Hard Labour
AHUGE BEARDED MAN IS SLUMPED in a heap, deeply unconscious, on the floor of the telephone booth. The receiver swings to and fro above his head. Passers-by in the hotel corridor can hear an exasperated voice pleading from the earpiece “Hello! Hello! Why have you stopped? Hello! Hello!” It is late at night at one of the dozens of trade union conferences which then peppered the late summer calendar.
But behold, as Paul Routledge, Labour Editor of The Times goes hurrying past, he sees that the comatose figure is his old friend and rival from another national newspaper. Let us call him “John”. Seizing the telephone, he strives to imitate John’s voice and asks innocently “Where was I?”
For he knows that John was in the middle of dictating a story to the copytakers at the other title’s headquarters, but has been overcome by drink before he could finish. Labour and Industrial Correspondents compete fiercely to scoop each other. But they are also a tight-knit society of, well, comrades, who look after each other in moments of crisis. This is one such moment. Paul knows what the story is, and how to write it in the style of the other paper.
Swiftly and seamlessly, he completes the report, replaces the phone and manages to rouse John enough to reassure him that all is well. The following morning, their joint account of events appears in
