The journalist Felicity Green was acting as a consultant to the Telegraph group when I was appointed editor of the Sunday Telegraph magazine in the mid-1980s. She quickly became a generous mentor and friend, guiding me through the minefield of newspaper politics at the time.
There were a few more women journalists on national titles than in her trailblazing days as a director of the 1960s Mirror, but still not many in senior executive roles. She saw it as her mission to help promote those coming up behind her, and took many young female journalists under her wing.
Witty, stylish, direct and a marketing genius, she was fearless in persuading proprietors and editors with declining circulations of the changes they needed to make, even if they did not understand them.
As well as passing on the now famous tip that if you wanted to win an argument with a more senior male ego, best not to chew their balls off, she gave me a tip on approaching thorny issues: “You need to be a crab, darling, you’ll get much further if you come at things sideways, so people don’t see you coming.”
