I'm spending the day at the National Archives in Kew and then the Newspaper Library in Colindale because I'm researching a feature on Duncan Webb, dubbed "the greatest crime reporter in the world" in the 1950s.
Webb was famous in his own lunchtime for numerous stories, most notably one about prostitution rackets in Soho run by a Maltese family, the Messinas. His paper, The People, carried the unbeatable headline: "Arrest these four men". (The People of that era, edited by Sam Campbell, was a broadsheet that published a mixture of investigative stories and sensational first-person serials).
Webb, whose real first name was Tommy, was one of those Fleet Street reporters who deserved to be called "a character". But he was a man of mystery too, and there appear to be good reasons for that. That's why I'm writing about him 50 years after his death, aged just 41.
If anyone knows anything about him, please post here or email me.
