Sir, – In her entertaining article “Small earthquake off Mayo coast moves our world” (Opinion, June 11th) Ann Marie Hourihane speculates that Claud Cockburn “made up” the famous headline, “Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead”. It was not made up, at least according to Cockburn himself.
In his autobiography A Time of Trouble he described how the sub editors on the London Times in the 1930s invented a competition with a small prize to see who could write the dullest headline. “It had to be a genuine headline, that is to say one which was printed in the next morning’s newspaper.” He stated, “I won it only once, with a headline which announced ‘Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead’.” – Yours, etc,