Charles Curry MBE: A&T proprietor who was the soul of the newspaper
THE proprietor of the A&T, Charles Curry, has died at the age of 98.
He took over the editorship of the New Milton Advertiser and Lymington Times following the death of his father in 1966 and remained at the helm for nearly 50 years, making it one of the most successful and respected independent local newspapers in the country.
He had worked at the family-owned A&T all his life apart from wartime service in the RAF and was renowned for his Townsman’s Notes and also for his willingness to give aspiring journalists a chance, with many going on to work for national newspapers and broadcasters.
He was made an MBE in 1997 for his service to journalism and the newspaper industry.
Charles died peacefully on Saturday morning at Beach Crest Nursing Home in Barton where he had been a resident for the last 18 months.
Charles was born in Canada in 1920, and enjoyed a rather grand welcome into the world after the Mayor of Toronto, who knew his father, Frederick, through his work as reporter at city hall, sent his Rolls Royce to collect him from hospital.
Returning to England in 1925 Frederick relaunched the Christchurch Times which had shut down as a result of a libel action.
In 1930 he sold his shares in that newspaper to buy the New Milton Advertiser and in 1932 he started the Lymington Times.
After attending at least six schools and leaving with virtually no qualifications, Charles came to work at the A&T in 1936, where he was kept busy as a reporter, collecting names at funerals, attending council meetings, and doing any other chores which no one else wanted to do!
Apart from national service, Charles continued working at the paper for the next 76 years. He took over as editor in 1966 on the death of his father and the paper continued to expand and prosper by maintaining a traditional grass roots approach to news gathering and a policy of not soliciting for advertising.
In 1990 his younger brother Teddy, who ran the accounts side of the business, decided he wanted to retire, but Charles, who was 70 at the time, did not want to give up working. In attempting to keep the newspaper going, he had a meeting with Sir David English whom he had worked with when they were both junior reporters and who went on to revive the Daily Mail.
Sir David was quite keen to buy into the business but the conditions he laid down for the purchase were not agreeable to Charles who instead managed to borrow the money from Barclays Bank by re-mortgaging his house.
Charles’ wife Catherine was disabled and it was a lot for her to agree to take on such a loan at their ages but she agreed. Her faith in her husband’s business acumen was not misplaced as within three years he had repaid the lot.
Realising the paper needed a new press because it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain the necessary flongs for casting plates, Charles won a planning appeal to build a new printing hall at the paper’s Compton Road site, telling the inspector if he refused the paper would not survive.
He bought a scrap Hoe and Crabtree converted letterpress printer from a paper in Lancashire which was brought to New Milton and reassembled. Powered by a John Deere tractor engine, coupled to a marine alternator, it continued to produce the A&T from 1995 until last year when it closed down and printing moved to Portsmouth when the paper went colour.
He was made an MBE in the 1997 New Year’s Honours for his lifetime of service to journalism and the newspaper industry.
He remained at the helm until 2012 continuing to write his Townsman column tackling the many issues of the day he considered important, not least global warming, planning and Europe.
Charles said: “I was once asked why the paper was so successful when others were failing, and I replied ‘because I didn’t know how to do it properly and as a result advertising rates were half that charged for papers with a similar circulation."
On his 90th birthday Charles was driven to Bournemouth Flying Club where he enjoyed a 45-minute flight aboard a light aircraft, which was arranged as a surprise by his family.
Describing the experience as “really quite exciting” especially when he was handed the joystick, Charles said the trip took him back more than 70 years to the pre-war days when he learnt to fly.
Talking about his work, Charles said: “By nature I am not one who likes meeting people in groups, though talking to individuals is one of the great pleasures of the job.
“I believe that over the last 70 years more trainee or apprentice reporters from our titles have reached further up the ladder of journalism than from other similar papers.”
Among them was world-famous sports writer Ian Wooldridge, who began his career at the newspaper as a cub reporter in the 1950s at the age of 16.
He added: “During my years here we have covered tens of thousands of stories, both happy and sad.
“Although Royal visits and high profile events are part of the job, it is often the lives of local people that make the most fascinating stories.”
Growing up in Kennard Road, New Milton, Charles lived next door to Catherine Bugden. Both were called up in the Second World War – him to the RAF and her to the WRAF.
His role was to mend the telephones but always obsessed by tinkering with bits of machinery Charles managed to install a transformer in his Nissen hut – which made his much brighter than all the others much to the bemusement of the other servicemen.
He served mostly in the UK until he informed his commanding officer that he believed there was a scam going on regarding the NAAFI and canteen, where items being delivered did not match the order sheet. However, instead of being congratulated, he was immediately shipped off to a new posting in Berlin!
Catherine married a fighter pilot during the war and had a son, Tony, but sadly the marriage did not last. After demob Charles and Catherine rekindled their friendship and were married several years later.
Charles willingly welcomed Tony into their home, and he was joined by daughter Caroline in 1952 and son Eddie in 1954. They lived in a cottage on a four-acre smallholding in Hare Lane at Ashley.
Family holidays, which he grudgingly went on, were either in the New Forest with a caravan or a trip down to a family house in Penzance until Catherine decided she needed to put some water between Charles and his business. This resulted in several holidays on the Isle of Wight, although he would still be phoning to check the production and printing were going okay in in his absence.
Catherine got a taste early on of what married life would be like when he converted a bare Chrysler chassis to take a diesel engine.
Whilst the vehicle was still without any bodywork, he was keen to demonstrate his handiwork to Catherine but she was not impressed when, after a ride down Station Road in New Milton, her new dress was covered in oil spray.
Another of his brilliant ideas for modifications occurred when he was concerned that in their sitting room heat was lost from their back boiler in the fireplace. For several years there was a bare car radiator sat in the sitting room next to the fire until one day a member of the A&T staff built a grill to cover it!
Catherine suffered for 30 years with peripheral neuritis resulting in him needing to look after her as well as running the business. She said that he never complained or resented having to wash and dress her.
Her condition was similar to, but not the same as MS. He had read that MS could be put into remission by placing someone in an oxygen-enriched atmosphere at elevated pressure. He was keen to see what he could do and so tried buying a three-ton redundant decompression chamber used to help divers overcome the ‘bends’.
The navy was not keen on selling the chamber which did not work but after unremitting pestering, they relented and he was able to buy it. His natural and engineering skills came into play and he took the door mechanism apart and realised that it had been incorrectly assembled. He connected it up in his garden with a very large compressor. Unfortunately, after one session Catherine refused to go in it again but it did demonstrate his care for her and his ingenuity and unique approach to life.
Caroline said: “He was never a conventional father. He could fix anything and when I came home, I never knew what he had done next.”
When she went to boarding school, he was so worried there was no fire escape from her attic room that he made one himself and got a member of the A&T staff to go and fit it.
She freely admits they often clashed, recalling one incident when she got back late from a night out she found herself locked out. As she tried to find a way in, he threw her bedclothes out of a window and she was forced to sleep in a caravan in the garden.
On another occasion she asked him for some money because she was going out. He replied: “Dressed like that you should come back with some”.
Eddie said: “My father was a great newspaper man and was always determined to print the truth. He was never happier than when fighting authority and standing up for the ordinary person.
“He never allowed anyone to tell him what to publish – indeed threats of legal action or any other kind of intimidation virtually guaranteed a story would be published just to show he wasn’t going to be pushed around.
“He established an enormously popular local paper that reported on issues in the community, which will continue into the future as we develop the business to tackle the challenges ahead.”
News editor Andy Sherwood said: “While all the staff are sad at his passing, we have also been recalling our happy memories of a passionate, funny and unique person.
“He was always willing to give someone a chance in journalism with interviews usually consisting of a discussion on whatever issue was on his mind at the time!
“Working on the A&T gave us all a great grounding for which we are very grateful”.
