The Great Reporters, By David Randall

I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets. ~ Napoleon

Between these pages is a list comprised of the thirteen greatest reporters of all time.

From those who tackled corrupt authorities, unflinchingly forcing the truth into the public realm, to those who marched into war zones, determined to provide the truth to those at home, these thirteen greats show wily determination topped with a layer of world class writing. 

The list includes ten men and three women. Between them, they have toppled empires, reformed the prison service, witnessed dictators' regimes fall to their knees and seen unimaginable horrors as man turned on man. The male reporters' stories are every bit as admirable and impressive as their female counterparts' are, but it is, of course,  the three women who make the cut who Brazen Women will be concentrating on.

Edna Buchanan. Nellie Bly. Ann Leslie. The best three female reporters in history.

While the excellence of their writing and determination to not only find a story but penetrate the very heart of it was something they had in common, their styles and subjects were worlds apart.

Nellie Bly was one of the original female reporters, paving the way for Edna and Ann to follow in her footsteps. Edna Buchanan wrote so well about crime in Florida that readers would sit down and read her articles as if they were reading a novel. And Ann Leslie, the British reporter who, it seems, appeared at every major world event from the 1960s onwards.

Nellie was born Elizabeth Anne Cochran. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1864, during a century which was not kind to its ambitious women. And Nellie was ambitious. She was also a bloody good writer. When she wrote to her local paper, the Pittsburgh Dispatch, having taken issue with one columnist's view that women should be kept indoors making themselves and their homes pretty for their husbands, the editor saw such promise he immediately contacted her to ask for more publishable writing.

And so began the career of 'the best undercover reporter in history'. 

After Nellie had tired of the Pittsburgh Dispatch she made her way to New York, ready to start reporting for national newspapers. Here she hit a wall. No paper would employ a female reporter. It was unheard of. As New York World's editor put it, the idea of a woman working in journalism on a national newspaper was 'almost too far fetched for words.'

Undeterred, Nellie blagged her way into the New York World's offices and proposed an undercover operation. She would pretend to be mad in order to be imprisoned on Blackwell Island, the infamous compound housing those classified as mentally insane. 

Her plan worked. She was hired. Her undercover operation was a huge success. She reported back on the appalling conditions on Blackwell Island, leading to $1 million being ploughed into mental health care. It was a huge story for an unknown reporter, and a female one at that. The rarity of being a woman in journalism worked in her favour too. She managed to find story after story operating as an undercover reporter, no one suspecting that a woman could be a reporter.

By this time other female journalists were emerging to challenge her crown. So, to make sure she continued her role as queen, she made a suggestion met by scandalised shock. She was going to travel the world in less than eighty days. Alone. Without a chaperone. 

It was unheard of. A single woman could not possibly travel alone. But Nellie could, and she would. And despite delays, detours and missing visas, she beat the eighty day deadline by twelve days, returning to American shores to a celebrity reception.

Nellie had opened doors to women in the journalism industry, showing with single minded determinism that women could report just as well as the very best of the men. And it was through these doors that Edna Buchanan strolled seventy two years after Nellie set off to navigate the globe.

In 1961 a 22 year old Edna moved to he warm climates of Miami and secured her first job in the press. She was untrained, her jobs prior to this having been behind the counters at Woolworths and a dry cleaners. Yet the Miami Beach Daily Sun was correct in giving her her first break, as Edna rose through the ranks to emerge as 'the best crime reporter there's ever been.'

After comprising the entire reporting team on the Miami Beach for a number of years, Edna made a move to a larger newspaper where she began to concentrate on her specialist subject. Always interested in criminals, preferring to read the crime pages to fairy tales as a child, her early interest held her in good stead as she began to investigate illegal activity which at the time, was rife in Florida.

Murder followed robberies that followed drug rings. Edna was forging a career as crime correspondent in a state which was red hot with underhand dealings. In 1981 the murder count stood at 621 on Edna's patch alone, and still Edna pursued the story on each one, blatantly disregarding her personal safety. Drug gang warfare had broken out. There was shootings, abductions and rapes. Edna kept investigating and continued reporting, whether these dangerous figures wanted her poking her nose into their business or not. If Edna had a story she could release, she released it. Whether it was concerning a local teenager fresh from committing his first crime, or evidence of a police cover up on the highest level, Edna released it.

Whatever she was writing, her trick, or perhaps her skill, was writing opening lines that leaves a reader desperate for more. Time and time again Randall quotes examples of articles that capture your attention and refuse to loosen their grip. Edna Buchanan was told by one of her teachers that she would amount to nothing, 'not even a good housewife.' Edna Buchanan did amount to something. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner, a successful author, and considered, by David Randall at least, as the second best reporter of all time.

The third woman to make Randall's list is the only non-American female on it. Ann Leslie was born in Pakistan in 1941, to British parents.

In contrast to the untrained Edna, who had left school at 16, Ann was a graduate of the prominent Oxford University, having won a scholarship to study English. Also unlike Edna, Ann was not at all enthusiastic about reporting, applying for a journalism job solely because it seemed 'the least unappealing of available options while she decided what she really wanted to do with her life.'

It would have been a huge loss not only to the world of journalism, but to the world as a whole if Ann had indeed found something else she wanted to do. Happily for us, she didn't. Instead she caught the reporting bug and became 'the most versatile reporter ever'. 

It was in 1962 that Ann started her first reporting job, working in the Daily Express's Manchester office. Almost exactly the same age as Nellie had been when she had been trying to get someone to hire her in New York, Ann rang into similar attitudes to those Nellie had encountered. It was eighty five years later, but Anne felt some men were no happier to have a woman in the office than they were in the 1870s.

As a young woman, she wasn't taken seriously, often fobbed off to report on none stories. Until the 1960s rolled through Britain and suddenly Ann's youth seemed rather desirable. She could be the way for the Express to appeal to those young readers somewhere between childhood and middle age.

Despite this change of attitude, Ann was still deployed to cover soft stories. This isn't what she wanted. By this time, the reporting bug held her firmly in its grasp and she longed to travel the world reporting on serious stories that mattered.

Ann went freelance for a while, but was soon lured back under the roof of the mainstream press by the Daily Mail's then editor, David English. It may be said here that then 'the rest was history'. Indeed, Ann spent the next few decades almost literally following history around the globe. 

She was there when the Berlin Wall fell, following the story from the press conference (incorrectly) announcing the border to the west was open, all the way through to the triumphant drive through Checkpoint Charlie, a night Ann describes as the most emotional of her life. She was there when the shock not guilty verdict was announced at the end of the OJ Simpson trial, and she was there when Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison.

But it is the stories Ann had to dig to get, the ones that bubbled away deep under the surface, which makes Ann so impressively brazen. She was the only journalist to reach the front line at Gorazde, after convincing the Serb soldiers she longed to see an old orthodox church there. It was a risky play, but one that paid off when she had her scoop. 

She reported from Haiti, bitterly damning the spoilt attitude of the Haitian princesses who complained about being inconvenienced by the oil and weapon embargo imposed upon them as men in their thousands died around their luxury palaces. Ann reported this regardless of any consequence that might face her from upset authorities. 

She was in China when North Koreans began crossing the border, desperate to escape what Ann felt was a 'massive, largely unreported famine'. But, in my opinion, she is at her most brave and brazen during her report in Bethlehem in 2002.

Randall writes how 200 armed Palestinians were holed up inside the Church of the Nativity. The media were being kept away, allowed no where near the church.

In typical Ann Leslie style, she shed all safety equipment and attempted to get through the checkpoints as a 'dingbat middle aged mum'. She was successful. With nerves of steal she walked through the heavily armed guards who were prodding other journalists back with their guns. At one point she even convinces guards to present her with a map of Bethlehem. She gets within 50 yards of the Nativity Church itself before gunfire rings out and she is advised strongly to leave. This is just one occasion where she risks her life to bring the story to the masses.

I feel a notable mention must also go out to the men on the list. It would be wrong to not acknowledge them. 

George Seldes, whose determination to expose truth and corruption annoyed and frustrated public figures so much that he became a target of Joseph McCarthy's communist-witch hunt in a bid to get rid of him. 

J.A. Macgahan, who spurred the collapse of the Turkish Empire by exposing their barbaric treatment of the Bulgarians, causing the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78 the aftershocks of which can still be felt today. 

Ernie Pyle. The American travel writer who covered World War Two from the front line, sending home articles with the personal touch, so much so that American citizens took him to their hearts. Ernie fell during the war and is buried alongside soldiers as one of them.

And William Howard Russell; A.J. Liebling; Richard Harding Davis; James Cameron; Floyd Gibbons; Hugh McIlvanney and Meyer Berger. Each of them changing society for the better using the pen as their weapon.

Brave, inspirational, brazen. The kind of reporters any writer wishes to be.

The Viceroy's Daughters, by Anne de Courcy

Irene, Cimmie and Baba: The Curzon Sisters.

Born to arguably India's greatest viceroy, the Curzon sisters grew up in the former half of the twentieth century. Their lives read as a who's who and where's where of one of Europe's most politically turbulant periods.

From Britain's mining strike, through the First World War, to the aristocracy's last hurrah and the Second World War, the Curzon sisters lived through it all.

As like each other as they were polar opposites, the sisters' religious, political and personal differences divide them as often as they unite them. All deeply engrained in the 1900s political landscape, they have flirtations with socialism, capitalism and fascism, and even heavier flirtations with the powerful men running these movements, which gives them as insight only few people at the time would have been privvy to.

Irene, 2nd Baroness Ravensdale, the eldest sister, enjoyed a life indulging in her passions for hunting, drinking and men. Cimmie, the middle sister, married Mr Oswald Mosley, and rose through political ranks alongside him before having her life cut tragically short at the age of just 34. Baba, the youngest and most brazen of the three, lived her life in a blaze of selfish glamour. Often cruel to her family and patronizing to her husband, with a penchant for unsuitable men, Baba's strong personality shines through the book, threatening to overshine even the most famous of the historical figures who crop up between the pages.

The Curzon sisters were always destined to be recorded by history. Born to their mega rich American mother, Mary Leiter, and their famous politician father, George Curzon, the girls inherited their mother's wealth and their father's sharp tongue and sharper mind.

This similarity in personality led to a clash beween father and daughters, and at the time of George's death his two eldest daughters were estranged from him, Irene having even been turned away as she arrived to see him on his death bed.

Irene was already a woman of eighteen when World War 1 started. She watched in horror as friends and suitors marched to their deaths. Irene then turned her attention upon the two things that would come to dominate her life: hunting and drinking. Part of the fashionable Melton Mowbray set, Irene rubbed shoulders with Princes, Dukes and other men high up the social ladder. After a good day's hunting and a hard night's drinking, Irene would spend the night with one of the lucky men: the Melton Mowbray set's loves lives become so criss crossed it's almost impossible to untangle.

Alcohol became a forced that would stalk Irene through her life; it developed from casual drinking to a problem Irene attempted to give up countless times.

As Irene threw herself into her social life, her younger sister Cimmie was to meet and marry the man who would impact upon all three sisters' lives. Oswald Mosley, always referred to by the sisters as Tom. Now remembered for his stint as the British Union of Fascists leader and husband of the infamous Diana Mitford, Cimmie met him shortly after Armistice Day 1918, when his dark reputation with its sinister Nazi overtones were still a long way in the future

Cimmie married Tom in 1920. In 1924, Tom left the Conservative benches to cross the floor, and, with Cimmie, joined the Labour Party. Tom perceived greater opportunity for promotion in Labour than in the Conservatives, his personal ambition triumphing over his political beliefs.

Cimmie was eventually elected Member of Parliament for Stoke-On-Trent after a hard fought battle for a seat no one expected her to win. The year was 1929. Cimmie was a female politician in a world heavily dominated by men.

Her success was short lived as her husband's desire for greater power marched on. In 1931, Tom founded the New Party and several members of Labour, including Cimmie, defected to it. Turning her back on Labour did not go down well with her constituents, who felt they had been betrayed. Nevertheless, The New Party fought in the general election of that year. All of the candidates lost their seats. During this time, Cimmie bore Tom three children, and stood by him as The New Party began showing Fascist tendancies. Tom repaid her by having numerous affairs, about which Cimmie knew and tolerated, albeit unhappily.

Anne de Courcey writes how Tom, in a sudden attack of conscience, told Cimmie about all the women he'd ever cheated on her with. Except, of course, her sister and step mother – referring to earlier affairs he’d had with his father in law’s wife, Grace Hinds, and our very own Irene.

However, any doubts one might have about Irene’s morality are firmly swept to one side when we move on to Baba. Irene had a one night stand with her sister’s husband: Baba has a fully blown affair with him on the run up to and years after her sister’s death.

Baba Curzon develops from the quiet, youngest sister, her father’s favourite, into a force to be reckoned with. She marries King Edward VIII’s best friend, Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, a man eighteen year her senior, and proceeds to dominate him with her overbearing personality and much greater wealth. Fruity strikes quite a sad figure in the book. He goes from being a Prince’s favourite with a glittering career in front of him and a beautiful heiress on his arm, to being trampled on by Edward VIII, the man he loved most, and cheated on by the woman he loved most.

Fruity watches as Baba conducts her affair with Tom Mosley, furious but helpless to stop it, as he was with all the many, many other men Baba selected to have affairs with.

Among these men was Dino Grandi, Mussolini’s ambassador to London, whilst simultaneously enjoying flirtatious exchanges with Lord Halifax, Britain’s foreign secretary. Her marriage is finally brought to an end when she falls for the 3^rd Earl of Feversham, Charles Duncombe.

Time and time again Baba, along with Mosley, takes advantage of Irene’s good nature and love of their respective children. Something of a hands off mother, Baba would leave her children with Irene at any opportunity in order to enjoy a holiday with her latest love.

Irene became bitterly jealous of Baba, frustrated at how selfish Baba had the husband, children and glamourous lifestyle Irene so longed for. But Baba was not without heartbreak. She was furious when Tom, newly emerged from the prison in which he had spent World War Two, chose Diana over her, and she was humiliated when Charles Duncombe refused to leave his wife for her after she had divorced Fruity.

Irene and Baba, after the turbulent first half of the 20^th Century, went on to be well respected women. Irene became of the first four women to be selected as a life peer and allowed to sit in the House of Lords, while in 1975 Baba was awarded an Order of the British Empire for her work for the Save the Children Fund.

The Curzon sisters lived fast and loose, applying this attitude to their men, money, alcohol and morals. Trailblazers with little regard for their reputation, they both suffered and thrived on the back of their brazenness.

A Dinner of Herbs, by Catherine Cookson

 

Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. ~ Proverbs 15:17

I’ve fancied reading a Catherine Cookson book for quite some time, but have never seemed to get round to it. But, having spotted one at a market for a mere £1, I decided to finally give one a try.

Short of purchasing a lottery ticket, there is no better way I could have spent said pound.  A Dinner of Herbs is also known as the Bannaman Saga, and saga is perhaps a better description of it.

Stretching over almost sixty years and four generations, A Dinner of Herbs tells the story of Roddy Greenbank, Hal Roystan and Mary Ellen Lee, whose pasts, presents and futures are forever inexorably linked with the cursed Bannaman family.

But in this blog the attention is on the women, and the brazen ones at that. Having no knowledge of Catherine Cookson books, aside from vague memories of television adaptations, I was doubtful of whether it would provide me with anything to write about. Happily, I could not have been more wrong.

Set in North East England (my part of the woods – the familiar dialect was particularly enjoyable to read) in the 1800s, all of the women centre around Mary Ellen. Her rebellious spirit shines through from when we’re first introduced to her as a child. Defiant of her parents’ attempts to curb her into a more ladylike manner, Mary Ellen still has this spirit 600 pages and 50 years later.

Aged ten, she goes into service as a housemaid for a rich family. Although the family is fond of her, she is worked hard, with her mistress given to showing a spiteful streak. We pick up with her again as a young woman; one passionately in love with her young playmate, Roddy.

Several times he spurns her advances, but she ploughs valiantly on; she puts up with his often cruel jibes, she prevents him from being transported to Australia for murder, and eventually she seduces him on a moor, just prior to him leaving to seek his fortune in the big cities of Newcastle and London.

Left pregnant by this night, Mary Ellen contemplates life married to her mistress’ kind-but-dull grandson, seeing it as a way out of her predicament. However, enraged by the looks of disgust plastered on the family’s faces when they discover her pregnancy, Mary Ellen tells them what they can do with their job and their grandson, and returns home to her father’s house.

More disappointment is in store for her as her father finds the stigma of his daughter having a child out of wedlock too shameful to allow her to move back in with him. By now distraught, Mary Ellen flees to Kate Makepeace, the old wise woman who had raised Roddy as her own since his father was brutally murdered by a Bannaman.

Kate takes Mary Ellen in, and it is Kate who hardens Mary Ellen’s resolve to defy the world. Kate begins teaching Mary Ellen the tricks of the medicine trade in which Kate practises, and insists Mary Ellen always charges for whatever remedy she is providing, therefore ensuring Mary Ellen can live independently without having man or having to resort to prostitution, the career path a lot of desperate women fell into.

Kate insists Mary Ellen isn’t to cry about her fate, but instead is to hold her head high and look the world in the face of its disapproval. Mary Ellen does, and so the candle of leading brazen woman is passed from Kate to Mary Ellen.

And then the book jumps ahead again, hurtling through the decades till Mary Ellen is middle aged. It is revealed she married Hal Roystan, her and Roddy’s old friend. Mary Ellen’s baby daughter, named Kate in honour of old Kate Makepeace, is now a grown woman in her twenties. Mary Ellen has several other children, but it is Kate and her second daughter, Maggie, who we shall turn to next.

Despite both having very much inherited their mother’s attitude, the girls are as different as sisters can be. Kate, plain looking but charming and kind, runs opposite to the beautiful but sharp tongued and spiteful Maggie. However, their fates are almost identical; and both fates require a good dose of brazenness. Kate, on one random ride through the countryside, meets Benjamin Hamilton. It is revealed, eventually, that Mr Hamilton is the grandson of Mr Bannaman, the man who murdered both Hal and Roddy’s fathers; and the son of Mary Bannaman, the woman who almost tortured Hal to death. Despite knowing that her relationship with him will never be acceptable to her father, step father, or mother, Kate announces she is in love with him and intends to marry him, even if that means turning her back on the rest of her family.

Similarly, Maggie falls in love with a worker on her father’s farm, Willie. Her parents are unhappy with this union due them considering Willie a lower class than Maggie, despite both Kate and Hal coming from poor, underprivileged backgrounds (something they rather snobbishly forget as they begin their climb up the financial ladder).  Like Kate, Maggie tells her parents she will be marrying Willie, regardless of their opinions on the matter. Mary Ellen, by this time left with a crippled husband and no children remaining in her house, begs Maggie not to leave her, even promising her beloved farm and house to Maggie and Willie if they remain with her. Maggie agrees, shocked at how broken her mother seems. But still, on the final page Mary Ellen recovers her old spirit and warns them to make sure they also have their own land and house, just in case…

Kate Makepeace, Mary Ellen Lee, Kate Roystan and Maggie Roystan. Four women who all oppose convention in their own unique ways. Flawed, selfish, naïve, loyal and headstrong, Cookson’s book is littered with examples of strong female women, acting in a way considered brazen, yet unrepentant and convinced that their own actions are the right ones.

I am told Cookson based a lot of these women on those she grew up surrounded by. So therefore, stay tuned for a Catherine Cookson biography coming soon!