Shorthand to the Rescue

February 2025 marks the 56th anniversary of Raymond Morris being found guilty of the murder of Christine Darby, whose body was found on Cannock Chase. His seven-day trial at Staffordshire Assizes made headlines in every national newspaper – but their reporters needed the help of a teenage trainee journalist with a flair for shorthand before they could file an accurate report of the judge’s summing up.

The body of seven-year-old Christine Darby was found buried on Cannock Chase in August 1967, just four days after she was lured into a car near her home in Walsall. But it wasn’t until November of the following year that Scotland Yard detectives arrested Morris for the murder.

On 16 November 1968 Morris – who was suspected of the killing of two other young girls – was found guilty of the rape and murder of Christine, although his sentencing was delayed until the New Year, when he was given life imprisonment. He died in 2014.

The Press bench was overflowing when Morris appeared in the dock - and at the end of his trial every newspaper needed an accurate note of Judge Ashworth’s summing up. But the judge spoke at such a passionate pace that none of the veteran hacks could keep up.

So they had little choice but to turn to a young trainee (who had only joined the Cannock Advertiser and Courier the week before) who they had watched in almost total disbelief as she captured every word in immaculate shorthand.

That trainee was Sue Lane (pictured) who before embarking upon her journalistic career had already achieved 150 words a minute in Pitman shorthand. “The court was full of national reporters, who couldn't take accurate notes of the judge's summing-up. They asked me to read back my notes – and I did,” recalled Sue when interviewed by Ian Halstead for bi-monthly magazine InPublishing (www.inpublishing.co.uk).

Sue, who went on to become a highly-respected tutor training hundreds of young journalists over a period of more than 20 years, eventually joined the Sunday Mercury – and married its award-winning chief photographer, the late Ken Green. Both of them eventually became directors of Birmingham Press Club – Sue making history as the first-ever woman to be elected onto the Board.

“After school, I decided – or my mother decided – secretarial college was a good idea, because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't like the tuition though, so I went to the college secretary and asked to leave. She was called Heather Higgins, and asked if I'd considered journalism. She'd been a specialist writer on the Evening Mail, asked if I liked shorthand, and I said it was amazing. She told me to stay on for the year, because passing shorthand would get me into journalism – and she was right.”

Sue started looking for work and wrote to The Sun. “I got a lovely letter back from the news editor, explaining that I needed to be trained as a journalist. He referred me to the Post & Mail's training officer in Birmingham, who suggested I start at Cannock,” she recalls.

In her very first week she was hailed a “newsroom hero” because her editor needed an accurate note of Judge Ashworth's words for his splash just as much as the nationals. But the reality of life working on a local newspaper soon struck home. “The following week, I went back to the basics; listing everyone who'd gone to funerals and weddings, but I was hopeless. I sent wedding forms to dead people, and funeral forms to people getting married, so I was right back at the bottom of the heap.”

Sue completed her own training over the next three years, via an NCTJ block release course at Cardiff, and then moved to her publisher's Colmore Circus head office, and into a job on the Sunday Mercury.

The Mercury’s editor, Freddie Whitehead, was very much of the old school, who knew precisely what he wanted – and precisely what he didn't – but clearly saw his new recruit as deserving of time and attention. “It was a brilliant paper in those days, but I'd been on a local title for three years, and my writing wasn't very good,” said Sue. “The first piece I wrote, Freddie came over and said: 'I've read better on a sauce bottle'.”

“He'd had a tracheotomy, so his words came out sounding even harsher than they look when written, and he threw the copy back at me with all the changes in red pencil – but his version was brilliant because he really could write. All the other female staff on the Mercury used to cry because of what he said about their copy, so everyone was really shocked when I said I was going to try to write the way he did.”

• In 2015, Sue received the NCTJ Chairman’s Award for the quality of journalism training in reporting, media law and current affairs that she provided at Wolverhampton College