I DON’T KNOW WHO TAGGED Anthony Holden “Golden Holden” — perhaps Holden himself — but it turned out to be not so much an admiring portent of his career as a savagely ironic joke. I first met Holden in his golden phase when, in 1981, his mentor Harold (Harry) Evans was made Editor of The Times by the paper’s new owner, Rupert Murdoch.
What Harry might have guessed, and the small gaggle of loyal sidekicks he brought over from the Sunday Times might have better served him by working out, was that the great campaigning editor, famous for championing the limbless thalidomide children in their legal battle against the drug’s manufacturer, had been coaxed out of his redoubt at the Sunday paper by the lure of becoming editor of the “top people’s paper”.
Murdoch had bought both daily and Sunday papers from the Canadian, Ken Thomson, son of Roy, Lord Thomson of.
