Dear Bill

William Deedes is a national institution. Over the course of a career spanning seventy years, ''dear Bill'' has become one of the most respected and admired journalists of the last century. This is his story, told with his characteristic modesty, insight and wit.

Cutting his teeth at the Morning Post, Bill Deedes was sent off to cover the Abyssinian war, thereby gaining him a reputation as a fearless war reporter and also inadvertently providing Evelyn Waugh with the inspiration for Scoop''s hero, Henry Boot. Kept on after the Telegraph merger, Bill rose through the ranks until he was called into politics, taking his place as a member of Harold Macmillan''s Cabinet. Soon however the Telegraph called again and made him editor - a position he held for several years. Today he continues to write for the Telegraph as well as work tirelessly for charity.

Now updated and revised, including recent photographs, Dear Bill is an extraordinary memoir which provides a unique and idiosyncratic perspective on matters political and social, British and global, for the greater part of the twentieth century and beyond.