Just a month after the Daily Mirror celebrated its centenary, one of the paper’s former picture editors, Simon Clyne, celebrated his own.
A resident of Nightingale old people’s home in Clapham, South London, Clyne marked the occasion with a lunch there for family and friends.
Clyne had a distinguished career in journalism and his position on retiring in 1968 was picture editor at the Mirror, where he had worked since 1950.
He was born in Hull and after starting his career on the Hull Evening News, he moved around the north of England working as a reporter and a sub-editor in Derby and Liverpool, before joining the News Chronicle in Manchester.
In 1936 he moved to London, where he became a picture editor and acting news editor during the war. After 14 years on Fleet Street, Clyne moved to the Mirror, where he ended his career.
Clyne’s son Jeremy explained that one of the many who owed their careers to his father was Kent Gavin, the Mirror’s recently retired chief photographer. Clyne and his son recently attended Gavin’s retirement party put on by the Mirror at Arsenal Football Club’s Highbury stadium. Clyne junior explained that, even at 100, his father still enjoyed a good party. He said: “I thought we’d be there for about half an hour, but I didn’t get my father back to Nightingale until about midnight!” Clyne senior married Ena in 1934. She died in 1997, aged 82.
In addition to Jeremy, he has a daughter, Adrienne, who travelled from Israel to be present at the lunch, along with her daughter Gabrielle.
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