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Stuart Higgins – had been standing in for her, but now a merry-go-round of job shifts was about to take place. And so, in January 1994, Kelvin MacKenzie stepped down from his colossally successful tenure at the Sun and became managing editor of BSkyB television, which was also Murdoch-owned but would not suit him anywhere near as well as the Sun. Higgins stepped across to become editor of the Sun, while, at the News Of The World, it was now obvious that Chapman would not be coming back.
    This left a vacancy and so, to the sound of jaws dropping all over Fleet Street, Murdoch promoted twenty- eight-year -old Piers Morgan to the editor’s chair, making him the youngest editor of a national newspaper in over fifty years. Technically, he was ‘acting editor’ (the situation with Patsy Chapman was treated with some sensitivity), but in reality he had managed to nab the top job.
    Piers himself was away at the time and was as staggered – and delighted – as anyone else. Usually, it took decades on Fleet Street to reach the very top and yet there he was, after a mere five years, editing the country’s biggest name.
    ‘I don’t think anything will beat walking on Miami Beach in 1994, age twenty-eight, barefoot in the surf, and getting a call from Rupert Murdoch as he politely informed me I was going to be running the biggest newspaper in the world,’ he admitted afterwards, and, for all the subsequent glories, you would be hard put not to suspect this is a view he holds to this day. At the time, however, he kept things dignified. ‘I am delighted to be given this tremendous opportunity,’ he said. ‘The News Of The World is a national institution and I am eagerly looking forward to the exciting challenge of acting as its editor.’
    But this was not the first time that he had been offered a new job. In 1993, Kelvin MacKenzie had offered him the post of assistant editorship of the Sun, but Piers had turned it down. ‘I just didn’t want to do it then,’ he said later. ‘I wasn’t ready and I thought I contributed more by staying on “Bizarre”.’ But this was different; ‘Bizarre’ itself was also turning into a sort of kingmaker for editors: founderJohn Blake had gone on to become editor of the People, while another ‘Bizarre editor’ (Martin Dunn) ended up in the top chair of Today and, subsequently, the New York Daily News.
    As Piers would later put it, in some ways, ‘Bizarre’ was a newspaper-within-a-newspaper and so good training for the next step. ‘Obviously, Kelvin had helped, but you have to realise I was filling the column five days a week, running it like a mini-newspaper,’ he recalled. ‘I had a staff of four and my own budget. I had been offered promotion as features editor of the Sun, but turned it down, feeling I wasn’t ready yet to be a faceless executive.’
    A telling remark, for Piers was never ready to be a faceless anything.
    The appointment might have caused widespread astonishment, but those who really knew Piers were convinced he was up to the job. ‘Piers is arrogant and ambitious,’ said Rick Sky, his predecessor on ‘Bizarre’ and now a rival columnist at the Daily Mirror. ‘But in our world, that’s no criticism. He’s a good operator and he shouldn’t be underestimated. He will surprise everyone.’
    Piers himself was (uncharacteristically) modest but he knew just the opportunity that now lay ahead. ‘I’ll just do my best,’ he declared, as the news became public. ‘You don’t have to be an expert. When I went to “Bizarre”, I said I knew nothing about pop music. All these years on, I still don’t know anything about pop music but I know how to make the column work for readers.’
    And he would go on to prove that he knew exactlyhow to make the News Of The World work for its readers, too.
    Piers was called upon to hit the ground running, and so he did; he might have felt nervous behind the scenes but he wasn’t about to show it. ‘When you’re the