the new editor was a veteran of the second world war, during which he had escaped from an italian prisoner of war camp and worked on a camp newspaper, called "marking time", with a past editor of the paper desmond young. burly and imposing, eldridge was a newspaperman to his fingertips and his energetic and, at times, idiosyncratic editorship saw the paper's circulation grow to a point where it was no longer under threat of having to surrender to its competitors.