02/07/2008

Over the next few weeks, allmediascotland.com is to publish, each weekday, extracts from the memoirs of Scottish war correspondent, Paul Harris. ‘More Thrills than Skills: A Half-life in Journalism’, is being scheduled for publication next year.

Romance, adventurism and drama always seemed inextricably linked with the saga of the pirate radio ships. You might say these elements went with the territory – and the people who made it their own.

Whether it derived from the romance of the rusty old ships themselves, the nascent power of broadcasting over its listeners, the emotive power of music, or simply the notion of boldly going where others fear to go, the story of the pirate radio ships around European coasts is a compelling and fascinating tale. 

Although made illegal by virtually every government in Europe, the pirates did relatively little harm whilst bringing enjoyment to vast numbers of people, and more than a little fulfillment to those intrepid modern buccaneers who were involved.

Radio Moscow and the ‘pirates’ had brought my introduction to the world of radio and, in a modest way, that of journalism.

During the 1970s, I continued writing and some publishing. Although you don’t realise it at the time, youth presents the best opportunities. You tend not to recognise your own real talents. One day, in July 1977, a bright young journalist from The Scotsman came to do an interview.

Julie Davidson wrote a polished and, I assume, incisive, feature which described me in almost lyrical terms, ‘the silhouette of a fashion model . . . a side-burned Botticelli cherub: complexion lucid as the Flower Honesty, eyes wide as a gasp of innocence. He looks like the lamb rather than the lion . . .’

It would, however, be a long time before full-time journalism would present itself as a real career option, and that’s what this book is really about. 

There are plenty of excellent and worthy tomes dealing with the serious business of reporting other people's wars and disasters. The moral dilemma of the journalist cast adrift on tides of outrageous fortune have been dealt with more than competently elsewhere - from Phillip Knightley's The First Casualty, through John Pilger's Heroes, to Martin Bell's In Harm's Way.

The armchair adventurer of bloodthirsty mien might be directed towards Michael Herr's Dispatches, the more literary-inclined reader to veteran writer Martha Gellhorn, or the brilliant Ryzsard Kapucsinski. These are my personal favourites. I am not competing with them.

These days, I often find myself speaking to a roomful of people about my experiences. The locations in the last couple of years or so are about as varied as might be imagined: a ladies' social circle in a Scottish village; a Rotary Club at dusk on the east coast of Sri Lanka in a town controlled after dark by terrorists; a gathering of senior NATO intelligence officers; a Washington convention with 3000 lunchers clanking their cutlery, coffee cups and jewellery; a Cunard liner on the high seas packed to the gunnels with multi-millionaires.

All these very different audiences - batty old dears, beleagured businessmen, politicos and the not so idle rich - are essentially interested in the same things.

They ask questions which are, let us say, rather personal. Do you earn a lot of money for what you do? Most audiences clearly think I do and evidence clear disbelief when I deny it vehemently. What do you eat in a war zone and where do you stay? One from the ladies who clearly think I need feeding up. Don't you get frightened? Of course I do, but I don't admit it. Where do you buy photographic film/aspirins/ plasters/beer/spark plugs in a war zone? These are not such daft questions as they might appear. And there is always a bolder chap who will eagerly ask the one that would really have got the audience on the edge of its seat. Except he always asks it at the bar afterwards. I suppose you pull a lot of women in your business?

There is an awful lot of minutiae in these pages: the day-to-day stuff about working as a journalist which doesn’t tend to make it into more worthy accounts. A friend was a mite disparaging about the title of this book, More Thrills than Skills. He suggested that it was unnecessarily self-deprecating. Maybe so. I’m not the one to judge. But the successful journalist in the unfriendly environment of a war zone requires, first and foremost, a very real taste for excitement.

Then, as a colleague once observed, a capacity for rat-like cunning will serve him well. As for the rest, you’ll learn the skills on the job.

I did. This is how.........

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