RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

Radical Middle | 69
african” publication – a thing he most certainly wasn’t doing
at the milking shed – and would be liberating a hunk of his
legendary income to make it work. Jim’s father, the randlord Sir
abe Bailey, left a trust which sixty years later still delivered Jim
a quarterly cheque, giving everyone in the media industry the
repeated opportunity to explain how they would change the
world if they had so much money.
Jim did in fact change the world. He was a rare african,
genuinely interested in cross-continental solidarity and the
welfare of the whole lot. His aim was “Life More abundant”
across africa, and although you can debate how much his three
publishing empires achieved – in Nigeria, Kenya, and South
africa – that was an aim to respect. If nothing else, the three
Drums got millions of people reading. (an uncle of mine, who
became a rural africophile when his own uncle was plumedhat
governor of Nyasaland, told me it was normal for a Drum
to be read by a hundred people. It was all there was, and it
circulated until the pages disintegrated).
One part of Group assistant editor was running True Love, a
women’s monthly which sold fifty thousand copies largely on
the strength of James Hadley chase serials. also, Jim wanted
a set of Pan-african surveys in which he was sure that his old
wartime comrades, like Sir Val Duncan, chairman of rio Tinto,
would advertise vastly. To me fell the lousy task of apprising
Jim that wartime memories were shorter than he thought.
Ted Sceales meanwhile roped me in to creating Drum’s
motoring section, Drum Wheels. He muttered when I spent
time on Jim’s projects and vice versa. The two were anyhow en
route to a fall-out. When Ted left I hadn’t yet been paid for the
original education plan, and this became a running sore. Jim
finally paid me half my fee and I was solidly disaffected. Jim was
notoriously tight-fisted, which I don’t think was stingy nature
so much as that when you have that much folding stuff you’re
super-sensitive to abuse.
One weird result was that at lunch at the rand Bar &
restaurant the exploited hacks knew in advance that the richest