Jack Hartzman

My first acquaintance with Jack was as a disapproving but disembodied bark directed towards an unseen object or person and resounding across the low partition from Nordesk to Westaf in 1962. It was quite scary to a new trainee, especially when told that “Hartzman has a bite too.” As I learned over the years, he did indeed, but it was usually well-directed at excising some infelicity from a body of copy, or at some inanity handed down from on high. Out at the end of the printer line in Cold War Moscow, it was always reassuring to hear that “Jack’s on tonight.” Missing the chance of getting to know such an unforgettable character better was one of the downsides of spending so many years away from London. ■