One for the road

I first went to Fleet Street 40 years ago. Every night the stretch of road from Ludgate Circus to the Royal Courts of Justice (or, as journalists see it, from the Old Bell to the George) roared and pulsated with giant print factories spewing out papers by the million. More importantly to some, the place also rattled with with the chatter of journalists getting drunk.

Next Monday is the 300th anniversary of the first newspaper to be printed there. The original Fleet Street paper was the Daily Courant, a title which staggered on from 1702 to 1735, sustained mostly by political bribes until it was merged into the Daily Gazetteer.

I was rather surprised to read in a Fleet Street memoir of 1900 by one H Simonis that "you will find no more sober class today than newspaper men". He also noted that "no man would have ventured into Fleet Street unless dressed in a frock coat and silk hat" and that "it was an unheard of thing for a member of the editorial staff of The Times to be seen talking to any member of the commercial department".

The veteran political columnist Alan Watkins doesn't remember it like that. He recalls his working routine in what he calls the "silver age" of Fleet Street from 1955 to 1985 with affectionate nostalgia - "having a convivial Fleet Street lunch first at El Vino's, then at Shortlands salt-beef bar and finally at Mooney's Irish pub", before deigning to hand in his copy.

Noel Whitcomb, an old Mirror hand, talks fondly of three-bottle lunches with "Olympic-standard drinkers" and an annual Christmas party that was "something of a Roman orgy". Others tell of fights close to death, usually involving sports writers. Watkins says: "Fleet Street was a centre for borrowing and lending money, usually in the form of a £5 or £10 note".

The 300th birthday will be marked by a London Press Club exhibition - featuring, among much else, two surviving copies of the Daily Courant - and a service at St Bride's, the Fleet Street church, attended by 45 present and former national newspaper editors. The speakers will include the Prince of Wales, Lord Deedes and Rupert Murdoch. Some might view Murdoch's involvement as ironic, since it was he who led the exodus of newspapers from Fleet Street.

Murdoch's departure led to the newspapers being "pushed out into inhospitable and often uninhabited regions of London by insensitive and grasping owners and managers, according to Alan Watkins. The street is now mostly given over to sandwich and coffee bars serving workers from banks, building societies and mobile-telephone shops.

No newspapers are produced there any more. The great buildings occupied by the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express (dubbed "the black Lubyanka" after the KGB prison in Moscow) belong to Goldman Sachs, which has preserved and refurbished the great entrance halls in their full kitsch splendour. Hilton House, once the hub of a great magazine empire, now contains solicitors.

Reuters retains its headquarters at 85 Fleet Street, but the only other news-related office is that of the Scottish publisher, DC Thomson-whose building next to Hen and Chicken Court still proclaims a huge sign reading Dundee Courier and Evening Telegraph, People's Friend and People's Journal (all still going save the last). El Vino is still there, mostly serving lawyers, along with the Wig and Pen, the Old Cock Tavern and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

The first printer to set up in Fleet Street - actually in St Bride's - was the aptly named Wynkyn De Worde, an apprentice of William Caxton, who went there in 1500 to be close to the law courts. He put in the first printing press with movable type. Later John Milton had a house in the churchyard, Samuel Pepys was baptised there, and Dr Johnson's house is still standing across the road in Gough Square.

Through the centuries, however, Fleet Street, named after a sewer known as the Fleet Ditch, had an unsavoury reputation for violent crime. The City chronicles tell of numerous murders and riots. Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, was fined two shillings for beating up a Franciscan friar there. It was also used for public entertainments: in 1768, a 7ft 4in giant was exhibited there, as was a woman said to weigh more than 31st.

As a route to St Paul's Cathedral, however, Fleet Street also had its great ceremonial days. From Richard II onwards, monarchs have paraded there, including Queen Elizabeth when she went to give thanks for beating the Spanish Armada. It was also a path of contrition for the penitent - which Prince Charles might like to point out to the assembled editors.

The London Press Club exhibition is at St Bride's Institute, Bride Lane, EC4, 10am to 5pm, 12-22 March. Admission is free.