah Baxter).