Encore [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION "^HIS book makes no attempt to reflect, even on a miniature scale, the range and diversity of The Sunday Times. Many of the - - paper's best weekly features are of too topical a nature to be represented here. For the same reason, there is very little straight reporting. The fact is that large areas of any newspaper are necessarily of merely transient interest and not worth the attention of even the most devoted resurrectionist. What, then, does this book do ? Primarily, but by no means exclusively, it illustrates the interest and variety of The Sunday Times Magazine Section, a part of the paper which (like the Colour Section) has made journalistic history. Perhaps I may be allowed to explain how it all happened. During and after the war newspapers were, of course, restricted in size. But long before this regulation was entirely relaxed we on The Sunday Times decided deliberately on a policy of what we called the 'big read'. It was an exciting day when, on June 13, 1954, in a paper of 14 pages, we boldly devoted two of them to extracts from a book by Mr Somerset Maugham. It proved to be one of our most successful serials, and it demonstrated that we were working on the right lines. But as, with the increasing availability of newsprint, our serial programme expanded, the paper became an uncomfortable mélange of news, criticism, and feature articles. Then it was, one Tuesday morning in September 1958, that inspiration descended on our weekly editorial meeting. It was a very simple idea. It was - once formulated - a blind-ingly obvious idea. But it constituted something of a journalistic revolution for this country. By dividing the paper into two parts, with the serials, criticism and so on in one, and news of all kinds in the other. The Sunday Times indeed took on a new look. Needless to say, the birth of the Magazine Section was not overlooked by the paper's chief rival. Thenceforth the policy of the 'big read' really came into its own. Setting a pattern which continues to this day, and which has resulted in the pre-eminence of The Sunday TimLs in the field of what is called 'quality' Sunday journalism, the paper collared for serialisation a succession of extraordinary books, a few of which are represented here. It also commissioned many special series, and it is to one of these that this present book owes its genesis. I refer to the memoirs of Sir Ralph Richardson, published here under the title of'It All Began with Growcott'. This little classic of the I' vu