An eye-opening start to life in London

Nub News editor Philip Evans continues his series looking back over his 55-year career in journalism, many years of which have been spent covering East Devon.

People have often asked what made me leave my idyllic life in Lyme Regis, living and working by the sea in one of the West Country's most beautiful areas. The answer was simple. Ambition - and of course, money.

I was more than happy in my job managing a new group of newspapers in the West Country, being part of the free press revolution.

I remember several years before, Axminster photographer Dave King had returned home from visiting his mother in Leicester and called me, saying "I've got a great idea".

He had seen a newspaper in Leicester which was given away free and he thought we should launch one for Axminster.

Dave was always full of ideas, a bit ahead of his time in many ways, and had a passion for any new idea that popped into his head. On this occasion, I thought he was totally off his trolley.

But here I was just a few years later, managing Star Newspapers in Taunton, having challenged all the established publishing groups in Somerset, Devon and Dorset, recruiting a new team of journalists, production staff and advertising reps and launching five titles in three years. They were heady days.

The workload was punishing at times and I often slept in our office in Taunton to save time of journeying from Lyme Regis.

Established newspapers all over the country were being challenged by the free press and an industry body, the Association of Free Newspapers (AFN) fought our corner against the big boys.

I ended up chairman of an off-shoot industry group called the Dealer Advertising Information Service, promoting co-partnership advertising, which gave me a higher profile.

Before long I got an approach from a media recruitment group asking if I would be interested in managing a family-owned, established group of newspapers in London, which had just been acquired by internationally recognised publishing company.

When they told me the salary, I nearly fell off my chair. It was three times what I was earning and the package included a generous share-option scheme.

I was really happy in the job I had but as a father with two children and one more on the way, it would have been foolish not to have considered it.

The interview process was extensive and I had to meet several of the parent company's top executives before I was finally offered the job, during which time the salary had risen a notch or two with a top-of-the-range car thrown in.

It was a couple of months into the interview process before I knew who I would be working for. One of the world's most successful and charismatic businessmen, Tony O'Reilly, an Irish international rugby player who was the top guy in HJ Heinz, working out of Pittsburgh in the USA.

He also owned Independent Newspapers in the Irish Republic, which at the time dominated the press in the Emerald Isle.

Tony wanted to break into the newspaper scene in the UK and had acquired Greater London and Essex Newspapers, based in Dagenham, East London.

The group published some of the capital's oldest and most respected local papers, including the iconic East London Advertiser, whose readership included the incarcerated Kray twins who wrote to the editor most weeks and also got a slot on the letters page despite being behind bars.

Parting company with my staff in Taunton was a difficult and emotional occasional, and also I felt guilty for leaving my boss, the owner of the company, with finding a replacement.

He already ran a successful printing firm in London and had a web offset press in Bristol but I knew he had caught the publishing bug and I suggested he should run it himself for a while before finding a replacement.

He decided to do just that and he was able to take the company to a level that I would not have been able to before selling out to an opposition group in Somerset.

It was decided it would be better for me to leave as soon as possible and it wasn't long before I was looking for someone to live in East London before starting my new adventure.

As a family, for various personal reasons, we agreed that we would rent a flat in Docklands but my wife and the kids would continue to live in Lyme until such time as I settled into the new job.

I can't think of a bigger culture shock than moving from Lyme Regis to my new office in Dagenham, but I soon got used to it and the task of turning around a long establish newspaper group with archaic production facilities could not have been more challenging.

But when I was interviewed they never told me that in my first month I would have to close down a print factory in Essex.

This was not long after the sacking of militant printers when Rupert Murdock moved The Sun and Sunday Times to Wapping. A lot of them regrouped at a print factory near Rochford.

We were joint owners of that press and, on the first occasion I drove into the plant to discuss the closing down of the business, I had my car windscreen smashed and after we ran the press for the first time I received threatening telephone calls in the middle of the night and even one death threat which I didn't take serious.

But as a precautionary step, the company provided me with a driver who stayed with me for the whole of my time in London, long after the company stopped paying him, and he remains a friend to this day.

As well as closing down the print operation I also had to make redundant a number of production workers and editorial staff, another really difficult undertaking. The company was losing heavily when I joined and it was made plain to me when I was appointed that I would be judged on how quickly we could get into profit.

This could only happen if we dispensed with the outmoded production methods to bring out our series of newspapers and embrace the new technology, which enabled pages to be produced by computer, known as 'on-screen make-up'. It was far quicker and needed fewer staff.

We became one of the first local newspaper groups to adopt this in London and it turned the company around from a £700k loss to a £900k profit. But it was painful and it turned out to be the loneliest time of my life.

Not long after I joined the group I heard a couple of staff outside my office, one of them a senior manager, talking about me.

I heard one of them say: "What does this Wurzel know about newspapers?"

The next day I sacked 120 people. I never heard him say it again.

Working for an international publishing group with newspapers across the world was a real eye-opener for someone from my background.

The company had an annual conference every year at which all senior managers had to make a presentation on their business before Tony O'Reilly and other group directors.

Not long after I joined this was held in Monte Carlo during the Grand Prix weekend. We were staying at the Heritage Hotel, one of the best in the principality with views over the harbour and race course.

We flew first class into Nice and were then taken by helicopter to Monte Carlo. As I was the new boy, I was invited to join Tony O'Reilly's table on the terrace for lunch.

During our conversation Tony looked up at the skyline to see the Grimaldi Palace, shimmering pink in the hot sunshine, and said in that lovely Irish brogue of his: "D'you know Philip, I had lunch with Grace the day before she died."

Grace, of course, was Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, former Hollywood actress and wife of Prince Rainier III.

I thought, "Jeez, this is a long way from Anning Road".

In the next edition: Back in London, cheering on the Hammers and living the highlife among the Cockneys.