WF Deedes

It’s a while since this article in celebration of WF Deedes’s 75 years in journalism appeared in the Telegraph. But I’ve only just been given the cutting by my mum having not seen it myself being a very infrequent Telegraph reader.

I warmed to ‘Bill’ Deedes when I was listening to Test Match Special in northern Brittany a few years back. He was the Saturday lunchtime guest and I was rather disappointed that it wasn’t raining in England so he couldn’t stay on for longer.

In my view he’s more of a old-fashioned Whig than a Tory even though he’s been a Conservative MP. He’s distinguished by being the only person to be a cabinet minister and edit a national newspaper (although not at the same time). He’s lived through two World Wars and fought in one so “nothing much shocks” him.

“His younger colleagues may rail at the state of the world, but Deedes never sees the handcart, and he has already witnessed a sort of hell, while serving in uniform.”

“He is restrained in criticising contemporary politicians because he reported on the utter mess that they made of the world in the 1930s.”

We ignore our wise old buffers at our peril......