I admit that I’m not big on protocol when it comes to honours. I generally avoid using titles such as sir, lady, baron and baroness and so on.
It wasn’t always the case. As a novice sub on my first national title (Daily Mail, circa 1967) I received a sharp lecture from my chief sub about the need to get such things correct. So I read the style book and obeyed it.
I was luckier than my peers who toiled at the Daily Telegraph under the punctilious eye of the legendarily grumpy managing editor, Peter Eastwood. He was unforgiving of any such errors.
But Eastwood departed long ago and matters appear to have deteriorated at his former paper. In Monday’s issue, for instance, a story about Sir Tom Jones referred to his late wife as Lady Linda. Wrong. As the late Duchess of Devonshire would have said: “There is no such person.”
To quote the Telegraph’s own style book, the wives of knights (and baronets) are styled “Lady” before a surname, never with their forename.
The only people granted the designation “Lady” with a forename are the daughters of dukes, marquesses and earls.
I see that the Times, in its story about Sir Tom, properly referred to his wife as Lady Woodward.
It isn’t the first time I’ve spotted the Telegraph failing to stick to its style book. I can only imagine what Eastwood - and, of course, Her Grace - would have said.
