In a piece following his topping a 2003 British Journalism Review poll to determine Britain’s greatest living columnist, Waterhouse observed: “Nothing is useless to the columnist”, and recalled once offering Bill Connor (Cassandra of the Daily Mirror) a paragraph “of no particular consequence. He didn’t make a note and I promptly forgot about it, imaging that so had he. It turned up in his column, in a totally different context, 18 months later”. Likewise, Waterhouse did not take notes but wasted nothing, as those lucky enough to work alongside him can testify. The now famous egg trick in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell was a party piece Waterhouse “borrowed” – he became an expert practitioner – from a Mirror colleague. And the penguin suit that has a starring role in this extract from The Last Page began life as a parrot suit bought to please editorial director and parrot fan Hugh Cudlipp at company functions, and subsequently used, in much the fashion described, to smuggle an especially newsworthy Miss World away from the gimlet eyes of the opposition.

In tribute to one of the finest journalists of his and any other generation, we are pleased to publish a scene from Waterhouse’s own curtain call that will resonate with all those who remember a Fleet Street whose pavements he strode and the hostelries he frequented for much of his life...

Three veteran Fleet Street reporters, Sam, Douglas and Tom, now in retirement or semiretirement, plus Charlie (Charlotte), a young newcomer to national newspapers, congregate after hours in The Case Is Altered, a typical old Fleet Street pub about to endure a makeover, where the long-time landlady, Winnie, is herself on the verge of retirement...

TOM
Do you own this place, Winnie?

WINNIE
No, of course I don’t. Landlords don’t own their own pubs – not in this day and age.

TOM
And reporters don’t own their own papers, in this or any other age. But if we did… If we did…

CHARLIE
If we did, I’d be the next editor of The Daily Telegraph.

SAM
And flying pigs would be running British Airways.

TOM
If we did, I’d be the new proprietor and editor-inchief of the County Standard and District Advertiser. It’s a tabloid now, of course. They’re all bloody tabloids.

DOUGLAS
And all the subs think they’re working for The Sun.

TOM
And what I’d do, on my first day, I’d call all my editorial staff together – both of them – and I’d say, Right, speaking as your new owner, I envisage certain changes. First off, we’re taking the size of the paper back to broadsheet – or bed sheet, as some of us used to call it. Nine columns, printed on the steam-driven, flatbed press which is currently in the town museum. Page one will consist entirely of cattle auction announcements, forthcoming productions of all the amateur dramatic societies, and car boot sales. Page two: magistrates’ court proceedings – no sensational headlines.

SAM
“Local man on grave charge”.

TOM
Page three – social.

SAM
“Local girl marries local man”.

TOM
…with tasteful photographs of the week’s parties, dinners and receptions.

SAM
“Local couple seen enjoying a joke with the mayor on some stairs”.

TOM
News on pages four and five – but nothing national or international, unless there’s a strong local angle.

SAM
“World War Three sparks village hall fears”.

TOM
And on the middle pages – Market Square Diary, by Onlooker.

DOUGLAS
Which will be the owner-editor, I suppose.

TOM
Who else?

SAM
“Twitchers among my readers will remember the lesser spotted chaffinch which used to nest above the Corn Exchange. They will be delighted to hear that our avian friend has made a reappearance, encouraged back to these climes by global warming…”

TOM
Yes, you may laugh and you may scoff, Sam. But what would you do if your old paper fell into your hands?

SAM
Flog it. And then I’d have it away on my toes to the Sunday Mirror.

CHARLIE
That’s what I’d do.

DOUGLAS
I thought you were going to edit The Daily Telegraph.

CHARLIE
(patiently) Yes, but if the Telegraph’s spoken for, I’d have to edit the Sunday Mirror, wouldn’t I?

SAM
Or The Times.

CHARLIE
Or The Times.

SAM
You haven’t given any thought to starting somewhere lower down the ladder – like editing The Guardian?

TOM
Or the Sportsville Gazette?

CHARLIE
Been there, done that, got the Young Journalist of the Year award.

SAM
(amazed) You got the Young Journalist of the Year award?

CHARLIE
No, but I tell people I have.

SAM
(to the company) She’s a natural-born liar. (to CHARLIE, impressed at last) What other qualifications have you got?

CHARLIE
I’m observant. I observe things.

TOM
Such as what?

WINNIE
(with a caustic glance at the bar clock) Such as the flaming time, it’s to be hoped.

CHARLIE
I observed that penguin fancy dress outfit hanging from a doornail in one of the cellars.

DOUGLAS
No you didn’t. I told you about it.

CHARLIE
You told me about it, then I observed it. But you were going to tell me what it was doing there. I spy a diary story in this.

DOUGLAS
I shouldn’t think so – too Fleet Streety.

CHARLIE
Try me.

DOUGLAS
(shrugs) Suit yourself. Originally, the editor hired it for someone’s retirement party.

TOM
Mickey Calvert.

SAM
Mickey Calvert!

DOUGLAS
Chief smudger. Won countless awards for animal pictures. Roving commission – went where he pleased. Africa, South America…

TOM
Sub it down, Duggie.

DOUGLAS
So one day he takes into his head to go to the North Pole. This was back in the days when he thought the Street was paved with gold. Mickey thought he’d snap the penguins in their natural habitat.

CHARLIE
At the North Pole?

DOUGLAS
At the North Pole.

CHARLIE
But there aren’t any penguins at the North Pole.

DOUGLAS
You know that and I know that, but Mickey Calvert didn’t know that – and neither did anyone else in the office.

SAM
Bloody hell –what are foreign editors for?

DOUGLAS
So having got as near to the North Pole as he was ever going to go, he sent a face-saving cable to the picture editor.

TOM
“Penguins migrated. Am proceeding south.”

DOUGLAS
…where, it has to be said, he got a delightful portfolio of nesting penguins. Won him yet another gong. But after he put in his swindle sheet…

TOM
“To air transport and hire of sledge and six huskies from North Pole to South Pole.”

DOUGLAS
…he never lived it down.

SAM
(mischievously) But if that penguin suit downstairs could speak, Douglas, it wouldn’t be banging on about the South Pole.

DOUGLAS
Wouldn’t it? Why not?

TOM
Miss Western Hemisphere.

DOUGLAS
Oh, nobody wants to go through all that again, Tom. It’s old hat.

SAM
(ignoring him: to CHARLIE) Do you remember the Miss Western Hemisphere rumpus?

CHARLIE
Yes, of course.

SAM
No you don’t.

CHARLIE
Alright, so I don’t.

SAM
Because you’re so busy editing the redtops in your head, you don’t have time to read them in the flesh.

CHARLIE
Sorree!

TOM
Miss Western Hemisphere, a college girl like you, Charlie, fell in love with her own runner-up.

SAM
…who’d turned out to be a bloke.

CHARLIE
You mean he was a transvestite?

SAM
Cross-dresser.

CHARLIE
No wonder he only came in second.

SAM
So the News of the Screws got him, but Douglas’s lot got the girl and took her to a safe house.

DOUGLAS
Gary Noble’s place, near Esher.

SAM
(pointing at Douglas) …where this bugger was supposed to cross-examine her until her teeth rattled. Alas for ill-laid plans, their cover was blown.

DOUGLAS
On day one. You can’t keep a secret in the Street of Misadventure.

SAM
So the Street’s finest, not to mention the dregs of Fleet Street, descended on Esher like a swarm of locusts, and surrounded the safe house.

DOUGLAS
…where as it so happened, the penguin suit was hanging in the wardrobe, waiting to go back to the hire company.

CHARLIE
Oh, don’t tell me – you only poured Miss Western Hemisphere into that fancy dress suit and hoped to get away with smuggling her out of the house disguised as a bloody penguin! I mean, I may not have your experience but do me a favour.

DOUGLAS
When you have got our experience, my dear, you wouldn’t dream of doing anything so blazingly obvious. She wasn’t in the penguin suit – I was in the penguin suit. I hot-footed it across the fields with half Fleet Street in pursuit.

CHARLIE
(now impressed) Golly – didn’t they scrag you when they found out who you were?

DOUGLAS
They didn’t catch me, dear. I was quicker on the flippers in those days.

CHARLIE
So what happened to Miss Western Hemisphere?

DOUGLAS
With the pack out of the way, Gary Noble bundled her into his car and drove her down to Fleet Street – the last place anyone would dream of looking for her. End of story.

SAM
It’s not the end of the story, Douglas.

DOUGLAS
(testily) It’s the end of the bloody story!

SAM
Charlie wants to know how you got back to the Street.

CHARLIE
Yes, how did you get back to Fleet Street – dressed as a penguin?

DOUGLAS
(reluctantly) Oh, alright… Now what I didn’t realise until it was too late, was that this penguin suit doesn’t have any pockets. I mean it’s a realistic penguin. Penguins don’t have pockets.

TOM
Pity Mickey Calvert didn’t go looking for kangaroos at the North Pole.

DOUGLAS
So – no money, no credit cards, no ID, zilch. Nothing for it but to hoof it back to London. Fifteen bloody miles.

CHARLIE
But couldn’t you cadge a lift?

DOUGLAS
Do leave off, dear. Would you give a lift to a sixfoot limping penguin? I’ll tell you who didn’t give me a lift though…a convoy of disgruntled hacks driving back from Esher. By now they’d sussed out who was inside the penguin suit, but would they stop? They drove on beeping their horns and making honking noises, which is what the ignorant buggers think is what penguins sound like. Talk about Fleet Street solidarity.

SAM
Makes you so proud to belong to our noble calling. (raising his glass) To the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

CHARLIE
I’ll drink to that.