Telstar, Reuters chiefs and a commemorative flight of pigeons

In the world of pop music, Friday 5 October 1962 marked a first. On that day The Beatles’ first single Love Me Do was released in Britain. The record was a modest hit and by the following Friday had reached number 17, its highest position in the singles chart.

What kept The Beatles well away from the top of the charts in both Britain and the United States was a record celebrating a new communications satellite. The instrumental novelty tune was heard everywhere and hummed by everyone. For Reuters, itself celebrating two firsts of its own, this could not have happened at a more perfect time.

The record was Telstar by The Tornados. For Reuters, the first that occurred on Friday 19 October 1962 was the first occasion when the board of directors met outside the United Kingdom - in Aachen, West Germany. All directors were there including Roy Thomson, who two years later would be ennobled as the first Baron Thomson of Fleet. His grandson, David Thomson, is the third baron and Thomson Reuters’ current chairman.

The meeting in Aachen honoured the company’s earliest beginnings. It was prompted by the recent discovery that the old inn from where Paul Julius Reuter had begun his pigeon service in 1850 was still intact, having survived two world wars and the hazards of city reconstruction.

Over two days, the event focused on the inn (photo) at 117 Pontstrasse in the old quarter of the city. In 1962 it was a modest beer house as it had been 112 years earlier when Reuter signed a contract with Heinrich Geller, pigeon-fancier and innkeeper, for the supply of “40 well-trained birds suitable for the establishment of a pigeon-carrying service between Aachen and Brussels”.

Following a board meeting in a fine 18th century house, directors and their guests proceeded to a festive, flower-bedecked 117 Pontstrasse for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque, pictured right, affixed to the wall. A huge crowd had gathered, comprising dignitaries, diplomats, about 150 editors, publishers and other leading figures of European journalism as well as  hundreds of local people who had come to cheer the memory of a distinguished fellow-townsman from another era. The chairman recalled Reuter’s early days in Aachen and then invited the Oberburgermeister (mayor) of Aachen to unveil the plaque. This was the signal for the simultaneous release of 1,000 pigeons, some homing to London, some to Brussels.

The two-day gathering had kicked-off the previous day with another first. Reuters celebrated its century of progress from pigeons to satellites with a telephone conversation transmitted via Telstar, then orbiting over the Atlantic for the 914th time. Excitedly, Oberburgermeister Heusch and Doon Campbell, Reuters news manager, talked directly to New York in a call to Turner Catledge, managing editor of The New York Times.

The Tornados recorded other tunes but could not match Telstar’s chart success. The Beatles went on to achieve worldwide fame. And 117 (now 119) Pontstrasse became a restaurant named Reuters House. ■