Harold ("Harry") Evans was the thirteenth Editor of The Times, if you use creative editorial accountancy for the inchoate years. He was also the editor who sat for the shortest time in the chair. He was sacked in scenes of uproar and confusion. Yet his influence on the Old Lady of Blackfriars (then the Gray's Inn Road, now Wapping) has been more profound and has lasted longer than that of most editors.

He tells a classic Dick Whittington story: from working-class beginnings to the most powerful positions in the inky trades in the United Kingdom and the United States. Like Louis Heren, who nearly made it to the chair before him, he exaggerates the poverty of his working-class credentials. His father was a driver of steam engines, a position of responsibility and glamour. His mother started a corner shop selling ice cream and groceries in Eccles, on the outskirt of Manchester. Evans failed the 11-plus but he was a likely lad, with a passion to be a journalist. And by determination and hard work (and talent) he climbed the slippery spike.

For his first job at the Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter, Evans, aged 16, cycled 14 miles to work every day. At the Manchester Evening News and The Manchester Guardian he joined an eyrie of eaglets. There was Norman Shrapnel, who pioneered the parliamentary sketch, and taught me the satirical trade. When offered the post, Shrapnel said that he was not interested in politics, but would take the job if he was allowed to treat Parliament as a theatre critic. And there was Michael Frayn, who encapsulated Evans's training as a sub-editor in Towards the End of the Morning, still the most accurate novel about journalism yet written. Old hack to young climber who will soon shaft him, words to the effect: "I'll teach you how to sub, dear boy. Nothing to it. Just check all facts and spellings. Cut the first and last sentences, and any adjectives. And remove all attempts at jokes." Evans became a "tight" sub, ie, he could compress the "story" into the fewest words without losing meaning or style. This shows in his memoirs.

As a reporter, and later a marshal of reporters, he quotes Thucydides twice on the need for first-hand sources and constant checking of facts. This Classical touch is touching from the boy who elected to go to Durham University because it did not require Latin for entry. As Editor of the The Northern Echo, he made his name for shoe-leather reporting and campaigning (against Geordie smog and other issues).

From there the cheeky northerner was chosen as an outsider to edit The Sunday Times, the Porsche of Fleet Street. And there he became Private Eye's "Dame Harry Evans" and the greatest living journalist for his passionate campaigns (Thalidomide, Northern Ireland before it exploded, Pakistan). His Insight team became the envy of journalism for its lengthy (costly) investigations, and its breathless style: "Friday: 2am ... " Backwards run sentences until reels the mind.

So what went wrong when Evans joined The Times? He says that he could not take constant editorial interference by management ordering him to support Margaret Thatcher. Down in the engine room, there were other theories. Evans was tactless to arrive with such a dim view of the "moribund" old organ. He inherited good writers across the road, such as Bernard Levin, Owen Hickey and Byron Rogers. He has a chip on his shoulder. Not all Etonians are rich snobs. Charlie Douglas-Home, who replaced him, was a King's Scholar, a poor boy educated free by the bounty of Henry VI. His father, Henry, had squandered all the family money. Not all his "Old Guard" were resistant to change or resented him. We welcomed him as a breath of fresh air.

One theory on the lower decks for Evans's failure was extravagance: he removed good hacks, such as Marcel Berlins, to replace them with more expensive ones. Another was his constant meddling with details. Towards deadline on a busy night it was strange to find the Editor showing off that he could sub university results. He writes: "A newspaper is an argument on the way to a deadline." There is more time on a weekly for argument than when riding the torrent of a daily. And on The Sunday Times, he was surrounded by Space Warlords who were not too polite to say "No, Harry!"

I would hesitate to sub such a brilliant journo. But (with respect) I would replace "atop" with "on top of"; "Edwin" Mortimer is Edward; perhaps "dispositive" is a posh word from Evans's reincarnation as an American publisher. But, take him for all in all, he was a great journalist. We shall not look upon his like again.

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