Tributes to former Guardian editor
TRIBUTES have been paid to Peter Preston, the former editor of the Guardian newspaper who was born in Barrow-upon-Soar, who has died at the age of 79.
Preston, who edited the national title for 20 years, went to Loughborough Grammar School and grew up in Quorn.
He had polio as a child, an illness that his father had died from, but won a place at the grammar school before attending Oxford University, where he edited the student newspaper.
After a spell at the Liverpool Daily post, he joined the-then Manchester Guardian in 1963.
Successful spells as a reporter, foreign correspondent, features editor and night editor led to his taking on the editorship in 1975 at the age of 37.
He held the post until 1995 and oversaw a series of major stories and investigations as well as a radical redesign of the title, including the introduction of the G2 supplements.
He died at home on Sat- urday (January 6) night, 10 years after melanoma first struck and 20 months after it returned.
Writing in The Sunday Times, his son, Ben, said: “Dad died a good death, one that amplified the qualities we so admired while he lived.
“Resilience, bravery, wisdom, he was loved and loving until the end. The fulcrum of our family.”
Janice Turner, a columnist and feature writer for The Times, tweeted that her “beloved fatherin-law” was a” journalist to the last and the most upstanding man I’ve ever known”.
Katharine Viner, editorin-chief of the Guardian and Observer, described him as a “brilliant editor”.
She added: “Peter has been a kind and unobtrusively supportive friend, providing advice and insights and the kind of ballast that could only come from someone who’d been there and done it.”
He is survived by his wife Jean, whom he married in 1962, twin daughters Alex and Kate, sons Ben and Rupert, three granddaughters and five grandsons.