Former Watford Observer editor to retire (From Watford Observer)

Former Watford Observer editor to retire

3:07pm Wednesday 28th January 2009

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After 50 years in journalism, almost half of them as a local newspaper editor, a former editor of the Watford Observer retires this week.

David Wynne-Jones was editor of both the Watford Observer and the St Albans Observer from 1983 to 1987, before he went to work on the Straits Times in Singapore.

He returned to the UK in 1990 when he joined the Oxford Mail and Times group with spells as the editor at Oxford Mail, Witney Gazette and Bicester Advertiser.

He ends his career on Friday after spending the last ten years as chief sub-editor on the award-winning Newbury Weekly News, where he was also in charge of the company’s monthly Out & About magazine.

David, 66, began his career on the North Wales Weekly News in 1959, where he was a trainee reporter at the North Wales Weekly News head office in Conwy.

He had a brief spell as a senior reporter on the St Helen’s Reporter before returning to North Wales as sports editor on the North Wales Chronicle.

In 1965 he became chief sub-editor of the Chester Chronicle Group before, three years later, joining the Liverpool Daily Post as assistant chief sub.

In 1969, David began his long connections with Westminster Press, with the first of two spells with the Oxford Mail and Times Group.

He joined the Mail subs’ desk, where he became deputy chief sub and also had a spell as chief sports sub.

In 1975, he was appointed deputy editor of the Evening Despatch in Darlington before, 18 months later, taking on his first editorship at the Folkestone Herald and the South Kent Gazette.

He moved from Folkestone to Watford, as editor, in 1983.

David was secretary and later chairman of the London and Home Counties region of the then Guild of British Newspaper Editors (now the Society).

David’s career took a different path in 1987, when he was appointed as editorial consultant at the Straits Times in Singapore, where he was attached to the School of Journalism as well as working in the newsroom at the paper.

In 1990, on his return to the UK, David went back to Oxford, where he was deputy editor of the Mail for three years.

In 1994, he was appointed Editor and Publisher of the Witney Gazette and then, two years later, took on the additional responsibilities as editor of the Bicester Advertiser.

David was made redundant from those posts at the end of 1999, but immediately took on his current role at Newbury.

Within the next few weeks David and his wife Patricia, who lived in Woodland Drive, Cassiobury Park, Watford, during their time in Hertfordshire, will begin what David describes as his “gap year” with a world tour, taking in South Africa, New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii.

On his return in April, he plans to continue some freelance work, especially his feature writing about golf and his golf course reviews, which have appeared in various specialist magazines for the past eight years.

David has two daughters - Ros, a former national journalist who is having her first novel published in the summer, and Claire, a speech and language therapist.

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