Aldworth celebrates Fleet Street pioneer

Hold the Front Page! book launch

THE launch of Clare Hastings’ Hold The Front Page!: The Wit and Wisdom of Anne Scott-James will
be celebrated in Aldworth with a short informal reading and a few anecdotes enhanced by a glass of wine.

A former Aldworth villager, the late Anne Scott-James started her career working for Vogue, she went on to become the first woman’s editor on Picture Post, before leaving to set up her own page on the Daily Express in 1954. Anne – the mother of author Clare Hastings and her brother Max – divided her time between a cottage in Aldworth and London.
This is a candid behind-the-scenes look at the first woman of Fleet Street.

Published by Pimpernel Press, Hold The Front Page!: The Wit and Wisdom of Anne Scott-James is available from Amazon in hardback on March 31, priced £14.99.

The celebration takes place on Wednesday, May 6, from 7.15pm to 8.30pm, at Aldworth Village Hall. Contact: clare@indytute.com

‘The Anne Scott-James Page’ set the bar for a new way of writing. She perfected the art of the short, sharp column – and many of the topics she covered are equally on-trend today. The column was filled with her views on men, children, fashion, beauty, food, interiors, travel, and anything else that took her fancy. Political views might be squashed between a piece on eyebrow tweezing and an opinion on swimsuit lines. Anne was a great believer in entertaining her readers. She wrote with a mixture of
intelligence, wit and style – and sheerfunniness. In Hold the Front Page!, a selection of Scott-James’ Sunday Express columns from 1953 to 1957 is brought together with a commentary by her daughter, writer Clare Hastings, to provide a fascinating insight into the 1950s – and into the public and private life of the first female star of London’s Fleet Street. Amazon