By Phil Moger
Journalism has been called a rough old trade, and newsrooms are not for the fainthearted. But Derek Dowsett stood above the noise. He had one huge secret: everybody liked him. A lot loved him. Above all, he drew towards him loyalty from whoever worked under him. It could have been termed Leadership through Loyalty. He had the newsroom. Every bit of it. He was never let down.
He didn’t show too much emotion. He reserved his passion for news. Just that. A temper never lost. The antidote to the inevitable shouting matches that sprang up in the newsroom.
Derek’s life – and the character he was – draws a picture for anyone who has ever wondered what life is like in a TV newsroom.
Derek was a lifelong journalist – a doughty Chief Sub at one time – and then, for years, the Programme Editor of the News at 545, a teatime programme with a popular touch and an audience in millions: the biggest audience at the time for ITN. He knew what the people at home wanted to see and hear. Even if that disappointed a hierarchy wedded to a different agenda. He once said, “I make this programme for a lot of people but not for the Editor of ITN”.
Reporters expecting an outpouring of praise were to be disappointed. A solitary “well done” was regarded as gold dust. The story goes of a political correspondent who had a late-breaking exclusive lead story. Within minutes, he had quotes from all parties. And some way from the Commons, he ran breathlessly to Abingdon Green clutching a scribbled script in the pouring rain and being miked up and combing his hair as the lead-in was being read. When he came into the office expecting emotional congratulations, Derek said simply “Thanks.”
I knew Derek for forty-five years. Well, sort of. Because if there was one thing he hated it was talking about himself. As Hugh Whitcomb once asked at a lunch table where people were talking about their holiday destinations, “And where are you going, Derek – or is it a state secret?” It was.
The beans about his past were spilled while he was on holiday. An old friend rang the desk and asked if Mr Dowsett was someone he once knew. To the delight of the team, I said we can’t divulge details until you tell us what you know. And we had the lot. Born in Catford, a schoolboy in Eltham, evacuated during the war. Took shorthand and typing at college.
We read Derek his life story when he returned. His face was a picture.
The irony was that nobody knew more about the secrets of the newsroom. Personal and career-wise. For he was intrinsically kind, and above all, you could trust him with any detail. Many people did.
He was the journalist equivalent of a House of Commons Chief Whip. He did the rota, so everybody had to give him their details. He had a little diary. A black book. The same size, the same colour every year. In the front went all our names and addresses. In the back, seen only ever by his eyes, were the places where people could be contacted and where they weren’t meant to be.
Sitting alongside him, I watched him thumb the front pages and ring up someone to ask if they could do a shift. All fine. But if he wanted someone from the back of the book, he would move to an unoccupied part of the room. And I watched as that person would miraculously appear in the newsroom half an hour later. What’s he been up to, I thought?
Derek squirrelled away all manner of facts about us. He got out of me what I was doing on my day off. I was having a car serviced. Enjoying a long lunch, I checked with the garage how things were going. This was before mobile phones. The answer went like this: “We just managed to put your car back quickly. A Mr Dowsett has been on the phone and said he needs you for the late shift. Can you call him?”
Derek had one final secret. A big one. He saved every piece of paper during his career – a time capsule of ITN history. A neighbour tipped me off about it while helping to clear the house. And Simon Bucks, who lived nearby, went round and was astonished at what he found.
Simon wrote two brilliant pieces describing hundreds of documents, dozens of photos, even two one-hundred-year-old typewriters. All topped off by an amazing drawing of Derek in court surrounded by ten well known ITN figures – a retirement present.
After he left, I spoke to him for years once a week. He never changed. This was one of our conversations starting with me: “Are you going to the pensioners’ lunch tomorrow?” “Well, I might be Phil.” “Have you got a ticket?” “Yes” “So you are going.” “Can’t say. There might be a train strike.” “But none are planned.” “Oh well, the buses might not run.” “But they are running today.” “Yeah, but they might not be tomorrow.” I said, “Derek, you can’t live your life this!”
On the day of his funeral, trains were running so were buses. But we never made it. We had to turn back on the journey to the crematorium because of… a snowstorm. The only thing that eased our huge dismay was the thought of Derek, wherever he was, thinking: “Well, you see, Phil, there’s always something that can go wrong.”