Dossier 18 - Alan Dunn

1 audio tape, 1 cd, 1 file, 1 AIFF file (793.1 MB)

Interview with Alan Dunn, journalist for the Guardian. Conducted by Leslie Plommer on 02 April 1998. Also includes a data sheet containing biographical details about the subject and information about the recording.

Summary contents of interview (with rough timings):

Disc 1:
Track 1
00.30 Starting work and positions held at the Guardian
01.50 Working as foreign correspondent
03.30 Peter Preston and the Pakistan-India war cables

05.10 Israel war
06.00 Blaming the wrong side [Israel war]
06.05 Vietnam war, switch of policy half way through war
06.40 Personalities: John Perkin, Victor Zorza and Geoffrey Taylor
09.10 Foreign Editor, couldn't take it because he's scared of flying
09.50 Move to sport, 1968/9 Northern Sports Editor

10.30 Staff working in sport at the time
13.20 The way the sports team worked together and early days of floodlit football, not much late night sport
14.25 Changes in sport
14.25 Corresponding from Europe via telephone. Sharing lines between papers, no great rivalry
16.10 Pat Ward-Thomas, golf correspondent, 'foot in the bath' anecdote
17.00 Keeping to deadlines and writing during matches
18.20 Working conditions in Cross Street, Manchester

22.20 John Samuel and battle for funding for horse racing
22.20 Increased snooker, tennis and golf coverage
26:00 Cricket reporting going further abroad, more professional reporting
26.00 Mathew Engel covering cricket
27:40 John Samuel - skiing/skating coverage, developing opinion in sport
28:50 Covering football matches and racing

31.10 Politics of sport in general: South Africa, Mexico Olympics
35.50 How Irvine and David Frost could 'spend hours talking about nothing but an oval ball'
37.10 Reporting sports medicine, John Samuel
38.40 Football gossip and how reporters were at the game 'on behalf of the reader'

40:50 Reporters of the time
40.50 A gentlemanly style of writing, use of Dickens and Shakespeare
42.00 Football violence in the 1980s, writers getting mugged
44.20 Mersey period up to 1991
44.20 Description of team working at the time [c1982]
45.40 Labour Party post 1979
47.05 Politics in Liverpool in early 1980s
47.05 Discusses Derek Hatton, Tony Mulhearn [Labour]

50.00 Removal of tower blocks, building homes and borrowing money
52.40 Heseltine began to make his mark
54.30 Labour conference; teachers' dismissal notices sent by taxi
55.00 Unions views of the violence
57.00 1980s decline of militants, rise of Merseyside Development Corporation
58.00 Militant reaction to Guardian; 'the Guardian was trusted'
59.30 Discusses Derek Hatton

61.00 Visiting militant meetings
62.00 Discusses Tony Mulhearn
63.20 Labour councillors and the more traditional labour line

Access to recording via GNM Digital Repository

Copyright: Guardian News & Media Ltd and Alan Dunn