Dennis Casson, who has died aged 68, was one of the first reporters hired in Manchester in the early Sixties when The Sun was launched from the old Daily Herald.
Dennis grew up in Batley, West Yorkshire, and worked for local weeklies before joining the Yorkshire Evening News in Doncaster and the Bristol Evening Post. In 1966, he settled for a time in Australia where he worked for the Sun News Pictorial in Melbourne.
He admitted that he found much of general newspaper work humdrum but didn’t have to look far for a remedy. His gregarious nature, wit and a gift of colourful language helped him slip effortlessly from newspapers into public relations and advertising copywriting.
While working for a public relations agency he organised the launch in Australia of Kentucky Fried Chicken – at the time the biggest public relations exercise Australia had seen.
Dennis returned to England in the early Seventies as assistant promotions manager at the Yorkshire Post. He was then appointed publicity manager with the Yorkshire Tourist Board and went on to manage promotions at the old Belle Vue Centre in Manchester.
In the mid-Seventies he helped to organise the first trade fairs at the National Exhibitions Centre in Birmingham, a job that led to his promotion to chief executive of the Bahrain Exhibition Centre. Some time later, he started his own public relations consultancy in Yorkshire.
Dennis died on 24 April after a year-long illness borne characteristically with great courage and humour. A few weeks before his death he married his long-standing girlfriend Kathy Wallace.
Austin Wormleighton
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