By Sarah Lagan
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie is showing his charitable side by
spearheading a campaign to help raise the £6 million needed to rebuild
a journalists’
care home in Sandy Cross, Surrey.
Built 35 years ago, the home for elderly journalists is run by the charity NPF.
The
charity has already been pledged £700,000 and is dedicating £1 million
from its own resources, but MacKenzie is responsible for raising the
rest.
He said: “I’m hoping that under the deal I will be entitled to my own room. Bob
Warren, from the News of the World, and the charity’s chairman Nick
Jones came to me and asked whether I could be helpful – because I was
the only member of the media community they could find working in
August.
“I’ll be appealing to the regional and national press, TV and radio.
“The charity is a fantastic thing and I’m hopeful that industries outside the newspaper industry will also feel they can help.”
MacKenzie
edited the Sun from 1981 to 1994 and was also managing director of
BSkyB and group MD of the Mirror Group before founding The Wireless
Group and starting the successful commercial speech station, talkSPORT.
•
This week, MacKenzie became the executive chairman of Highbury House,
after upping his share in the company to 20 per cent last month.
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