A man for all seasons

Patsy McGarry meets Otto Herschan, wartime refugee and former theatre manager, on the 50th anniversary of his career in Catholic publishing

His father died under the Nazis while a great-uncle was driver to Adolf Hitler. He was exiled with his mother from his native Vienna to England, where they lived with an "aunt". Educated by the Benedictines, he first studied accountancy, then entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He became a theatre manager, after which, 50 years ago last November, he joined the world of Catholic publishing.

Otto Herschan drops the names of international Catholic churchmen with breathtaking if unconscious familiarity. He once told Archbishop John Charles McQuaid he disagreed with him and was told by the archbishop he was glad of that. He has married two Irishwomen, and he immigrated to this country in 2000. It would be impossible for Herschan to be dull company.

He was born in Vienna in 1927 to Otto and Frieda Herschan. It was her uncle Karl who drove the penultimate emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Franz Josef, as well as Hitler. Otto Sr had been a lieutenant colonel in the Austro-Hungarian army, awarded the Iron Cross for services in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the first World War. He also suffered a shrapnel injury in his cheeks, which left permanent dimple-type wounds. After that war and the Treaty of Versailles, which dismantled the empire, Otto Sr retired from the army and lived on his pension and a franchise on a state lottery.

Herschan remembers being forced to attend a speech the führer delivered at the Imperial Palace in Vienna in 1938. "He was the same sort of rabble-rouser as Paisley. The two are so alike it is untrue," he says. Herschan was also a member of Hitler Youth, there being no choice; he remembers being told at school to report on goings-on at home. "The whole political, religious, moral atmosphere was wrong," he says. He had no idea he was going to England. He wasn't told. But in November 1938 he and his mother left to visit a supposed sick aunt, Mrs Whiteside, in Upminster, east of London. She was a woman who had agreed to help the family.

Neither he nor his mother would see Otto Sr again. He stayed on in Vienna, refusing to join the army. He played cards with Nazi generals, however, as they were the only good players around. He was eventually arrested and sent to Theresienstadt, an SS-run ghetto in Czechoslovakia where conditions were like those of a concentration camp. He died there of typhus 18 months later, just after the second World War ended in 1945. Herschan visited in 1979; it was a hot August day, but he remembers shivering. He recalls meeting Cardinal Beran of Prague, "who had also enjoyed \ hospitality before being moved to Dachau. He told me neither ranked as luxury hotels".

After a brief period at a Salesian Fathers school in England, in the summer of 1939 he was sent to the Benedictines at Belmont Abbey in Hereford, a place he still loves and visits regularly. It became his "cornerstone" for six years, as his mother moved from Bournemouth - no foreigners were allowed to live near the sea, in case they signalled enemy ships - to Leamington and, then, London.

In 1945, after he finished school, he studied accountancy in London for about a year before his brief period at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, after which he turned to stage management. He became manager of the Embassy Theatre in Hampstead, putting on plays by William Douglas-Home, brother of the future prime minister Sir Alec.

Actors to work there included Peter Ustinov, Robert Shaw and Donald Pleasence - as well as Benny Hill, to whom Herschan gave his first London engagement. It was still a long way from publishing newspapers. That happened through Mary Dowling of Carbury, in Co Kildare. She was a nurse at New End Hospital in Hampstead when Herschan visited as an outpatient to have a mouth infection looked at. She was 14 years his senior and a practising Catholic. Her parish was St Mary's in Hampstead; like just about every parish then, it had financial problems. Having fixed Herschan up, she helped persuade him to organise a dance and cabaret in aid of the parish, using his theatrical connections.

The evening was such a success - the comedian Frankie Howerd was among the performers - that it impressed many, not least Vernon Miles, a parishioner and the owner of the Catholic Herald. He invited Herschan to dinner. "I'd like you to take over," he said. "But I know nothing about newspapers," replied Herschan, little realising he had just pronounced his major qualification. "Perfect," retorted the wise Miles, and Herschan began as general manager on November 23rd, 1953. He was soon managing director, a post he held until he retired, in 1999.

He was also soon involved with Scotland's Catholic Observer, part of the Herald stable. The Herald at the time was, he recalls, seen as an English Catholic paper. It was also anti-Irish. Having witnessed up to 10,000 Irish people attend Mass at Quex Road church, in Kilburn, he became aware of a potential readership - and through regular visits to Ireland with Mary (whom he married in 1953) he was familiar with Irish subjects. He began to address them in the Herald. Soon the mainstream press was doing so too.

He also negotiated a buyout of the Catholic Standard but was desperately seeking an editor. He had become aware of John Feeney, who was already making a name for himself in Dublin. He appointed Feeney editor and decided to break the news personally to McQuaid, about whom Feeney had made a controversial programme. "I will pray for you," responded the archbishop, continuing: "I am perfectly serious. I will pray for you. Either he will be brilliant or a disaster." He was a disaster. Within six months Feeney was sacked. "I don't know how you put up with me so long," he told Herschan.

Otto had his eye on the Irish Catholic for a while and knew Bill Horgan, who became chairman in 1982. In 1982 also, Herschan was appointed managing director of the paper.

He believes Catholic papers must be independent of the Church "but also of other people", which is why he believes they must make profits rather than depend on subsidies. It ensures editorial independence. He also believes it is probably easier for specialised publications such as Catholic newspapers to survive than it is for the mainstream press. They are more intimate, publish to a known market and don't have as many strands to cover. He believes it "very important not to ride fences. The reader wants to know, needs to strongly identify with it".

Mary died in 1984. They had two sons, Patrick, a solicitor, and James, whom they fostered. In 1987 Herschan remarried. His partner this time is Marie, also from Carbury, an old friend of his and Mary's.

Four years ago he retired from the Catholic Herald, the Catholic Standard and the Scottish Catholic Observer, remaining on at the Irish Catholic part time - "just Monday to Friday". He has a 2 per cent share in the paper; the other 98 per cent is split between Horgan and Patrick McGrath. In 2000 he moved here permanently, having "always had a tremendous feeling for Ireland".

A reception in Dublin last November to mark his 50 years in Catholic publishing was attended by Cardinal Connell; the Coadjutor Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin; and the nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto; there was also "a long, warm letter" from Cardinal Daly, with apologies from Cardinal O'Brien of Glasgow and Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster.

But to that story of when Archbishop McQuaid was happy with their disagreeing. At the time there was a controversy about a modern crib at Dublin Airport. McQuaid hated it and said so. "I disagree," said Herschan. "I am glad," said the archbishop. "I am glad you disagree. Everyone else agrees with whatever I say." Suggesting that, when it comes to bishops, it can be agreeable to disagree.