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22 | denis beckett<br />
that someone would want credentials, and I’d have to um and<br />
er and remember an urgent appointment.<br />
One client was highly unworried about credentials: World.<br />
John Marquard felt that World’s labour practices could use<br />
review, and asked his new research Department to audit<br />
employees’ attitudes. This threw up some interesting problems<br />
and prompted the assistant editor, Brian Moult, to come up<br />
with a favourite phrase, “We had no problems until we got a<br />
research Department”.<br />
Brian loved that phrase. He used it half in jest, but some<br />
of the works foremen used it in no jest whatsoever. To Brian I<br />
could reply, “Be glad to know of problems that your blind eyes<br />
hadn’t seen”. To the foremen, I was Lenin and Trotsky and the<br />
Trojan Horse and Nelson Mandela rolled into one: Bad news.<br />
However, John Marquard was on my side, and he was a good<br />
guy to have on your side. He did not merely tolerate me sticking<br />
my nose into World’s affairs, he encouraged it, even when I<br />
transgressed the mighty management/editorial split, which for<br />
an argus manager was a sin of the first water.<br />
On argus papers, the editor and the manager are equal<br />
bosses. The editor fills the space between the ads; the manager<br />
handles everything else and it is 100% taboo for the manager to<br />
even think of muscling in on the editor’s act.<br />
at World the actual editor was charles Still. Percy Qoboza<br />
bore the title, but all the black papers had a character called<br />
“editorial director”, invariably white, who ran the show while<br />
the editor attended parties and got his picture in the paper.<br />
This was changing. cynics might say that every era claims to be<br />
the one that “is changing”, but Percy picked a good moment.<br />
Between mid-1975, when I arrived, and mid-1977, when charles<br />
left, Percy progressed from token editor to about 85% of real<br />
editor. He was helped by the supercharging of mid-1976, but<br />
the process was happening anyway. change at World was alive<br />
and well and spelt M.a.r.Q.u.a.r.D.<br />
I used to send charles friendly suggestions, tactfully intended<br />
but I don’t suppose charles’s 60-year-old eyes saw tact in quite
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