How The Spectator discovered Helen Mirren

One of the first jobs I ever did for The Spectator was to find out if professional wrestlers fixed the outcome of their fights in advance. This was 1965. The editor who wanted to know was Iain Macleod, a future chancellor of the exchequer filling in time while his party was out of office by dabbling in journalism. He turned out to be an addict of the professional wrestling screened on Saturday afternoon TV. In spite of the spinal disease that had immobilised his back and neck, he mimed what he meant by throttling himself without getting up from his chair in an Indian deathlock.

His deputy editor, his political editor and I watched this unnerving performance in horrified silence. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we sent a man?’ asked the deputy editor after a long pause. ‘Don’t be silly,’ snapped Macleod. ‘If we sent a man, they’d screw his head off.’