My Mentor: Martin Vander Weyer on Christopher Fildes
'If he approved of something I was writing, he'd say it was an "absolute corker"'
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Your support makes all the difference.I first became aware of Christopher back in 1976. At that time, I was a graduate trainee at a merchant bank and he was a reporter with the Daily Mail. We first met properly when he came into my bank to give a lecture.
Even back then, in the Seventies, he was considered one of the most intelligent, trustworthy and convivial of City journalists. In those days, unusually for a journalist, he wore a bowler hat and a button-hole carnation.
Later, we got to know each other much better while I was working for Barclays in Hong Kong. I helped him out with a small personal problem and we got into the habit of meeting up every time he visited. When I lost my banking job in 1992 and declared that I would really prefer to be a journalist, a mutual friend told Christopher. He sent me a postcard, which I still have on my desk at home, which says: "If you really want to leave the fat cattle lands of banking for journalism,I have an idea for you."
In spite of having recently been in a car crash in which he lost his wife, he took the time to talk to me about becoming a journalist, helped me to get into print at The Spectator and introduced me to Hugh Massingberd, the Daily Telegraph obituaries editor. He was also on hand to give advice, which I really valued because, having not started out as a journalist, I never knew quite how to pitch what I was writing. If he approved of something, he'd say it was an "absolute corker", whereas if he thought I'd gone easy on some rather roguish City figure, he'd say: "You let that devil off lightly."
Ever since then he has been a mentor and a good friend, and I owe him a lot for my career. There are financial journalists whose stock in trade is to sneer slightly and assume that all business people are shallow rogues, but Chris-topher is not among them. I'm proud to have followed him in the line of succession at The Spectator.
Martin Vander Weyer is business editor of The Spectator and the new magazine Spectator Business. Christopher Fildes was a columnist for the Telegraph and the Spectator City and Suburban columnist from 1984 to 2006
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