The Bootle Boy: an untidy life in news

by Les Hinton

A brilliantly evocative memoir from the golden age of newspaper publishing, from a man who helped define our modern media.

When Les Hinton first fulfils his schoolboy dream of working on Fleet Street, it is still a place awash in warm beer, black ink, fag ash, and hot metal. Fifty-two years after being sent out to buy a sandwich for his first boss, one Rupert Murdoch, when Les finally leaves Murdoch’s employment in 2011, the business of news has been turned upside down, in a tumble of social and technological change.

Les Hinton has been present at and noiselessly directed several key scenes in that tale of revolutionary transformation, as employee and later head of Murdoch companies in newspapers, magazines, and television, on three continents over five decades, in Wapping and Wall Street, Australia and California.

Born amid the rubble of the blitzed docklands of Bootle, and schooled by an itinerant Army childhood, he came to the centre from the periphery, just as Murdoch did. There, with a gang of like-minded outsiders, he set about redrawing the map of the media.

Hinton depicts the upheavals that swept his trade with the same widescreen perspective and sharp colours he deploys to show us how politicians from Clinton to Blair, from Brown to Cameron, alternately canoodled and raged inside their arranged media marriages. We see the death of Diana, the IRA bombings, the charisma of Bill Clinton, and the phone-hacking scandal from a revelatory new angle. And we get the most undeluded and undiluted portrait yet of the man who is perhaps the last of the great press barons.

Above all, emerging out of Hinton's scintillating stories of half a century of Murdoch and news revolutions, comes the voice of a wandering Liverpudlian who is still in love with the life of a newspaperman, and now the author of one of the defining media memoirs of our age.

Genres: Nonfiction

464 pages, Hardcover

Published May 24, 2018

About the author

Les Hinton was born in Bootle, Merseyside, England. He is the son of a wandering British Army sergeant and grew up in Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Germany, Singapore, and Australia.
In Adelaide, Australia, he took his first job as a 15-year-old copy boy with a newspaper owned by a young Rupert Murdoch. As Murdoch’s empire grew, he worked for him as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor, and then as one of his most senior executives, managing newspapers, magazines, and TV stations. Les published a memoir, The Bootle Boy, in 2018, and his debut novel, Dying Days, will be published in November 2025.

Reviews

[Harry Buckle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 'Fleet Street' cover photograph of Bootle Boy was taken from the bottom of Fetter Lane, just about outside 185 Fleet Street...still now the London offices of Scots newspaper company DC Thomson. Thanks to an introduction from 'James Bond author ' Ian Fleming, I started working for DCT (also the publishers of the Beano ) the same week that Bootle Boy Les arrived back in the UK from Australia and started work just around the corner. Although our career paths diverged- me into owning a music company that worked rather well, and of course Les to the exalted heights of the world of mostly Murdoch newsprint- the worlds of the 'music business' and the 'markets for news' were similar both geographically and in their need for popular and instant reaction to trends, fads, styles and content. I can recommend Bootle Boy for it's humour, sometimes searing accuracy, and above all as an insiders perspective on media events that have shaped the world we live in.
I often mused when sitting in a recording studio - putting some off the wall idea onto tape and then selling it on disc and radio, that 'the day job' was quite bizarre. As a month later you'd hear or see the results in all corners of the world. To some extent that was also the case with newspapers and magazines, although perhaps, with language variations, they were a tad less global. Now that news and feature content has really gone instantly global, perhaps there are copyright control, distribution and usage issues arising, where the news folks, could learn from the longer term experiences of the world of music.
I hope there are new Les Hinton's coming through the media system to ensure a future where accuracy, fact and reality become the norm. Right now- I think we need Les to 'get back to work' and save us from fakery and the fakirs. Read this book...the word unique is used too much...but Hinton's remarkable career path was unique...and his actions - and of course those of his employer... have affected us all. Best book I have read this decade.

[Peter Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

What do you expect from an autobiography/ memoir penned by a journalist who rose to become one of Rupert Murdock’s key senior executives ? Do you expect insights more into the world of journalism, the evolution of media during his 52 yrs. in the profession, an insight into the inner workings and machinations of the Murdock empire, or solely an autobiographical work with aspects of his own life that the author seeks to share ? The answer to those questions is likely how you first became aware of the work and whey you decided to read it.

The journalistic story telling talent of the author is parent from the outset, providing the reader with a style of writing that is engaging and easily accessible as you are allowed into components of the authors heritage and personal history across his circa 65 years to the completion of the work. This level of history is pitched in the majority at the right level to allow the reader to understand the journey, whilst also forming images in their own mind of the physical and social environments through which the time travels. It is not over wrought, it does not go into descriptions, for examples of smoky, wood panelled English pubs, seek to assess or judge others mindsets or become engrossed in a deep level of author self-assessment, justification or analysis.

Some readers may find then that the story is perhaps somewhat superficial, that a greater level of detail is required to get to understand the author or those around him. Some may also believe that further detail of those around him would be of value to fill-out the entire picture. I can understand that. What I perceived however was that in cases where the author said less, what was said was brevity itself, allowing the reader to understand his true position and thought without his need to spell it out. For example, “left the UK forever” spoke volumes without the need to say in further detail why and at whose hand.

There is one section of the work however that I did find somewhat overwrought, and that was the concluding parts. It seemed to this reader that whilst the author obviously had a lot more to say, that his personal pain and distraught feelings did not allow him to deliver that section with the succinctness that permeates the rest of the book.

Any autobiographical/ memoir will of course present the authors opinions and experiences. I cant help believe however that a few more “column inches” would have added immense value to some sections of the work, and indeed a few expansive wordings would have added the same along with gravitas to the closing sections.

[Scribe Publications]

Les Hinton’s story is about the glory and the tragedy of the newspaper business. He knows all the secrets of this tale and few are more clear-eyed than him when they tell it.
Michael Wolff, Author of Fire and Fury

Brilliant … a remarkable book.
Weekend Australian

An epic story … and a penetrating insight into the mind of Murdoch.
Daily Mail

It vividly captures the rise and fall of the press over 60 years … [no] acolyte’s paean.
Ian Burrell

[A] must-read for anyone with even a fleeting interest in the media.
Noreen Barr, Press Association

A terrific memoir by one of the all-time great newspapermen. Highly recommend if you want to know what it takes to be a journalist.
Piers Morgan

Hinton evokes delicious memories of the analog age of newspapers, describing the smells and sounds of chutes, linotypes, molten lead stereo casting machines and presses roaring amid mists of paper fluff.
Weekend Australian

A rollicking good tale of his extraordinary life ... an utterly charming autobiography.
William Shawcross

Les Hinton’s The Bootle Boy: An Untidy Life in News, is an ode to journalism and the amazing, eyeopening, exciting and gratifying life it offers.
The Australian

His narrative of growing up in Bootle, in Liverpool, and many other places around the world then moving into journalism is inspirational for any wanting to follow that path.
Steve Howard, Manly Daily

The yarns are delivered with a classic journalist’s eye for the telling physical detail, an ear for the revealing quote and a knack for sequencing facts.
David Cohen, Sunday Star Times/b>

The stories are all told from the front row.
Well-Red Bear, Roy Christopher

[Scribe Publications]

Les Hinton’s story is about the glory and the tragedy of the newspaper business. He knows all the secrets of this tale and few are more clear-eyed than him when they tell it.
Michael Wolf, Author of Fire and Fury

Les Hinton tells the story of his remarkable life in a remarkable book.
Weekend Australia

Hinton evokes delicious memories of the analog age of newspapers, describing the smells and sounds of chutes, linotypes, molten lead stereo casting machines and presses roaring amid mists of paper fluff.
Weekend Australian

A rollicking good tale of his extraordinary life ... an utterly charming autobiography.
William Shawcross

Les Hinton’s The Bootle Boy: An Untidy Life in News, is an ode to journalism and the amazing, eyeopening, exciting and gratifying life it offers.
The Australian

His narrative of growing up in Bootle, in Liverpool, and many other places around the world then moving into journalism is inspirational for any wanting to follow that path.
Steve Howard, Manly Daily

The yarns are delivered with a classic journalist’s eye for the telling physical detail, an ear for the revealing quote and a knack for sequencing facts.
David Cohen, Sunday Star Times/b>

The stories are all told from the front row.
Well-Red Bear, Roy Christopher

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a great story that ticked the boxes for so many of my interests. In some ways, Les Hinton's early newspaper history mirrors my own, but he of course started and remained with News international and in that regard the book is as much about Rupert Murdoch and his leadership style as it is about Les Hinton. His insider stories of the relationship of senior Murdoch editors with Prime Ministers and senior politicians, as well as the rich and famous from all walks of life is fascinating. The last part of the book deals with the phone tapping drama that resulted in the closing of the News of the World. Les Hinton's defence of plausible and persuasive. Not just on this issue, but on many others I think that Les Hinton still has a lot to tell us and I hope that he follows up with another volume. This one for me richly deserves a 5 out of five.

[Harry Turnbull · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to think the most significant thing to come out of Bootle in Liverpool was the A59 trunk road. Although to be fair Keith Chegwin runs it a close second.
As a newsman for many years I had heard of Rupert Murdoch's right-hand henchman Les Hinton but never knew he was from the humble LIverpool dockside community of L20.
The place lies close to my heart as I was the local paper's man in North Liverpool during the tormented years of strife punctuated by dock strikes, the James Bulger murder and Hillsborough.It was often referred to as the hottest news patch in Britain and it provided endless fun until the violence and death threats became so prevalent I was pulled out by the editor.
Although Hinton was born in Bootle and it remains close to his heart he moved early to Australia and spent years globetrotting after Murdoch, running newspapers and even TV companies.This book is a rollicking read, cataloguing his rise alongside that of the most powerful media baron of the modern age over five decades.
Hinton cut his teeth at the paper in Adelaide when he was just 15 and when Murdoch first started rising to prominence.
Although Hinton became a powerful media executive earning millions of dollars he remained a newsman at heart - especially when his next door neighbour was caught up in a double murder. O.J. Simpson was a frequent visitor to his garden pouring out his troubles.Later on after decades had rolled by, Hinton returned to the UK to head News International's stable of papers, It was a job he loved - until being engulfed in the phone hacking scandal.
Although clearly a Murdoch hatchetman and moving in the highest circles, he retains a strange love for Bootle and still returns for a quiet pint by himself in local pubs.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was quite taken by the title, but Les was born that is all. His early life was quite interesting, but I found once he started working for Rupert Murdoch his life was taken over. I more apt title would of been Rupert and me. He had 5 children but his wife and them barely rate a mention. One minute he had two children, then he had 5 children and was getting a divorce. Written well enough just a shame his whole existence was usurped by Rupert Murdoch as I feel there was more to him than his work