File JFA - Memoir entitled 'You'll have to learn' by John Fairhall 1962-1989

1 volume

Part of a project by the Guardian to gather material for the archive.

Long memoir of John Fairhall's life as a journalist and (from page 89) his time at the Guardian.

John started working as a reporter, without any formal training, for the East Anglian Daily Times in December 1949, and then for a local paper in Birmingham.

John includes various other stories about his time as a reporter for local Birmingham and Black Country papers, as well as more spells in East Anglia and thoughts on the nature of journalism at the time.

He joined the Manchester Guardian as an industrial reporter in 1962 after a spell working for a paper in Nairobi. He initially worked under John Anderson, the industrial editor and leader writer. He describes the layout of the offices at Cross Street as well as many of the characters of the era.

One of John's 'part-time' roles was yachting correspondent, a role he kept for a while after he moved to the London offices. During this time he acted as a 'general reporter', covering a variety of areas due to the shortage of specialists at the paper. However, his real area of interest was Africa, and he took every opportunity to write about the continent, Kenya in particular. He describes the pressue not to report certain stories from the country, and goes into considerable detail about the political situation there.

John also describes how he covered Idi Amin's coup in Uganda, and goes into detail about the brutalities he witnessed there. Starting on page 174, John describes how he (along with several other journalists) were arrested in Uganda on orders from Amin to round up Europeans and put them in prison camps. He was taken to Makindye prison, where he spent four days in an overcrowded cell. Some descriptions here are graphic. John later won an award for his reporting from Uganda.

John later took the job of education correspondent. He wrote about education from 1972 until his retirement in 1988. The final part of this memoir chronicles this period.

Administrative/Biographical history: John Fairhall joined the Guardian 1962 and worked variously as industrial reporter, agricultural correspondent, general reporter, Africa correspondent, deputy night news editor, education correspondent and editor.

Copyright: John Fairhall

OHP/19 Oral history interview with John Fairhall