Martin Hedges, a former features editor and an assistant to the editor of the Birmingham Post, died on 5 November, aged 69.
He joined the Post as a reporter in 1959 and held various positions, including crime reporter and health and universities reporter, before becoming news editor and then features editor in the late Sixties.
Brought up in the West Country, Martin returned there after being educated at Tonbridge School, Kent, and began his career on weekly and regional newspapers including the Somerset County Gazette and the Express & Echo, Exeter. He then moved to the Midlands.
Martin left the Post to become a freelance editor, writing and editing books on a wide variety of subjects, including tennis, sailing and steam trains.
He also edited the autobiography of the royal painter and railway artist Terence Cuneo.
He returned closer to his journalistic roots during the Eighties when he entered public relations, working in Birmingham – first for Nicholas Mendes and Associates and then Gascoigne Moody. After retiring to St Davids, Pembrokeshire, in 1989, Martin turned his writing skills to poetry – which he had published – and took up watercolour painting.
He leaves a widow, Pam, two sons Richard and Christopher, and daughter Sarah.
Paul Raymer
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