I was astonished when Rupert Murdoch announced he was stepping down as chairman of News Corp. He always told me he would be carried out of the building with his boots on.
At 92, and after a 70-year career, he deserves a rest, but my experience of him was that he was at his most relaxed when working and quite anxious when having to be sociable. What surprised me most was that he has taken the title of ‘chairman emeritus’.
The expression that most sums up his attitude to life is: lower the lifeboat, I’m in
I remember that when he hired me as editor of the Sun he had just announced that Frank Giles was moving from editor of the Sunday Times to the new role of editor emeritus of the Sunday Times. Being a tabloid guy I had never heard the word ‘emeritus’ so timidly asked what it meant. He replied, in his softly spoken Aussie accent, ‘It means he’s not the fucking editor of the Sunday Times.
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