When someone recently asked me to single out the proudest moments of my half-century in journalism, I found myself stumped.
My career has never involved frontline war zones or earth-shaking investigations. Instead, I’ve spent decades poking around in the small dramas of everyday family life and the amusing quirks of human behaviour.
Still, with retirement arriving the day after my 72nd birthday, two tiny glimmers of triumph came back to me — and I hope you’ll indulge me as I share them one last time.
The Day a Paper Ball Became My Olympic Moment
One memory comes from 2002, back when I was at the Daily Telegraph and foolishly decided to mock the sport of curling.
At the time, I dismissed it as little more than frantic sweeping around a sliding stone — though, with hindsight, it’s really no dafter than anything else people compete in.
I teased that if curling counted as a proper Olympic sport, then surely my own party trick — throwing a scrunched-up piece of paper into a bin from 30 feet — deserved a medal too.
My sub-editor, a man with a moral compass set permanently to “accuracy or death,” marched over after reading my column.
“You’ll have to prove it,” he declared, plopping a bin ten yards away in the vast Telegraph newsroom.
Suddenly the distance looked terrifying.
With dozens of colleagues hovering, ready for the spectacle of my downfall, I tossed the paper… and watched, astonished, as it soared in a perfect arc and dropped directly into the centre of the bin without brushing the rim.
The room froze. Then applause. I don’t think I’d felt a rush like that since winning a high-jump competition at school in 1963.
A Question No One Expected at No. 10
The second moment dates back to December 9, 1980 — the day Britain woke to the news that John Lennon had been murdered in New York.
I was a young lobby correspondent for the Liverpool Echo.
While the world reeled, it was a particularly searing shock for Lennon’s home city, meaning politics mattered little that morning.
After calling every Merseyside MP for reaction — Harold Wilson gave the most thoughtful — I decided to attend the Downing Street briefing anyway, more out of habit than hope.
Margaret Thatcher’s famously gruff Press Secretary, Bernard Ingham, presided over questions about polls, Cabinet squabbles and the usual political churn.
Then my turn arrived. I had only one question in me:
“Will the Prime Minister be sending condolences to Yoko Ono?”
Laughter ricocheted around the room.
Lobby briefings were not, at that time, places for emotional queries about cultural figures.
But Bernard glared the room silent.
“I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” he said.
“Lennon’s death will be the only story in tomorrow’s papers. Tom is the only proper journalist here.”
I have never forgotten that line.
Nobody had ever called me a proper journalist before — and, as fate would have it, nobody ever has since.
Gratitude for a Career That Carried a Family
Neither of those moments is exactly Pulitzer material.
But in truth, there is so much else to be thankful for.
Journalism — inherited through four generations of my family — has taken care of me.
Nineteen editors across ten newspapers have kept my wife, Mrs U, and our four sons fed and sheltered, even if in the early years we often held our breath until payday.
According to the financial people who claim to know these things, I’ve even put enough aside to enjoy a modest retirement — provided the Chancellor doesn’t surprise us all again.
The Kindness That Carried Me to the Finish Line
What has moved me the most, though, is the avalanche of warmth I’ve received since announcing I was stepping down.
Letters, emails and cards have poured in, many saying my weekly ramblings brightened their Fridays or brought a smile when one was sorely needed.
I can’t think of praise more generous — or more humbling. It’s all I ever hoped to do.
Signing Off With Thanks
So here we are. My final weekly piece. My last bow. No more bragging, I promise.
Mrs U and I send our warmest wishes for a peaceful Christmas and a happy, gentle future — the same things we hope for ourselves in the years ahead.