Editor leaves after 40 years

This is an intro I thought I would never write...this week’s paper is the last issue of the Newham Recorder I will edit.

Having completed forty years of my life with the paper only as recently as September, I guess I thought the only way I would leave here was in a wooden box.

Then it would be down to my wife to sort through copies of the Newham Recorder dating from 1972 to the present day in the loft of our home…

But the paper embarks on a new chapter from our next issue and I wish it great success.

There is a great team in place and please give them all your support for all they do in paper and online.

It has been my honour to have been part of the furniture since the age of 18. Through my positions from trainee reporter to reporter, chief reporter, news editor, reporter-sub, assistant editor, deputy editor, associate editor and then Editor, I have seen a massive change in not only Newham, but also the newspaper industry.

The Newham Recorder has been my life and also the life of my family.

My wife Lesley has put up with more than anyone can imagine over our 41 years of being together, supporting me through all the early mornings, late nights, weekend working and all that goes with the job I have done.

She has even been there with me filing stories, writing and proof reading, and even cleaning and decorating the office!

Those duties have also fallen to my daughter Angela, who also joined me on work experience, and my son James, who worked as a reporter, and unpaid IT expert for two years before leaving “before I turned into my dad!”

They have all been rocks to me, supporting me for years.

And family is a key word in the Newham Recorder’s vocabulary.

The only other editor of the paper to this point and the man to whom I owe so much, Tom Duncan, took a chance on me in 1972 and they allowed me to follow in his footsteps.

And just like my mum and dad, he taught me all the values I hold dear in life.

The Newham Recorder has always been a family newspaper.

And despite the staff changes over the years, that family feeling has remained.

We have challenged those in power, fought against injustice and won numerous awards for our work. But we have always sought to give people a laugh as well.

I have made a point in the last 25 years especially of trying to accentuate the positive of Newham’s young people. There have been many talented generations of young people in Newham, and we have another right now. They are our future.

But the thing I am most proud of is my association and this paper’s association with Community Links, simply the most wonderful organisation it has been my honour to know. The people make Community Links and they are simply such special people.

We have worked together with so many good things.

The most high profile thing has been the 36 years of our joint toy appeal, which you can read all about in the paper and online.

Please do all you can to support it. It means so much to so many young people and their families.

As someone famous once said, its goodnight from me…and goodnight from him.

Goodbye and God Bless.