To break into Fleet Street’s national newspapers, the top tier of journalism, by the age of 21, without nepotism, patronage or a web of personal contacts, was remarkable in the 1940s, and it was downright astonishing for the upstart to be female. But Drusilla Beyfus, who has died aged 98, made it on to the Daily Express in 1948, game for anything, such as charming her way on to an RAF plane airlifting coal to the Soviet-blockaded city of Berlin. She landed smudged but triumphant.
She had been in print since 17, and remained in it almost to her death. That foreign assignment was a 40s “plucky girl reporter” stunt, but Beyfus’s jobs became both more domestic and more glamorous after, tracking women’s roles in newspapers and magazines.
