-
The Street of Disillusion (Paperback)
$15.88 - Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for The Street of DisillusionInspired as a teenager by a book called The Street Of Adventure, Harry Procter pursued a dream from Leeds to London and became a household name – one of the legendary reporters in Fleet Street who put millions on to the circulation figures of national newspapers by exposing murderers, bent politicians, crooked financiers, con men and vice overlords.
Full description- Publisher: Revel Barker
- Published: 16 July 2010
- Format: Paperback 224 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Memoirs | True Crime | Journalistic Style Guides | Press & Journalism
- ISBN 13: 9780956368676 ISBN 10: 0956368670
- Sales rank: 281,109
Other books
Reviews for The Street of Disillusion
- Top review
Harry Procter, Fleet Street legend
This is a brilliant book. But I would say that wouldn't I? Harry Procter was my Dad. He wrote it over fifty years ago. His six children, four of whom became journalists, decided it was a book worthy of being republished, because it so skilfully captures the very essence of Fleet Street as it was in the 'fifties, and will never be again.
It tells how, before he left school Wyther Park Council School, Bramley,Leeds, at 14, with few qualifications, his old Mum had asked his headmaster: "What can our Harry do?" The headmaster replied doubtfully: "Well, he's good at compositions. He might make a reporter."
That was enough for our dauntless grandma. She bought him an old typewriter and a Pitman's shorthand book and taught could afford it she sent him to night school. She gave him a shrewd lecture. "From now on, never go out without a pencil and paper in your pocket. Keep your eyes and ears open and write notes about everything you see and hear. Write down everything. What interests you and me interests everybody."
As a result of reading Philip Gibbs' book about journalism The Street of Adventure, he developed a burning ambition to get to Fleet Street. When he applied to the Leeds Mercury for a trainee job, the editor, Linton Andrews, told him that a journalist had to be an educated man and advised him to go university and get a degree. But Harry knew he had no hope of a university education. He was a humble errand boy in a Leeds shoe shop, working on meagre wages. So instead he enlisted in the University of Life, which was cheaper and infinitely more rewarding.
He got on his bike, not literally speaking because he couldn't afford one, and went around looking for things to write about for his local newspaper. He bombarded them with features and stories and, impressed, the editor used them all. Eventually it was cheaper to take him on as staff. At 16 he became a trainee reporter on the Armley and Wortley News - the first step on the ladder to success. But when the newspaper got into financial difficulties, the proprietor fired him. The other junior reporter was not as good as him, but Harry was told it was he who had to go because he couldn't afford to buy a second-hand bicycle to ride around looking for news. Colleague Arthur Merrell had one and he stayed on.
Undeterred he landed a job at the Cleveland Standard, Redcar. By the time he was 18 he was earning 30s a week, a princely sum in those days. Then he fell in love with my mother and she became pregnant. They got married and by the time he was 20 he had three children - my brother and my twin sisters. A distinct disadvantage to an ambitious young man with a seemingly impossible dream.
But having a young family didn't blunt his enthusiasm. He installed them all in Leeds and went chasing jobs, sending his family most of what he earned and keeping just enough for himself to survive. Luckily, his wife's faith in him was as fierce as his own. It was between the two World Wars. Life was hard, jobs were scarce. To survive one needed tenacity, determination, charisma and yes, genius and cunning. And it just so happened Harry was blessed with all these attributes.
.
A senior journalist once told him early in his career: "There is a key which will open for you the door of any newspaper office, and that's a good story. If an editor wants your stories, he will want you." Harry claimed he used this method for every job he ever obtained.
By the time he was 22 he had reached Fleet Street - as a reporter on the Daily Mirror. Fleet Street spelled glamour. In his day you could walk down the Street and almost taste the ink and the gritty flavour of the news room. There was a constant buzz of excitement and activity. He was elated and could hardly believe he had achieved his ambition so soon.
On his first day on the Mirror, he stood in front of the Edgar Wallace Memorial, a simple plaque at the corner of Fleet Street and Ludgate Circus, and read the inscription: "He died a Good Reporter", and quietly promised himself that that was what he would be.
From the Mirror, he went to the Daily Mail and then the Sunday Pictorial. His talent as an investigative reporter, snatching scoops from under the very noses of his rivals, built up the circulations for the newspapers he worked for.
His stories were of a sensational kind. There were revelations about notorious murderers such as John Reginald Christie, Neville Heath, Haigh, Christopher Craig, Derek Bentley as well as about ordinary people - human interest stories
But he achieved more than he had bargained for. He became an expert at exposing crooks and swindlers. He proudly described himself as the best `exposist' on the Street. His book is a revealing exposure of the modern reporting methods of the fifties. He says in his book: "I exposed and exposed and exposed." He exposed a London call-girl syndicate, crooked financiers, white slavers, phoney doctor, pedlars in vice and drugs, unscrupulous landlords, swindlers, confidence tricksters. Eventually readers wrote to him in their thousands, telling him about injustices.
Methods used by investigative journalists on programmes like Watchdog today, all stem from the techniques Harry instinctively developed in the fifties. When any reader had a story to tell they `told Harry Procter'. Thousands wrote to him. It seemed he couldn't go wrong. His name became a household word.
But a Fleet Street journalist's life in those days was not a healthy one. In the fifties reporters worked in open plan offices thick with smoke fumes. Lunch was usually of the liquid kind, and sometimes their evening meals too. Journalists couldn't afford to spend much time with their families (My Dad by now had six children). They went with little sleep for days at a time.
In the end Fleet Street devoured his soul, destroyed his faith in himself, ruined his health. He became ill and disillusioned from constant pressure from his bosses to cross the boundaries of decency. He realised he didn't enjoy intruding into people's lives, even when they were crooks and swindlers and murderers. Only 25 years after he first set foot in Fleet Street, and after writing this book, he was diagnosed with lung cancer - a common cause of death amongst heavy smoking, drinking journalists of his day.
He died at home, surrounded by his family, aged 47, still full of indomitable spirit. At the point of death he announced grandly: `I shall die with my boots on,' and instructed our mother to put his shoes on his feet. Then he stood up, reached out to something unseen and said: `Jesus forgive me' and fell back on the bed and promptly died.
Of his six children, he inspired four of us to became journalists. He also instilled in us a determination never to expect the world to owe us a living. If we wanted something, we had to go out and earn it.
Hannen Swaffer, a great journalist and columnist of the fifties, wrote a review at the time in which he said: "Harry Procter has written a brave book. It may shock you. Some parts will give offence. But it is all part of an extraordinary revelation. It should be a `must reading' for every newspaper man."
The Street of Disillusion was Harry's final great exposure. He has become a Fleet Street legend.
Val Lewis (nee Procter) by Val Lewis
share
tweet
