I was told a story about Maxwell once that I hope is true. A bike courier was charging down a corridor at Mirror group to deliver something and as he went around a corner collided with Maxwell who ended up on his backside. When his lackeys got the fat bastard back on his feet, he asked how much the guy earned and he said £300 a week. He was told he was fired and to go the personnel dept and collect two weeks wages in lieu of notice. Which he did ! even though he wasn't employed by the Mirror !
I met an elderly man working as a hotel doorman who had been a senior manager in one of his businesses and ended up without a pension. Nasty man was Maxwell, a few men like him still around today.
Only time I saw evil. At one of his book launches. It wasn't his drunken aggressive rambling that told me Maxwell was evil. It was the men in suits standing around him laughing politely as if he wasn't a monster. Chilling.
I was working for the Daily Express when Cap'n Bob jumped ship. A friend, who had not long moved to the Mirror, rang up and declared 'there's not a dry glass left in the house'.
I worked for the Mirror group in the Colour reproduction side and he stole some of my pension and many others pensions. After he died his sons said that they were not involved in any major decisions and he signed all the cheques, but mysteriously they were still being signed after his death.
We should always be suspicious of anyone who aggressively bullies and threatens anyone who criticises or questions them. Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong are two examples who intimidated anyone who dared to suggest any impropriety. It's a good rule of thumb that this means there's something to hide.
The villain of the third James Bond novel, Moonraker (1955) is Sir Hugo Drax, a corpulent, lying bully of indistinct Central European origins. Drax mysteriously emerges from obscurity after the War, manages to inveigle himself into the higher echelons of British society, commits acts of treachery, is secretly backed by a foreign power and meets his end at the bottom of the sea.
A late friend of mine (Barry Askew) was for a short period the editor of the News Of The World (roughly until Murdoch realised Bazza was a card carrying member of the Labour Party). I remember him saying that "Maxwell was to Journalism what Chairman Mao was to freedom of speech."
I worked at Pergamon many years ago. I met Maxwell a handful of times, never pleasant. He did not like anyone to even hint that he was even remotely wrong or ill-informed. More than one senior executive at Pergamon was fired on the spot, on at least one occasion for pointing out that what Maxwell wanted to do was not really legal. I learned quickly to bite my tongue, and left before I drew blood.
I worked at INVESCO after the Maxwell Affair blew up. They managed the pension fund of Mirror Group. There were stories of the Maxwells phoning up fund managers and telling them what to do. INVESCO were fined for getting the money of pensioners back. That’s right - they were fined for doing the right thing. The financial authorities decided that INVESCO did such a good job of protecting clients they must have known something was wrong. Bonkers.
If Private Eye and Ian Hislop were sued by Maxwell for libel, etc. when pretty much everything they wrote about him was true, have they never been able to claim anything back from the estate of the SOB? Seems very unfair in the extreme.
At least his daughter turned out well
I've read two books on this grub. And how his two sons avoided jail beats me. His daughter proves that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I was told a story about Maxwell once that I hope is true. A bike courier was charging down a corridor at Mirror group to deliver something and as he went around a corner collided with Maxwell who ended up on his backside. When his lackeys got the fat bastard back on his feet, he asked how much the guy earned and he said £300 a week. He was told he was fired and to go the personnel dept and collect two weeks wages in lieu of notice. Which he did ! even though he wasn't employed by the Mirror !
I met an elderly man working as a hotel doorman who had been a senior manager in one of his businesses and ended up without a pension. Nasty man was Maxwell, a few men like him still around today.
Only time I saw evil. At one of his book launches. It wasn't his drunken aggressive rambling that told me Maxwell was evil. It was the men in suits standing around him laughing politely as if he wasn't a monster. Chilling.
I was working for the Daily Express when Cap'n Bob jumped ship. A friend, who had not long moved to the Mirror, rang up and declared 'there's not a dry glass left in the house'.
I worked for the Mirror group in the Colour reproduction side and he stole some of my pension and many others pensions. After he died his sons said that they were not involved in any major decisions and he signed all the cheques, but mysteriously they were still being signed after his death.
We should always be suspicious of anyone who aggressively bullies and threatens anyone who criticises or questions them. Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong are two examples who intimidated anyone who dared to suggest any impropriety. It's a good rule of thumb that this means there's something to hide.
Maxwell was,as we say in Yorkshire,"As bent as a nine-bob note!"
What a model human being.
The villain of the third James Bond novel, Moonraker (1955) is Sir Hugo Drax, a corpulent, lying bully of indistinct Central European origins. Drax mysteriously emerges from obscurity after the War, manages to inveigle himself into the higher echelons of British society, commits acts of treachery, is secretly backed by a foreign power and meets his end at the bottom of the sea.
Four down votes? Didn’t Maxwell have five children? That’ll be them then, Ghislaine being unable to down vote from prison.
A late friend of mine (Barry Askew) was for a short period the editor of the News Of The World (roughly until Murdoch realised Bazza was a card carrying member of the Labour Party). I remember him saying that "Maxwell was to Journalism what Chairman Mao was to freedom of speech."
"I've just given a fat cheque to a fat Czech" - Ian Hislop after losing a libel case with Maxwell.
I worked at Pergamon many years ago. I met Maxwell a handful of times, never pleasant. He did not like anyone to even hint that he was even remotely wrong or ill-informed. More than one senior executive at Pergamon was fired on the spot, on at least one occasion for pointing out that what Maxwell wanted to do was not really legal. I learned quickly to bite my tongue, and left before I drew blood.
I worked at INVESCO after the Maxwell Affair blew up. They managed the pension fund of Mirror Group. There were stories of the Maxwells phoning up fund managers and telling them what to do. INVESCO were fined for getting the money of pensioners back. That’s right - they were fined for doing the right thing. The financial authorities decided that INVESCO did such a good job of protecting clients they must have known something was wrong. Bonkers.
If Private Eye and Ian Hislop were sued by Maxwell for libel, etc. when pretty much everything they wrote about him was true, have they never been able to claim anything back from the estate of the SOB? Seems very unfair in the extreme.
After he died he was taken to Israel where he was treated as a hero
Absolute psychopath. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.
Quite wonderful to hear these great wits chatting.