The Bootle Boy: An Untidy Life in News, by Les Hinton

Les Hinton was a copy boy at the Adelaide News who rose to be Rupert Murdoch’s right hand man in London and New York.

Les Hinton meets the Queen, from his book The Bootle Boy.

When we were teenagers, starting the careers that were to sustain us for more than half a century, the most-asked question we posed was: what’s the angle? Every story had to have a point of difference. That’s the nature of news. Dog bites man is no story but man bites dog, well, that’s news.

Identifying the point around which our ­stories were framed was our primary task and was the subject of much discussion, debate and the testing of ideas.

Les Hinton who, like me, was a copy boy at the Adelaide News in 1960, rose to the most ­elevated heights of News Corporation (publisher of The Australian), as it then was, as Rupert­ Murdoch’s right-hand man in London and New York.

When he left the company under the dark cloud of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, Hinton was urged to write a book telling of his experiences working with Murdoch.

Who better to spill the beans on the most powerful publisher and media owner in the world? Who better to document the incredible journey of this youthful publisher who inherited a single afternoon newspaper in Adelaide and built it into a global colossus?

But Hinton had a problem: what’s the angle?

“I knew a lot of any such book would have to be about Rupert,” he told The Guardian. “But if you’re not joining the chorus of disapproval, how do you write about him in a way that doesn’t sound sycophantic?

“Who wants to sound like they’re the victim of a personality cult? If I were to write about him, I wanted to try to do it straight down the middle and for a long time I couldn’t really see how to do that.”

Then the light went on. Instead of writing about Murdoch, he would write his own ­memoir, the story of his life where Murdoch is almost a bit-player. Well, a player with a big part, but the viewpoint is Hinton’s and it starts in Bootle, the bombed-out Merseyside suburb of Liverpool where he was born in 1944.

The Bootle Boy, by Les Hinton.

Murdoch doesn’t appear until page 89 of The Bootle Boy, and then fleetingly. Their first ­encounter comes when copy boy Hinton was sent to buy him a ham sandwich … “and for 15 years we discussed nothing more elevated”.

This book is an ode to journalism in all its weird, wacky and wonderful ways.

It starts with deft descriptions of the ­rootless and peripatetic life of his parents in the post-war years as his father, an army cook, was sent to outposts of the empire in Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Singapore and West Germany.

Hinton evokes delicious memories of the ­analog age of newspapers, describing the smells and sounds of chutes, linotypes, molten lead stereo casting machines and presses roaring amid mists of paper fluff. It resonates deeply with me because it speaks of my roots, but I wonder if Millennials will comprehend that life was once mechanical, not digital.

The early parts of the book are interesting and warm but The Bootle Boy comes alive when Hinton begins telling tales of his life as a Fleet Street reporter for the London Sun.

“Sometimes the work could be serious and hilarious at the same time,’’ he writes.

He tells the story of 1970s Liberal politician Jeremy Thorpe, who was alleged to have hired a hit man to kill his troublesome gay lover ­Norman Scott (he was acquitted). The scandal made Scott a household name and he became a Sun ‘‘buy-up’’, the term for when a newspaper pays the main character in a big story for ­exclusive interviews.

My photographer friend Arthur Edwards and I were appointed to be his minders. Scott was completely open about his sexuality, which was not usual in the 70s. He was also very fond of a drink and since The Sun was paying to keep him safe from rivals, he was drunk most of the time. One night, the three of us were hiding away in Devon when we found ourselves in a hotel dining room in the middle of a gathering of Church of England ministers. They soon recognised the notorious guest among them and gazed at him with disapproval. This irritated Scott. We were anxious when the bishop stood, with the clink of a glass,
to silence his flock for the royal toast. ‘‘Ladies and gentlemen,’’ he said, raising his wine, ‘‘the Queen.’’ Scott staggered quickly to his feet … crockery, claret and glasses clattered … the bishop froze and the room went silent. Scott was swaying severely, a beaming smile on his shiny red face.
“A toast for me?’’ cried Britain’s most famous gay man to a room of gasping vicars. ‘‘Oh, how kind of you all. Thank you so much. I should now like to make a few remarks in response.’’Arthur and I seized our charge, taking one arm each, and marched him from the room.

As Hinton climbs the corporate ladder, his encounters with the rich and famous become more elevated. He tells of being leaned on, ­literally, by Bill Clinton; begged by Princess Diana (“I am a damsel in distress”); berated and/or flattered by British prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and mingling with royalty.

For 12 years he ran News Corp’s British operations­ out of Wapping, the industrial site that became a global symbol of technological change in the newspaper industry.

When I visited him early in the noughties, we met in his palatial office but he was quick to say: “Let’s get out of here.” I was struck by the ­number of people who greeted him with a cheery “G’day Les” as we visited editors and scanned busy newsrooms. Clearly, he was more comfortable on the work floor than in his office.

“Showing my face was always a good idea,” he writes. “It’s amazing what you discover by leaving a lonely desk. There are always unpleasant secrets that executives keep to themselves.”

Hinton quotes the advice of US admiral Hyman Rickover, who said: “Always use the chain of ­command to issue orders, but if you use the chain of command for ­information, you’re dead.” “It was advice I commended to everyone,” Hinton writes.

Given this, it may strike the readers as strange that he did not know what was going on before the phone-hacking scandal erupted.

Initially, the matter was contained to two employees, royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

But when it was revealed that the phone of murder victim Milly Dowler had been hacked, all hell broke loose amid allegations of widespread abuse on an industrial scale. Dawn raids and ­arrests of journalists followed amid corporate panic and distress.

Hinton lays out the detail of the scandal and the internal recriminations that followed. He tells how he felt bound to resign, not because he knew of the activities — he insists he did not — but because they happened on his watch and resignation was the honourable thing to do.

He says he was briefed against by forces within News International and implies he was set up to take the fall, but gives scant detail of this apparent treachery.

This part of his narrative left me wanting more. Perhaps he will tell the full story in ­another book, another day.

Mark Day is a journalist and author.

The Bootle Boy: An Untidy Life in News

By Les Hinton

Scribe, 445pp, $49.99 (HB)