Memories of Monty
MEMORIES of the old Fleet Street came flooding back when veteran editor Monty Court came to the NUJ to collect his Life Membership certificate.
From 1953 to 1991 he lived and worked the hard-drinking — and long-departed — life of the UK national press in its heyday.
Arriving at the Evening News (folded 1980) he moved in 1956 to the News Chronicle (folded 1960), for, he recalled, £28 a week. After four months and a poaching war with the Express he moved to the Daily Mail.
Monty Court became news editor on the Mail, until March 1965 when he was “awarded the DCM — Don’t Come in Monday. I didn’t get on with the editor,” he explained.
Monty Court moved to the Sunday Mirror, where he was also news editor — but he “didn’t see eye to eye” with the editor there either. However, opportunity was to hand: “I was mad keen on racing and they made me a racing writer. I became the top tipster in Fleet Street. They offered me editorship of the Sporting Life several times but I turned it down, but I took it in 1986.
“I stayed with the union, though. As editor I negotiated with it on the house agreement. I had a letter thanking me from the FoC.” Yes, they were different times.