TP Fielden - Died and Gone to Devon

His room was crowded with the flotsam and jetsam which staffed the editorial departments of local newspapers everywhere – retired servicemen, young hopefuls, failed theatricals like Ray Bennett, the arts editor, and people into whose background it was as well not to inquire too closely. They were a shifting community with little in common outside a good shorthand note.

One recent addition stood out a little uncomfortably. David Renishaw had appeared out of nowhere with an impressive sheaf of cuttings, an urgent self-confidence, impeccable manners, and the apparent capacity to oil his way through locked doors. As journalists went, he was a cut above.

Miss Dimont took against him in an instant.

‘Too good to be true,’ she said to her friend Auriol as they’d walked back from church the previous day. ‘He’s handsome, accomplished, go-getting – I don’t understand what he’s doing in Temple Regis when he should be in Fleet Street.’

‘Woman trouble,’ judged Auriol shrewdly.

‘Apparently there’s a wife in Canada. She’s going to join him once he’s settled in.’

‘We’ll see. How long’s he been here?’

‘Three weeks.’

‘Going home for Christmas?’

‘Can’t afford it.’

‘There, I told you.’

Miss Dimont ignored this. ‘He’s volunteered to do the Christmas rounds.’ These entailed the reporter visiting the resort’s hospital and hostel and nursing homes, then returning to the office to paint a rosy Yuletide picture of those less fortunate than himself. Normally Ray Bennett, lonely confirmed bachelor, did the job with loud moans of self-sacrifice, but he’d been ousted by Renishaw and was very upset about it. This Christmas he would have nothing to complain about.

Renishaw was sitting next to John Ross in the editor’s office, with Peter Pomeroy as usual serving up the tea. There was a gaggle of other reporters, including one or two from the district offices, as well as Judy and Betty, until the room was full to the brim with journalistic talent. Why, then, with so many people, was it so difficult to fill the paper each week?

‘What have you got, Judy?’ Mr Rhys was in typically gangrenous form.

‘Caring volunteers,’ she said, absently – she was thinking about the long-dead Pansy Westerham.

‘Rr… rrr.’ The growl coming from behind the editor’s whiskers indicating disapproval, disappointment, disbelief at so feeble an offering. It was no different to any Monday – if the town hall had burned down and His Worshipful had been caught halfway up the flagpole in his longjohns, it would have drawn the same reaction. If Brigitte Bardot had blown in and landed a kiss on Rudyard’s cheek with the news she was moving to Temple Regis, it would have been no different. Nothing was ever good enough for the editor.

‘Caring volunteers crisis,’ Judy soldiered on, though she could tell he wasn’t listening. ‘This round of flu has meant that there’s nobody fit enough, or free enough of germs, to visit those who need calling on over the Christmas period.’

‘A wee job there for Ray, then,’ said John Ross acidly, out of the corner of his mouth. ‘He’s been bellyachin’ ever since you gave the Christmas calls to young Renishaw here.’ He approved of the new arrival, whose copy came perfectly typed with no mistakes and an extra carbon included, just in case.

‘OK,’ agreed the editor. If he’d said the other thing there’d be nothing in the paper. ‘Betty?’

Betty was doing a crossword and didn’t realise immediately it was her turn. Judy gave her a nudge.

‘Hairdressing night,’ she said finally.

Everyone groaned.

‘All the hairdressers are doing late-night opening so everyone can get their perms done for Christmas. I thought I could get mine done this week – picture story – help drum up trade.’

There was the traditional rustling of notebooks which accompanied stinkers like this, a vicious indicator that buried somewhere in their scribbled pages they had a better idea. But the editor nodded and the moment passed. ‘Mr Renishaw?’

Miss Dimont looked up from her notebook and watched the newcomer’s profile as he started to speak. His words came without hesitation in a low, urgent murmur and with no recourse to notes.

‘I’ve been speaking to a member of the Chamber of Commerce,’ he said. ‘They’re thinking of charging an entry fee to holidaymakers coming into Temple Regis – thruppence in the box at Regis Junction when you get out of the train, or one per cent on the bill in the hotels and guesthouses. He reckons that in three years it will have generated enough income to build a bridge from Todhempstead Sands out to Nether Island – which would then generate even more income from toll charges. It will bring a massive new wealth to Temple Regis and steal a march on Torquay and Paignton and all the others.’

You could have heard a pin drop. This was actually a very good story, brought in by a reporter who’d been here so little time he’d hadn’t yet had the opportunity to find the Oddfellows’ Hall. How on earth had he pulled it off?

‘Rr… rrr,’ rumbled Rudyard Rhys, ‘first I’ve heard of it.’ He usually got all the best stories down at the Con Club at lunch on Fridays, after the paper had been published. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Confidential source,’ said Renishaw. This was not a phrase you ever heard at the Express – Temple Regis being the kind of town where everybody knew everybody else’s business. And how had this newcomer, in so short a space of time, managed to find a contact prepared to confide a piece of information which could radically alter the town’s fortunes and set it apart from its rivals on the English Riviera?

It beggared belief.

‘So… are you saying people will be forced to pay to be allowed into Temple Regis?’

‘That’s about it,’ replied Renishaw. He didn’t seem to think it that peculiar.

‘I can’t think of another place in Britain that does that.’

‘My source is an innovator, thinks differently from the rest of us. Says the town needs shaking up, or it’s going to lose its custom to the bigger resorts. Look at what Teignmouth has been doing recently!’

‘But – it’s like paying to go into a shop!’ said Peter Pomeroy scornfully. ‘Who’d want to do that?’

Others in the conference, perhaps less forward-thinking, nodded in agreement. But Renishaw was unruffled: ‘You all agree Temple Regis is the prettiest resort in Devon. Now’s the time to test that theory. If people really do want to come here, what’s an extra thruppence?’

There was a silence which could only be described as hostile.

‘Very well,’ said the editor, and just for a moment a wintry smile broke out on his bewhiskered face. Persuading young Renishaw to join the Express was the best thing he’d done in years. His choice, his decision, his triumph!

‘See,’ he crowed, turning to the bunch of deadbeats he’d also employed over the years, ‘see how it’s done? All you have to do is put yourselves out there, make your contacts, and they come running to you with their best stories. That’s journalism for you!’

‘Have you noticed that he has a bit of hair that springs up on the back of his head?’ whispered Betty to Judy. ‘It could do with a bit of smoothing down and I bet if he let me I could—’

‘Married,’ reminded Judy.

That shut Betty up. She had Certain Rules – though they didn’t prevent her looking.

‘How old is he, d’you think?’

‘Mid-thirties. Still married, Betty.’

The news conference trundled on, with a depressing amount of time devoted to the fortunes of Regis Rangers, the local football team, and Plymouth Argyle, nearby giants of the turf. Betty went back to her crossword and Judy briefly focused her attention on the rogue curl on the back of David Renishaw’s head.