Former Daily Express royal correspondent and best-selling author Ashley Walton has died aged 78.
After starting his career as an evening newspaper copy boy in Coventry aged 16 he went on to rub shoulders with Royalty, top politicians and stars of stage and screen during a 30-year reporting career on the Express.
He once recalled Prince Phillip calling royal reporters “scum”. He said even the Duke of Edinburgh laughed at his response: “We may be scum Sir, but we are la crème de la scum.”
His self-written obit for the Daily Drone website recalls an age when news reporting involved more shoe leather, door knocks and face-to-face contact than it does today.
“He was doing a night shift on the Express when the Editor told him to get a couple of quotes from Mrs Thatcher on a breaking political story. Ashley climbed into a taxi and headed for Flood Street the home of Mrs Thatcher then opposition leader. The policeman on guard called upstairs and Ashley was motioned to go into the first floor living room. There was Mrs T in a pink quilted housecoat. ‘Will you have a scotch?’ it was an order not a question. Ashley was still there an hour later, the second edition beckoned and he rose to leave. He needed a phone to file copy but Mrs T motioned to a cream phone on her desk. So he filed copy with the future prime minister listening.
“The story made the splash in the second edition. The desk was delighted. So was Mrs T and she was listening and laughing when the desk asked where he was ‘I’m sitting beside Mrs T and having a drink.’ The night news editor told him to ‘f..k off!’ Thatcher heard every word.
“She remembered Ashley the following year when he covered her pre-election three-week tour of Britain and singled him out from the media pack, with a ‘we must have another drink sometime’. The pack were dumbfounded and he did get invited to Number 10 in the weeks following her triumph.”
He also recounts a story that illustrated his formidable gate-crashing skills:
“Banned from a dinner dance in Palm Beach, Florida, Walton sneaked past the Secret Service to watch Diana dancing with John Travolta. There was no spare seat…so Walton crouched at the nearest table pretending to be seated. The ruse worked for some time before the lady next to him pointed out that Ashley was also peering down her formidable cleavage. ‘Do you like them?’ asked Joan Collins. Ashley laughed so much with the other guests round the table that he collapsed on the floor and was carried out and dumped on the lawn by two burly bodyguards.”
A service of thanksgiving will be held at 11am on 10 February at Homewood Road United Reform Church, St Albans, and afterwards in the hall. Ashley leaves a wife Joan, sons Nic and Oliver, and grandsons Max and Luke.
Picture caption: Ashley pictured far left at the Spaghetti House restaurant in London in 2013 with, from left, Alastair McIntyre, the late Bill Reynolds, Ray King, the late Ross Tayne and Tony Boullemier
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
