i) was she aware that, at the time of purchase, TMT was running up losses of $32 million a year?

ii) was she aware that her weekly flights to Hollywood, the purchase of her flat in Los Angeles, and the running expenses of her three company cars had all been cited as major contributing factors in the assessment, by independent management consultants Webster Hadfield, that the company’s costs were currently 40% too high?

iii) was she aware that her policy of purchasing low-cost drama from TMT, and then insisting that it be re-edited by the addition of previously deleted sequences (in order to expand the running time – often by as much as thirty minutes – and thereby increase the cost-effectiveness of the purchase) had significantly influenced the IBA’s recent judgment that the company was failing to meet acceptable quality thresholds?

iv) was the doubling of her salary to £210,000 p.a., agreed upon by the board in February 1982, a fair and accurate reflection of her increased workload since the acquisition of TMT?

Mr Gardner remarked at this point that he would have thought twice about accepting this job if he had known that he was joining a sinking ship, and asked whose idea it had been to employ this bloody woman in the first place.

Mr Fisher replied that Ms Winshaw had joined the company on the recommendation of Mr Alan Beamish, the distinguished producer, formerly of the BBC.

Mrs Rawson requested, on a point of order, that Ms Winshaw stop playing with the grapes as somebody might want to eat them and there was no longer scope for waste in any area of the company’s activities …

At 4.37 p.m. it was agreed by a vote of 11–1 that Ms Winshaw’s contract should be terminated forthwith, and that she should be compensated with a lump sum which took realistic account of the present state of the company finances.

The meeting adjourned at 4.41 p.m.

∗

From the Guardian, Diary, 26 November 1983

RAISED eyebrows all round at the news of Hilary Winshaw’s recent departure from——Television. It’s not so much the fact that she was ousted (most observers had been predicting that for some time) as the size of the pay-off: a cool £320,000, if rumours are to be believed. Not a bad reward for reducing this once-profitable outfit to a condition of near-bank-ruptcy in a couple of years.

Could such unprecedented generosity have anything to do with her cousin Thomas Winshaw, chairman of Stewards, the merchant bank which has a hefty stake in the company? And could it be true that the multi-talented Ms Winshaw is about to land herself a plum job as columnist on a certain daily newspaper whose proprietor also just happens to be one of Stewards’ most valuable clients? Watch, as they say, this space …

∗

Hilary’s reputation had preceded her, and she found that on her first day she did not receive much of a welcome from her new colleagues. Well, she thought: fuck them. She was only going to be coming in one or two days a week. If that.

She had her own desk with her name on it in a far corner of the open-plan office. All it contained, so far, was a typewriter and a pile of the day’s other newspapers. It had been decided that the title of her column would be PLAIN COMMON SENSE. She had to fill up most of a tabloid page, leading off with a longish opinionated piece and following it with two or three more personal, gossipy items.

It was March 1984. She picked up the first newspaper that came to hand and glanced over the headlines. Then, after a couple of minutes, she put it down and began to type.

Underneath the headline THE POLITICS OF GREED, she wrote:

Most of us, still tightening our belts in the wake of the recession, would agree that this is not the time to start banging on the government’s door and asking for more money.

And most of us, with images of the dreadful ‘Winter of Discontent’ still fresh in our minds, would agree that another wave of strikes is the last thing the country needs.

But we would have reckoned without neo-Marxist Arthur Scargill and his greedy National Union of Mineworkers.

Already Mr Scargill is threatening ‘industrial action’ – which of course meansinaction, in anybody else’s books – if he and his comrades aren’t showered with yet another round of pay rises and perks.

Well I say, Shame on you, Mr Scargill! Just when we are all pulling together to put this country back on its feet again, who are you to take us back into the Dark Ages of industrial unrest?

How dare you put selfish greed before the national interest!

Hilary looked at her watch. Her first piece had taken slightly less than twelve minutes to write: not bad for a beginner. She took it along to the deputy editor, who began by crossing out her headline, then slid the sheet of paper back across his desk after a few moments’ bored scrutiny.

‘They’re not asking for more money,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The miners. That’s not why they’re striking.’

Hilary’s brow puckered. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘But I thought all strikes were about asking for more money.’

‘Well, this one’s about pit closures. The NCB is planning to close twenty pits this year. They’re striking because they don’t want to lose their jobs.’

Still looking doubtful, Hilary picked up the piece of paper.

‘I suppose I might have to change one or two things, then.’

‘One or two.’

Back at her desk, she read through several of the newspapers more thoroughly. This took her nearly half an hour. Then, having mastered her brief, she typed out her second draft – this time, in just under seven and a half minutes.

THEY SAY that if there’s one thing the Scots know, it’s how to look after their money. And Ian McGregor, chairman of the National Coal Board, is, if nothing else, a shrewd auld Scot with a lifetime’s business experience behind him.

Mr Arthur Scargill, however, comes from quite a different background: a lifelong union agitator, a known Marxist and an all-round troublemaker with the glint of battle in his beady little eye.

So I put this question to you: which of these two figures would you rather trust with the future of the British mining industry?

For this is the point about the miners’ dispute. For all Mr Scargill’s scaremongering rhetoric about jobs, families and what he likes to call ‘the community’, the argument isn’t really about any of these things. It’s about efficiency. If something isn’t paying its way, you close it down. It’s one of the first – and simplest – lessons that any businessman learns.

Unfortunately Mr Scargill, bless him, doesn’t seem to have learned it yet.

Which is why, when it comes to the industry’s purse-strings, I for one would rather have canny Mr McGregor in control any day – the noo!

The deputy editor read it through twice and then looked up with the ghost of a smile.

He said: ‘I think you may turn out to be rather good at this.’

∗

Hilary’s appointment had been made against the better judgment of the editor, Peter Eaves, who for several weeks ignored her completely. One Monday evening, however, they both happened to be in the office at the same time. Hilary was writing up an interview with an old Cambridge friend, an actress who had just published a book about her collection of teddy bears, while Peter and his deputy were trying out various lay-outs for the next day’s front page. As she walked past on her way to the coffee machine, she stopped to take a critical glance.

‘That wouldn’t make me want to buy the paper,’ she said.

They took no notice.

‘I mean, it’s boring. Who wants to read another union story?’