Former editor, Lancashire Evening Telegraph and Thomson training executive
Ian A Jack, a former editor and training executive of Thomson Regional Newspapers, has died at the age of 78.
Ian began his journalistic career in Nottingham, writing and producing his first newspaper as a schoolboy for neighbours in his street.
His choice of future career was never in doubt. At 16 he joined the city's Evening News as a copy boy.
He quickly moved through the ranks in Kemsley Newspapers, taking jobs in Manchester and London, before joining the South Wales Echo in Cardiff as features editor in 1957.
Two years later, a second spell in London, on the ill-fated Sunday Graphic, was followed soon by the journey north to Newcastle, where he worked on The Journal and later on the Evening Chronicle, as deputy editor.
It had always been Ian's ambition to edit a paper and in 1968 he realised his dream, becoming editor of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, Blackburn.
He stayed in East Lancashire for 11 years with wife Vera and sons Andrew, Duncan and Philip, and was a chairman of the North Western region of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors.
In 1977 he also assumed editorial control of the Evening Telegraph's former sister publication, the Evening Star in Burnley. He relinquished the post in 1979 and switched to training, developing courses for Thomson Regional Newspapers' senior journalists.
This role was to take Ian back to the Northeast, where he was to spend the remainder of his life, latterly involved — part-time — in public relations work with Jack Ramsey.
Ian suffered a major stroke in 1999, but remained at home in Low Fell, Gateshead, cared for by Vera. He died on 23 April after complications following a fall.
Vera thanked old friends and colleagues for their kind words and thoughts about Ian, regarded by many as a gentleman of the ‘old school'.
Donations in his memory — for Diabetes UK and the Hardman Centre — may be sent to E Bush Ltd, funeral director, 79-83 Old Durham Road, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, NE8 4BJ.
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