After high school she became a feature writer for her local Essex paper, the Chigwell Times. However, she was forced to resign after filing a story about a local sports club dinner she hadn’t attended and failing to report that the after-dinner speaker had died midway through the speech.
About Ruth Rendell.
I always chuckle at the horrified claim that Boris was caught out in a lie when he was a Times journalist. They all lie; only some get caught. Silly Boris.
TV is even simpler – you may safely assume it’s all lies.
In the 1962 film ‘Only Two Can Play’, Peter Sellers writes a fake review for a play that he hasn’t watched, and is found out when the theatre burns down during the performance.
Whilst Editor of the NME, Danny Kelly wrote a scathing review of The Cult’s She Sells Sanctuary. Without listening to it.
First time he heard it was in a record shop, And he thought “This is rather good. I wonder who it is?” So he asked the staff.
Fact checkers in those days!
“Crawfie” , the Queen’s and Princess Margaret’s nanny wrote a column for Womans Own. She had to go after describing in great detail a Trooping of the Colour that was rained off. In her mitigation articles had to be written 6 weeks before publication in the 50s.
The fact that there are several stories of this kind suggests that it might have been a pretty regular occurrence and that writers usually got away with it. I suppose that there are a few jobs where you can get away with doing it really badly and still make a living.
Stonyground
Most heads of Quangoes, NHS trusts, social care departments of London boroughs…
Stonyground said:
“I suppose that there are a few jobs where you can get away with doing it really badly and still make a living.”
Yes, but most of them are in the public sector.
I have not seen the guest speaker die (as yet), but I have seen a few ‘corpse’ after a rather excessive intake of booze. Good fun, that.