In fact, as I have known since my own childhood, they were wrong on both counts. The Guardian womens page - then called Mainly Women - was started in the early 1920s and its first editor was my great aunt, Madeline Linford, who continued in the role until she was succeeded by Stott in 1953.
What was especially odd about this omission was that the Guardian had not read its own cuttings. In 1971, it published an interview with Madeline in which she was clearly identified as the founder of the page. The interview was carried out by none other than Mary Stott.
Thankfully, there is no need for me to write a letter to the Guardian pointing out its error as my redoubtable aunt, Sylvia Michaelides, has already done so. Gratifyingly, the paper's former editor, Peter Preston, has also since written a column restoring Madeline to her rightful place in the paper's history.
5 comments:
Aha!
Another entry into our database of nepotism in journalism....how it's all done by a hereditary caste!
Tim
I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but for the charge of nepotism to stick I would have to have been given a job on the Guardian!
...and you'd have had to have been alive and of employable age in 1953 at the latest!
Hi Paul
I've linked to your blog on ours http://gtrmancfabians.blogspot.com/
I'd be really grateful if you could link to ours.
Cheers
Graham W
Greater Manchester Fabians
While I doubt the Guardian wa suffering selective amnesia, it is a pretty shocking omission.
Not the first, I'm afraid to say, and while I hate to lapse into the usual 'wasn't like this in my day' platitudes, its is more evidence that the paper suffers slapdash research and a short memory.
A past to be proud of, Paul.
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