I don’t know whether Greg Gutfeld (Press Gazette , 18 February)
realises it, but by embarking Maxim on a policy of sending terminally
ill readers on foreign trips, he is following in the well-trodden
footsteps of the old Sunday Express.
When I was there between
1989 and 1996 it was to the constant shame of the editorial management
(Morgan, Macrory, Pollard, Hitchen, Douglas)n that many, if not all, of
the readers who won prize holidays in that paper, turned out to be very
old – if not actually on their last legs.
I remember one winning
reader in her 90s being turned away from the cruise she had won when
the tour operator took one look at her infirm state and accompanying
Zimmer frame, and announced that his company’s insurance policy just
wouldn’t cover the trip, because there was such a high likelihood of
her dying mid-voyage!
Good luck Mr Gutfeld, but if you want to
take on GQ’s travel writers and win, please don’t ape the Sunday
Express of yesteryear. I assure you, it’s not a recipe for success.
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