Day in the Life – Terry Prone, businesswoman

The Autumn breakout book is Caution to the Wind, the story of a woman who has been a household name since the sixties.

Terry Prone got her break on a TV show at thirteen. The reputation she earned as a fearless teenage panellist willing to take on anybody led to her becoming a regular on Gay Byrne’s Late, Late show.

At fifteen, she lied about her age to get into the Abbey Theatre School of Acting, became an actor with the Abbey and starred in a West End production. Later, as Ireland’s Outstanding Teenager, she was interviewed by Barbara Walters on US television.

Now, she’s written her memoir of her life as one of the most successful businesswomen in Ireland from the 1970s, training people from Canada to Cambodia in communications while publishing thirty books, thousands of newspaper columns, editing magazines, producing radio programmes, presenting TV shows – and advising several Taoisigh and Government Ministers.

Tom & Terry's Wedding day on April 3, 1975

At the heart of the book is the love story that forced Terry to throw caution to the wind, because she fell in love with Tom Savage. Father Tom Savage. All hell broke loose. He was fired. She was fired. They weren’t allowed to marry.

The two of them fought back. Tom became the first producer of RTE’s Morning Ireland and Terry became the first scriptwriter for the Gay Byrne Hour. They set up a business helping captains of industry and politicians become better communicators.

Here is a look into Terry’s world…

Terry, why write your memoirs?

I suppose I wrote the book the same way I wrote the other 30 books that I published. I just wrote it because I wanted to write it and I wanted to particularly introduce how brilliant Tom was to people.

It's only afterwards when the marketing people ask who this book is aimed at and who must buy this book? I really want people to say ‘I am buying this for my daughter or my son because I want them to be in business, like this woman was for 50 years at the top in business and yet she wasn’t much at school. Even though she was a drop out, it’s possible to succeed without the obvious credentials.’

I want younger people to buy the book for their mother and their grandmother and to say ‘you knew this woman when she was a teenager on television and when she was involved in scandal.’

Really, I just want people to have fun as it isn’t a serious book.

The title is great ‘Caution to the Wind’ and there's a funny story in what inspired it. 

Jonathan Williams is my agent, and he didn’t like the original title I had. He came up with a couple of titles and I didn’t like them either!

One day I was shopping in Next, and I bought a skirt. As I was hanging up the skirt, I suddenly noticed the label which had ‘Caution to the Wind’ printed on it and I thought that’s the title.

I texted Jonathan straight away and said, “we have a title, from a label of a skirt!”.

Did you write it for self-admiration or self-proclaiming?

(Terry laughs out loud) It was the very opposite! Your question is fascinating because I honestly don’t think anybody reading the book will think she is setting out to make herself likeable or admirable. Most of the people who have read the book, including Matt Cooper have talked about its honesty.

I don’t need to sell myself. The person I admire most in life is Tom. You couldn’t flatter Tom because he knew exactly how good he was, and what he wasn’t good at.

I’m known for working with a lot of political parties and those stories were in the first draft but now they are going into volume two. Now the book is plainer, funnier, and more insightful without the politics. 

Terry & Tom with baby Anton

At the heart of the book is your love story with Tom Savage. Why do you want people to know more about him?

Because he was the funniest, most insightful, and most generous human being I have ever met. He was also the most exciting to work with and believe me I had worked with some very exciting people over the years!

Nobody ever held a candle to him and that’s why I wanted to portray him in the book. It also echoes Tom’s view of me.

You say we are going through a period at the moment where we are looking at men who have a negative demeaning view of women. You also talk about in the book how you experience this yourself.

I had experienced it in that I was the girl reporter on a TV programme, the girl Friday. It wasn’t that they felt like some subjects were too hard to be handled by a girl, it was that they felt some subjects were too rubbish for a fella to handle. That was the attitude back then.

When a new head of current affairs arrived (it's all in the book), I thought great, we’ll get rid of the Girl Friday thing. Instead, he called me to his office and fired me.  In fact, he could fire any woman in the department because women only got short term contracts, by that I mean week to week.

Obviously, I asked why I was being fired and he replied saying that he could not send a woman down the Falls Road, (this was at the time of the Troubles). I replied, ‘Oh right, are men are more bullet proof?’, and he told me to get out of his office.

It never occurred to me at the time that he was probably going to do this to the other six women in the department and he did. Plus, it never occurred to any of us that we should get together and do something about it. It happened during the last year it could happen i.e., the year before the EU brought Workplace Equality into law.

From then on, I was always watching out for any kind of contempt, disrespect, or disregard in the workplace. And then I encountered this man who was the best lecturer (in communications) I had ever seen and who decided that I was clever than he was and that I was better at the work we did than he was.

That was Tom Savage. I didn’t think he was right, but by God it was refreshing.

So how did you and Tom meet?

We met when Bunny Carr, who was then the head of the Catholic Communications Centre asked me to assess parish priests giving sermons. I was only 20 years old, and I told him I don’t know anything about that. He told me I would be grand and that he was going to put in one of his senior lecturers with me. This had the implication that the lecturer was there to make sure I didn’t do anything terrible or to rescue me if I did do something terrible! That person was Father Tom Savage.

I did end up running into a problem with one of the older priests, because he was kind of bullying people in his congregation. When I gently raised it with him, he told me that the good Lord had his men on earth to be shepherds of the flock. Without thinking I said, 'yes, but not sheepdogs'.

At that moment Tom left the room and I thought 'oh no he is going to report me to Bunny'.

The older priest looked at me for a long time afterwards and said, “I’ve been a sheepdog for a long time, can you teach me to be not to be a sheepdog?”

He was just so admirable for a priest at that age to ask for my help. The group all got involved and suddenly the whole atmosphere changed, it was great.

I went down to Bunny’s office and told him his guy had left the room and he said I was playing a blinder that the supervision wasn’t needed anymore. Well, the relief because I thought he was gone off to report me to Bunny. What I didn’t know until later was that Tom fell in love with me at that first meeting.

What have been the highs and lows of your career?

The highs are constant. 

However, one low that stands out for me was when the director in the Abbey told me that if I didn't lose a lot of weight that I had no future as an actress. I was so annoyed because I knew I was a bloody good actress. Anyway after that I went on radio, where they couldn’t see me!

Any closing piece of wisdom after all your years being a successful businesswoman?

The thing that most affects people in the workplace is boredom. Boredom is something that eats holes in you and destroys you. It’s something I always say when people come to me for career advice, I always tell them not to go for the money because money is no reward. Fun, nice people, interesting stuff, discovery and avoidance of boredom should be the career objectives.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how well you are paid, if what you are doing is boring you to death.  

Caution to the Wind was published by Red Stripe Press is out now