Latest news with #MichaelBerry
Spectator
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
How my family loved – and lost
As the Telegraph moves slowly towards Arab ownership – 15 per cent to start, and who knows what in the future – I must declare my interest. I'm a Berry, the daughter of Michael Berry, who founded the Sunday Telegraph and became Lord Hartwell, and granddaughter of William Berry from south Wales, who bought the Daily Telegraph in 1928 and became Lord Camrose. They owned and ran it, hands on, for a big part of the 20th century – 58 years. My mother, Pamela Berry, daughter of F.E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead, was the political hostess who wielded the Telegraph soft power. My brother Adrian Berry was the paper's science correspondent and covered the first landing on the moon. I fancy that the princesses of the Emirates may be intrigued to hear about the gilded and protected lives of the women of that 'old' western family back in the 1940s and 1950s. As young girls or women, with or without our parents, my sister and I would invariably be met wherever we went abroad by a Telegraph correspondent. There was even a Heathrow correspondent, whose main job was to look out for celebrities. He once dashed on to a bus taking passengers to board the plane to Paris to make sure I was safely on it, aged 15. It was like having your own private embassy network – except that the journalists were far more fun than smooth diplomats. Some of them also acted like surrogate parents. I remember in particular Geoffrey Myers, the Paris correspondent, crouching down in front of Montmartre so that I could steady my camera on his shoulders for a long exposure shot, and taking me to Molière plays, explaining the 17th-century nuances. Alex Faulkner in New York would invite me to family supper and advance money from the till if I was short at the end of the month. My grandfather Bill Berry was a case – almost – of rags to riches. He was the son of a station master, albeit one who became an alderman, and then mayor, of Merthyr Tydfil. Aged 13 and ten months he joined the local paper as a boy reporter, in knicker-bockers like Tintin. At 17, he became its managing editor. Then at 19 he left for London to seek his fortune, which he got. As he died in 1954 I hardly knew him, but hearing about his first ventures gave me a window to his strange personality, his staid nonconformist background vying with buccaneer and impresario. He was keen on physical stuff, and early on bought a magazine called Health and Strength, promoting it personally with muscular stunts. He then started another, Boxing News – a world first, he declared – for which he toured the country with a group of performing boxers in the back of a lorry which converted into a miniature ring. Eventually, after years of climbing the greasy pole, he and his younger brother Gomer bought the Daily Telegraph in 1928, after the tiny Sunday Times in 1915, and the Financial Times in 1919. How they raised the money for any of these national papers was a mystery, although NatWest was more accommodating in those days. There was some cash in the background through Bill's elder brother, in his association with the wealthy Lord Rhondda, and there was a partnership for a while with Lord Iliffe, but it was nowhere like enough. My father Michael could never get to the bottom of it. They bought the Telegraph for the equivalent of £3.8 million, compared with the £500 million it is selling at today. They also built the huge building in Fleet Street for the Telegraph almost immediately, in Egyptian-inspired art deco, with splendid lifts. One of our collective family memories is of straining over the massive Egyptian parapet on the first floor, outside the editorial rooms, as we used to gaze down at the great processions passing eastwards along Fleet Street, such as Churchill's funeral, or Diana's wedding. There were Edwardian oak-panelled rooms on the proprietors' fifth floor, which had its famous little lawn on the balcony. People used to say it was cut with scissors, but it actually had its own tiny mower kept in the secretary's cupboard. Camrose, as he had by then become, and usually flanked by Michael and the heir, my uncle Seymour, entertained senior editors at lunches in the dining room. Malcolm Muggeridge left an amusing snapshot of him in those days: he seemed to have morphed from the Welsh impresario into a sort of 'superior gentleman's gentleman'. But 'Mr William', as he was still known to the staff, was not that smooth; he was wont to stalk into the newsroom armed with page proofs, saying tersely: 'A lot of corrections here.' Sometimes he could be autocratic. My shy and mild-mannered father was startled, a while after he had taken over the day-to-day running of the paper, when Mr William leaned across the desk and said: 'You should slap the news editor's face!' In 1932, a few doors along Fleet Street, the Egyptian palace was joined by the equally massive shiny black hulk of the Express. This was the domain of Lord Beaverbrook –immortalised by Evelyn Waugh in Scoop as Lord Copper – who was a friend and protector of my mother from her childhood. I think my father was rather jealous of his hold on Pam. The Beaver, as he was known, had been an intimate friend of her father and had stepped in to rescue the family after F.E. died in 1930 leaving them penniless. She reciprocated not just with affection, but also used to feed him salacious stories unsuitable for the Telegraph, with a special conduit to 'Chilly Charlie' – Charles Wintour, the editor of the Evening Standard, father of the much more famous Anna. Michael seemed either complicit or unaware of this, but he used to quote the Beaver as saying: 'I'm really just an old concierge. I like to know what's going on.' Both the Berry elder sons had been trained for the Telegraph by long apprenticeships in the north. But by the time of Camrose's death, my uncle Seymour had taken to drink and Michael inherited unexpectedly as editor-in-chief, leaving Seymour a sleeping partner as chairman. There was always tension between him and Michael partly because of that, and partly due to a long-standing quarrel my mother had with Seymour. Fights between the brothers on the fifth floor became so noisy and embarrassing for Michael's secretary that she got a baize door installed for her office to block them off. After Michael took over, Pam's reputation as a political hostess helped raise the profile of the Telegraph's proprietors. Her focus was not on the Lady Londonderry style, of brokering elegant compromises in drawing rooms – although Macmillan accused her of fancying herself as Lady L – but that she brought together Telegraph journalists with senior politicians who might not otherwise meet socially, in the stratified days of the 1950s and early 1960s. Although all her life she herself had mixed with the grandees, first accompanying F.E. to glittering parties as a precocious child, she seemed to have absorbed the experience with a feisty attitude, and set out to make Tory politicians feel lucky to meet the journalists, not vice versa. This made for stimulating journalism but sometimes provoked fury, as she wrote gleefully to her friend Nancy Mitford: 'Did you like Peregrine Worsthorne's attack on the poor gvt? They were all furious… like a bunch of bullfighters boo-hooing and saying they don't like the sight of blood.' She was also accused, with some justification, of wielding 'petticoat power', of influencing Michael's editorial policy about Anthony Eden during the Suez crisis, and even – more debatable – of driving Eden to the brink, which ended in his resignation. My parents had to put up with constant complaints from political friends, who were often to become ex-friends, about the Telegraph's 'unhelpful' or 'disloyal' attitude on various issues. There was a teleprinter in our house which used to rattle out columns and news stories, so that Michael would be forewarned of the angry calls which might come in. I remember him on the phone saying soothingly but stubbornly: 'I assure you this has been very carefully researched…' (news) or 'I assure you it will be written in the most sensitive way' (gossip). He became a press baron in his own right in 1968, an unexpected Labour accolade from Harold Wilson after the founding and success of the Sunday Telegraph, but was thankful that Pam did not live to see his failure – as he felt it – of losing the Telegraph papers in 1986 to Conrad Black.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Yahoo
Magistrate said he would cut off body parts of youth offenders
A magistrate who said he would deal with youth offenders by 'cutting off parts of their anatomy' has been handed a formal warning. Michael Berry claimed the comments made to colleagues in a private room were intended as a joke and did not reflect his actual view. But an investigation carried out by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office concluded he should have known that his comments were 'inappropriate, offensive and reckless'. Mr Berry, who works in the South East courts region, was also found to have made a sexist comment later the same day towards a female colleague about how she should not bother her 'pretty little head', the investigation found. He claimed he 'did not recall' making the comments but said his colleague had 'misinterpreted his sense of humour'. The investigation concluded Mr Berry, who has a long unblemished conduct record, made the inappropriate comments, which were 'offensive and derogatory'. 'Whilst Mr Berry had not intended any malice, he should have known that his comments were inappropriate, offensive and reckless,' investigators said. 'Mr Berry had not taken any responsibility for his actions and did not understand the seriousness of his comments.' A spokesman for the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office said: 'Mr Justice Keehan, on behalf of the Lady Chief Justice and with the Lord Chancellor's agreement, has issued Mr Michael Berry JP with a formal warning for misconduct.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A secret history of power and politics at The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph was born in 1855, but its modern character was formed from 1928 until the 1980s by the Berry family. They were a respectable, professional, conservative family who well understood how to reach similar people all over Britain. They made this paper, as it remains today, the quality market leader. When I joined in 1979, the proprietor and editor-in-chief was Michael Berry, Lord Hartwell. Thoughtful, hard-working, and very shy, he had invented The Sunday Telegraph in 1961. He disliked showing off, in journalism and in life. He liked what was plain and true. Hartwell arrived at work every morning with his bowler hat but driving his own Mini with its customised electric windows. Bill Deedes, still affectionately remembered by many readers, was the editor, but Hartwell was the boss. We were in awe of him, especially of his silence. His wife, Pamela, 'Pam', was quite different. Born in 1914, daughter of the brilliant, self-made, drunken F E Smith, great friend of Winston Churchill and eventually Lord Chancellor, she grew up in love with the drama of politics. By marrying Michael Berry, she linked politics and journalism in a way that was risky for the newspaper which graced so many bourgeois breakfast tables. Luckily, perhaps, its readers knew little of her doings. Now Pam's daughter, Harriet Cullen, has written her life, Lady Pamela Berry: Passion, Politics and Power. It is a gripping, friendly but quite critical account of the dark-haired, beautiful, angry ('gypsy blood' was spoken of), clever, undereducated and over-privileged woman who had modelled for Chanel her famous 'little black dress'. Despite her strong family feeling, Pam was not exactly a good mother or wife. Today, her talents might have taken her down a successful if stormy career path. Then, their main outlet was social, with wider ripples. A Pam Berry dinner party on May 29 1951, in the couple's Westminster house, conveys the atmosphere. At it, the poet John Betjeman was introduced to Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, who then became his lifelong lover. Also present were Isaiah Berlin, the famed Oxonian thinker, and Anthony Blunt, the great art historian. Blunt was supposed to arrive with his fellow homosexual Guy Burgess, a friend of Michael Berry from Eton days who wanted a job at the Telegraph. Blunt turned up late and alone, however, appearing 'sickly, pale and increasingly distraught'. He said Burgess had failed to meet him at the Reform Club beforehand. It emerged the next day that Burgess had just decamped with Donald Maclean to Moscow to escape arrest, having betrayed British and American secrets to the Soviet Union. It took nearly another 30 years before the press could report that Blunt, too, had been a Soviet spy. Seen with a journalistic eye – a quality which Pam possessed – that evening contained several cracking stories. Pam passed on none of them, but her guests' secrets were not always safe with her. There were even occasions when she fed stories to the rival Express group owned by Lord Beaverbrook, her patron since her teens. The most important period of Pam politics began in 1956. Early in that year, The Telegraph, though Tory-supporting, accused Anthony Eden's administration of lacking 'the smack of firm government'. The article caused a great stir, though by modern standards the words were mild. It was known that Pam Berry disliked Eden. There were complaints and cartoons in the press about her 'petticoat power'. As the year continued, Eden steered into crisis. Britain and France tried and, thanks to US disapproval, failed to regain control of the Suez Canal from Egypt's firebrand leader, General Nasser, who had seized it. Suez is seen as the point at which the British Empire truly ended. Pam attacked Eden partly because she had taken against her former friend, the clever and beautiful Clarissa Churchill, niece of Winston, who had become Eden's second wife two years earlier. At 35, Clarissa was seven years younger than Pam. Winston's son Randolph stirred things up against his cousin, writing of Pam having 'a tongue and pen which are both fluent and vivacious'. Michael Foot, the future Labour leader, got involved: 'The real snake in the grass is Lady Pamela Berry … She runs a salon in true 18th-century style.' She would be there 'when the moment comes for the kill'. In the New Statesman, Malcolm Muggeridge, the great Left-wing polemicist and later – but very much not yet – a Christian of saintly asceticism, attacked Eden, writing of 'his ingratiating smile and gestures, the utter nothingness of what he has to say'. In private, Pam's ex-friend, Evelyn Waugh, called her 'a prize booby', though describing her mischief-making as 'the nicest side of her character'. As Harriet Cullen points out, the Muggeridge intervention was significant because he was, at that time, Pam's lover. Previously deputy editor of the Telegraph, he now edited Punch. Eden resigned, formally on grounds of ill health, in January 1957. Was her mother Lady Macbeth, asks Harriet Cullen. Clarissa Eden certainly thought so, and Isaiah Berlin described Pam as 'the greatest single opposing factor in the anti-Eden campaign'. Had her 'petticoat power' also enlisted Muggeridge? The author sidesteps slightly, and says, 'My mother was not a 'political' hostess in the old Tory tradition of brokering compromises ... She was a press hostess, who used her tongue and position to mix press and politicians ...and her first loyalty ... was to the newspaper she had married into.' So perhaps this respectable organ has much to thank her for. Today, the whole thing would play out in furious tweets – much less enjoyably. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
A secret history of power and politics at The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph was born in 1855, but its modern character was formed from 1928 until the 1980s by the Berry family. They were a respectable, professional, conservative family who well understood how to reach similar people all over Britain. They made this paper, as it remains today, the quality market leader. When I joined in 1979, the proprietor and editor-in-chief was Michael Berry, Lord Hartwell. Thoughtful, hard-working, and very shy, he had invented The Sunday Telegraph in 1961. He disliked showing off, in journalism and in life. He liked what was plain and true. Hartwell arrived at work every morning with his bowler hat but driving his own Mini with its customised electric windows. Bill Deedes, still affectionately remembered by many readers, was the editor, but Hartwell was the boss. We were in awe of him, especially of his silence. His wife, Pamela, 'Pam', was quite different. Born in 1914, daughter of the brilliant, self-made, drunken F E Smith, great friend of Winston Churchill and eventually Lord Chancellor, she grew up in love with the drama of politics. By marrying Michael Berry, she linked politics and journalism in a way that was risky for the newspaper which graced so many bourgeois breakfast tables. Luckily, perhaps, its readers knew little of her doings. Now Pam's daughter, Harriet Cullen, has written her life, Lady Pamela Berry: Passion, Politics and Power. It is a gripping, friendly but quite critical account of the dark-haired, beautiful, angry ('gypsy blood' was spoken of), clever, undereducated and over-privileged woman who had modelled for Chanel her famous 'little black dress'. Despite her strong family feeling, Pam was not exactly a good mother or wife. Today, her talents might have taken her down a successful if stormy career path. Then, their main outlet was social, with wider ripples. A Pam Berry dinner party on May 29 1951, in the couple's Westminster house, conveys the atmosphere. At it, the poet John Betjeman was introduced to Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, who then became his lifelong lover. Also present were Isaiah Berlin, the famed Oxonian thinker, and Anthony Blunt, the great art historian. Blunt was supposed to arrive with his fellow homosexual Guy Burgess, a friend of Michael Berry from Eton days who wanted a job at the Telegraph. Blunt turned up late and alone, however, appearing 'sickly, pale and increasingly distraught'. He said Burgess had failed to meet him at the Reform Club beforehand. It emerged the next day that Burgess had just decamped with Donald Maclean to Moscow to escape arrest, having betrayed British and American secrets to the Soviet Union. It took nearly another 30 years before the press could report that Blunt, too, had been a Soviet spy. Seen with a journalistic eye – a quality which Pam possessed – that evening contained several cracking stories. Pam passed on none of them, but her guests' secrets were not always safe with her. There were even occasions when she fed stories to the rival Express group owned by Lord Beaverbrook, her patron since her teens. Eden's media crisis The most important period of Pam politics began in 1956. Early in that year, The Telegraph, though Tory-supporting, accused Anthony Eden's administration of lacking 'the smack of firm government'. The article caused a great stir, though by modern standards the words were mild. It was known that Pam Berry disliked Eden. There were complaints and cartoons in the press about her 'petticoat power'. As the year continued, Eden steered into crisis. Britain and France tried and, thanks to US disapproval, failed to regain control of the Suez Canal from Egypt's firebrand leader, General Nasser, who had seized it. Suez is seen as the point at which the British Empire truly ended. Pam attacked Eden partly because she had taken against her former friend, the clever and beautiful Clarissa Churchill, niece of Winston, who had become Eden's second wife two years earlier. At 35, Clarissa was seven years younger than Pam. Winston's son Randolph stirred things up against his cousin, writing of Pam having 'a tongue and pen which are both fluent and vivacious'. Michael Foot, the future Labour leader, got involved: 'The real snake in the grass is Lady Pamela Berry … She runs a salon in true 18th-century style.' She would be there 'when the moment comes for the kill'. In the New Statesman, Malcolm Muggeridge, the great Left-wing polemicist and later – but very much not yet – a Christian of saintly asceticism, attacked Eden, writing of 'his ingratiating smile and gestures, the utter nothingness of what he has to say'. In private, Pam's ex-friend, Evelyn Waugh, called her 'a prize booby', though describing her mischief-making as 'the nicest side of her character'. As Harriet Cullen points out, the Muggeridge intervention was significant because he was, at that time, Pam's lover. Previously deputy editor of the Telegraph, he now edited Punch. Eden resigned, formally on grounds of ill health, in January 1957. Was her mother Lady Macbeth, asks Harriet Cullen. Clarissa Eden certainly thought so, and Isaiah Berlin described Pam as 'the greatest single opposing factor in the anti-Eden campaign'. Had her 'petticoat power' also enlisted Muggeridge? The author sidesteps slightly, and says, 'My mother was not a 'political' hostess in the old Tory tradition of brokering compromises ... She was a press hostess, who used her tongue and position to mix press and politicians ...and her first loyalty ... was to the newspaper she had married into.' So perhaps this respectable organ has much to thank her for. Today, the whole thing would play out in furious tweets – much less enjoyably.
BBC News
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Blackburn's Empire Theatre submits expansion plan
A storeroom at a thriving theatre in Lancashire has been earmarked as a new dance studio and rehearsal Blackburn Empire Theatre in Aqueduct Road, Ewood, has applied for approval to convert the empty space to welcome even more has applied for planning permission for the change of use of the existing vacant storage area into a dance studio with new reception office and application is to convert a large room in the performing arts centre attached to the main theatre, which has been used for storage for a number of years. It would entail removing a large shuttered door on to the car park and creating a new separate entrance area for a rehearsal studio and totally refurbishing the storage area, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.A spokesman for the charity which runs the 330-seat volunteer-run theatre said the application was part of the theatre's "ongoing commitment to provide the best facilities possible to encourage community participation in the arts".It follows major transformations to the bars in the balcony and smartening up the public areas in the main theatre with further improvements to the toilets in the bar area to Berry Room – named after former chairman of the theatre Michael Berry who was a driving force behind its restoration – has undergone a major facelift with new flooring and portable mirrors and portable bar being installed offering a studio space suitable both for rehearsals and added: "At a time when the arts in general are having a hard time nationally, the Empire offers a vital hub for the local community and an additional space will help us meet the demand and encourage those interested in performance." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
