Michael Foot - A Headline

After my piece on Michael Foot's death Paddy Smith, a connoisseur of newspaper headlines, reminded me of the famous Michael Foot headline which appeared in the Times - Foot heads arms body.

By coincidence Simon Hoggart in yesterday's Guardian mentioned the headline quoting the sub-editor responsible who had to handle a story about Michael Foot being put in charge of a committee to look at nuclear disarmament.

I certainly wasn't going to get 'nuclear' or 'disarmament' or 'committee' to fit, so after a struggle I decided on 'Foot chairs arms body', then thought 'Foot heads arms body' would at least give a laugh to the revise sub. To my astonishment, the headline was printed, and a legend was born…