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‘Something to be proud of’ To mark the Pic’s 60th birthday, we explore its origins – and discover how it is still going strong today. By Simon Hart As the Catholic Pic’s snapper, to use newspaper parlance, for more than three decades, Tom Murphy photographed some of the most highprofile figures of the late 20th century – from Pope John Paul II to Princess Diana to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Yet, as he ponders the enduring significance of the Pic on its 60th birthday, he summons the memory of a less glamorous but deeply moving assignment. It was a visit to a 16-year-old girl, terminally ill with cancer yet chosen to feature in the Pic to shine a light on her fundraising activities. ‘She was a terrific fundraiser for Cancer Relief and had raised a whole lot of money,’ recalls Tom. ‘She had a growth on her face, though, and didn’t want to be photographed. I said, “If you trust me, take your bandage off and I’ll photograph you like a model”, and she did and I did. The growth on her face 4
Catholic Pictorial
was hidden by her leaning on her hand. ‘I got a letter three or four months later from her mum to say she had died but what I’d done made her so happy,’ adds Tom. ‘After that I came home and I sat down on the settee and cried.’ As we look back on the Pic’s contribution to life in the Archdiocese, 60 years after its founding, this is a tale told to underline what Tom and others who have worked for the publication consider both its central purpose – and its appeal. ‘For a journalist, good news isn’t news, but good news was the news that the Pic thrived on to boost people,’ he explains. ‘It was rarely bad news in the Pic – it was people doing things for others who were in even worse circumstances and my job was to keep that in the public awareness.’ The business of providing news for the Archdiocese of Liverpool began with the inaugural issue on 7 January 1962. It featured on its cover the then Archbishop of Liverpool, John Carmel
‘Subsequent milestone events included the 1980 National Pastoral Congress when delegates converged on Liverpool from across England and Wales’
Heenan, being greeted by a young boy on his visit to bless the offices of the new publication. The price on the cover was 6d and there was the promise of ‘27 packed pages of local news’, including a message from Pope John XXIII. This was five days after building operations had begun on the Metropolitan Cathedral (which would open five years later). Inside there was news that the number of Catholics in the diocese was now over half a million. Alongside the news stories was an interview with Tommy Steele, appearing in Humpty Dumpty at the Liverpool Empire. There was a Junior Pic section and three pages of sport. Among the ads, the new Hillman Super Minx was on sale at the Airport Garage on Speke Hall Road for the price of £727. Sixty years ago, Harold Macmillan was prime minister and Queen Elizabeth II was approaching the 10th anniversary of her accession to the throne. The Cuban Missile Crisis was 10 months away and so too, coincidentally, was the Second Vatican Council. It would not conclude until 1965. For the Pic’s first three years, Mass was still universally said in Latin. ‘A new friend’ The Pic’s first editor was Norman Cresswell who wrote in his maiden editorial: ‘We intend that the majority of people will recognise a new friend in the Catholic Pictorial.’ The 31-yearold Cathedral Record had been
