Journalist Murray Sayle wrote this piece about #BloodySunday just 5 days after the murders. It was spiked by Sunday Times editor Harold Evans, but fifty years on remains an astonishingly accurate account of what the Army was up to. lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/…
Perhaps it was telling that it took a man from a colonised country (Australia) to recognise the British Army account for the tissue of lies that it was. And it was an unforgivably supine decision of Evans to not run the piece. Sayle did the right thing and resigned
Evans decision to withhold Sayle's research from the Widgery Tribunal doubtless also made the whitewash easier, though there was the troubling question of protecting sources. How different the course of The Troubles might have been.
Sayles was a journalist poster pin up. A man with rat like cunning and an infallible instinct for how to get to the heart of a story. He is also attributed with being the journo who coined the phrase, "I made my excuses and left".
Given all that he did in covering the Middle East, Soviet Invasion of Czech etc it is churlish to pick out an anecdote about a spat with a bean counter, but this is a gem:
After a three-month tour of the Middle East, Sayles spent several days doing his expenses.
After a three-month tour of the Middle East, Sayles spent several days doing his expenses.
The Sunday Times accountant would not pay for the camel he had bought in Amman for his journey to Damascus. Murray revised his expenses and re-submitted exactly the same grand total. Attached to the front page was a note saying: “Find the camel.”
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