A journalist the financial world trusted
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Sue Cameron
WHAT a sad irony that Marjorie Deane, chronicler of the financial world for half a century and close confidante to the greatest names in banking, should have died at the age of 94 just as the credit crunch was becoming a huge economic story.
She would have been in her element: following every twist and turn, abreast of all the gossip and understanding better than anyone what was happening.
When Marjorie Deane hit the phones, nobody refused her calls.
As Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said early this month: "She learned things that others didn't because people had confidence in her. You could trust her. She could write well, her assessments were balanced - unlike some others - she enjoyed gossip, but she was careful with it, and she didn't write about personalities." Mr Volcker said she had been "a pathbreaker for female financial journalists".
Born in Manchester in 1914, she was educated at Withington Girls High School, read maths at London University and joined the Admiralty as a wartime statistician, where her boss was the poet John Betjeman, who became a friend.
In 1947 she was hired as a statistician by The Economist, which had an enlightened attitude to employing women, though not to equal pay. "You can hire a first-rate woman for the price of a second-rate man," noted editor Geoffrey Crowther.
In those early days her office was known as "the deanery". She had a staff of three and gradually moved from pure statistics into editorial.
When the US boss of Manny Hanny Manufacturers Hanover Trust - asked to meet her at a lunch the bank was giving in London, the local manager expostulated: "No woman has ever sat in a dining room of the City and I won't come if she does." She went. He did not.
Rupert Pennant-Rea, former Economist editor and former deputy governor of the Bank of England, described annual International Monetary Fund meetings as her natural stage -- "one long cocktail party full of booze and bankers: what more could she ask for?" That was when she still enjoyed Campari. Later, she became teetotaller.
A great reporter rather than an analyst, with a talent for writing simply about complex issues, she set up The Economist's Financial Report newsletter, editing it for 13 years.
Even when she retired from the paper, aged 75, she carried on as a consultant to various groups and, at 80, wrote a book with journalist Robert Pringle: The Central Banks.
In 1998 she gave £1.0 million to set up a foundation in her name to encourage young financial journalists. The bulk of her estate will now go to it. Always direct, when she was awarded the MBE, she told the Queen: "I gather you don't much like us journalists, Ma'am." The Queen replied that financial journalists were all right.
WHAT a sad irony that Marjorie Deane, chronicler of the financial world for half a century and close confidante to the greatest names in banking, should have died at the age of 94 just as the credit crunch was becoming a huge economic story.
She would have been in her element: following every twist and turn, abreast of all the gossip and understanding better than anyone what was happening.
When Marjorie Deane hit the phones, nobody refused her calls.
As Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said early this month: "She learned things that others didn't because people had confidence in her. You could trust her. She could write well, her assessments were balanced - unlike some others - she enjoyed gossip, but she was careful with it, and she didn't write about personalities." Mr Volcker said she had been "a pathbreaker for female financial journalists".
Born in Manchester in 1914, she was educated at Withington Girls High School, read maths at London University and joined the Admiralty as a wartime statistician, where her boss was the poet John Betjeman, who became a friend.
In 1947 she was hired as a statistician by The Economist, which had an enlightened attitude to employing women, though not to equal pay. "You can hire a first-rate woman for the price of a second-rate man," noted editor Geoffrey Crowther.
In those early days her office was known as "the deanery". She had a staff of three and gradually moved from pure statistics into editorial.
When the US boss of Manny Hanny Manufacturers Hanover Trust - asked to meet her at a lunch the bank was giving in London, the local manager expostulated: "No woman has ever sat in a dining room of the City and I won't come if she does." She went. He did not.
Rupert Pennant-Rea, former Economist editor and former deputy governor of the Bank of England, described annual International Monetary Fund meetings as her natural stage -- "one long cocktail party full of booze and bankers: what more could she ask for?" That was when she still enjoyed Campari. Later, she became teetotaller.
A great reporter rather than an analyst, with a talent for writing simply about complex issues, she set up The Economist's Financial Report newsletter, editing it for 13 years.
Even when she retired from the paper, aged 75, she carried on as a consultant to various groups and, at 80, wrote a book with journalist Robert Pringle: The Central Banks.
In 1998 she gave £1.0 million to set up a foundation in her name to encourage young financial journalists. The bulk of her estate will now go to it. Always direct, when she was awarded the MBE, she told the Queen: "I gather you don't much like us journalists, Ma'am." The Queen replied that financial journalists were all right.