I was appointed Editor of The Times on January 12, 1967, almost 40 years ago. Most of my closest colleagues of that period have died, including our proprietor, Roy Thomson, his son Kenneth, our chairman, Denis Hamilton, Louis Heren, one of the greatest foreign correspondents, Iverach McDonald, Teddy Hodgkin, Owen Hickey, and Charles Douglas-Home, who became a brilliant Editor in the 1980s. Now we have lost Marmaduke Hussey, the chief executive from 1971 until 1980. I was very lucky to have worked with a group of such able men, all of whom were devoted to the idea of The Times as a great newspaper.

Duke Hussey died only last week. The obituaries took him very seriously, which meant that at least one of them, by Dan van der Vat in The Guardian, was hostile. I thought Dan had got it quite wrong, but in its way his obituary was a compliment, since it showed that Duke had had an impact on events that could raise emotions a generation later. Rupert Murdoch called Duke “a real hero”, which he clearly was.

The life of a hero has never been easy or safe. Duke Hussey had to face three heroic crises in his lifetime. He barely survived the first of them; in 1944, as a young officer, he was machine-gunned on the beach at Anzio when he was only 20 years old. He did survive his very serious wounds, but suffered great pain for the rest of his life, and nearly died on returning to England.

His second crisis was at The Times itself, when he had to face the militant trade union chapels that refused to introduce computer typesetting in the late 1970s. His third crisis was at the BBC, where he was chairman from 1986 to 1996. At The Times he was defeated by the unions; the paper was eventually rescued only by the transfer of printing to Wapping. He won his battle at the BBC, one of very few people to shift the monolithic culture of the corporation.

As Editor, I was obviously involved in The Times’s struggle with the chapels; although I had left the BBC Board of Governors when Duke was appointed chairman, I still knew enough about the corporation to follow what he was doing. At the start, he had to dismiss the incumbent director-general, a necessary but not a popular decision.

For me, the critical stage of the Times dispute started in April 1978. Both Duke and I were spending Easter in Somerset; he came across to our house in Hinton Blewitt to outline his strategy. He did not need to persuade me that the future of Times Newspapers, perhaps its survival, depended on what was then a new computer technology. He invited me to join his management team at a meeting with the trade union leaders to be held in Birmingham on April 13. Harold Evans had also been invited for The Sunday Times; it was unusual for editors to join union negotiations, except when journalists were involved.

This meeting was a false dawn. In fact the leaders of the print unions, many of whom had risen through regional offices, were happy to see the London chapels put under pressure. Duke told them he was prepared to close the newspapers if he did not get an agreement to install computer typesetting. They promised their support in his negotiations. The date for closure, if the negotiations failed, was subsequently set for November 30.

The negotiations did fail. Times Newspapers did close on December 1, 1978. The chapels did refuse to accept computer typesetting. The papers reopened on November 13, 1979, nearly a year later, on unsatisfactory terms. These events led to Duke Hussey being replaced as chief executive, and eventually to the sale of Times Newspapers by the Thomson family.

Seven years later, Duke was appointed BBC Chairman. Some newspapers have suggested that I put his name to Margaret Thatcher — that was not the case. I think the reason that she decided to appoint him was that he had been the outstanding media manager prepared to fight a battle against the union militants. That he had lost that battle, partly because he was undercut by his proprietor, Ken Thomson, was less important to her than his willingness to fight it.

If his struggle at The Times proved a failure — and it was a policy I supported from beginning to end — it had much more positive long-term consequences. It led to the next struggle against the militant chapels, when Times Newspapers moved to Wapping, and that battle was won under Rupert Murdoch. It also taught Duke himself a number of lessons. He was more realistic about his need for support in dealing with the BBC. If he had been let down by the Thomson board, he avoided similar difficulties at the corporation.

Many people think that there is no place for heroes in the modern business world. I am not sure that Duke’s career would encourage most young businessmen to choose him as their role model. I suppose it is part of the hero’s fate to be hung out to dry by his commanders. Perhaps it is better to take one’s bonus and run, as many star managers now seem to do. It is certainly safer.

Yet the world would be a much worse place without heroes. Change comes from struggle. The militant print unions of the 1970s were a threat to the freedom and survival of newspapers. Those newspapers that ducked the issue were neglecting their own real interest. If the proprietors of the 1970s had stood behind Duke, his battle would have been shorter and probably more successful. He tried very hard to save Fleet Street. He did save the BBC.

Duke Hussey was a good man, humorous, kind, warm-hearted, a person of happy nature, a family man. It was, for me, a great pleasure to work with him, particularly in tough times. Courage is a quality that he never wasted. If one was on the same side as Duke, he would not be the one to leave it first.

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