John Davies
City news editor at The Daily Telegraph during a period of rapid expansion in business journalism
JOHN DAVIES, who has died aged 90, was a financial journalist for more than 40 years, 24 of which he spent with The Daily Telegraph, most of the time as City news editor.
He worked under four City editors in a period when financial journalism was expanding rapidly, reflecting the explosive growth of financial services and the public’s greater spending power and appetite for savings.
Seldom seen without a cigar and a clipboard listing the runners and riders for the next day’s edition, Davies may have been invisible to readers, but as co-ordinator between the news and production side of the City section he was instrumental in ensuring they benefited from comprehensive coverage of the business world. His guidance helped many City journalists as they moved on to senior positions.
John Charles Edward Davies was born in Brixton, south London, on December 28 1925 and saw his formal education end at the age of 13 in 1939, when London schools were closed at the outbreak of the Second World War. Aged 15 he found a job as an office junior in the Fleet Street office of the Glasgow Herald, where the working day was frequently interrupted by air raids. On one occasion he arrived to find Fleet Street cordoned off because an unexploded bomb had ended up at the bottom of the lift in the Herald office. Another raid left a parachute with a land mine caught in telephone lines across the street.
Davies joined the fire-fighting party near his home, equipped with steel helmet and stirrup pump. Two highexplosive bombs on time fuses forced his family to evacuate. He collected shrapnel and gave an incendiary bomb pride of place in his bedroom after using a screwdriver and a fork to remove the explosive material.
Davies joined the East Surrey Regiment shortly before the end of the war, and was recommended for officer selection but decided against going for a commission when he discovered that the only openings available were in the Indian Army, and to pass muster he would have to learn a local language. At the end of the war he was transferred to Greece as part of a unit responsible for safeguarding tanks and other wartime military equipment which were being hi-jacked by participants in the Greek civil war.
Davies would recall how goodlooking young Greek girls would distract sentries while others wriggled under barbed wire to steal the equipment. Captured Greeks would often buy off their guards to avoid being beaten by the police, providing Davies and his fellow guards with an extra source of income.
Back in London the Glasgow Herald offered him an opening as a trainee financial journalist. He spent 20 busy years with the paper, ending up as deputy City editor. Occasionally his attention was distracted by a noisy junior, whom he once locked in a room to avoid interruptions. The offender, Joe Haines, later became Harold Wilson’s press adviser. Davies had a brief spell at the
Scotsman’s City of London office before joining the Telegraph as a senior company reporter in 1964.
As the Telegraph responded to Lord Thomson’s launch of The Times Business News section, he was given extra responsibilities, and the paper broke new ground with a Saturday Money Go Round section for savers and investors. His extensive experience equipped Davies for the demanding role of City news editor and his judgment had a crucial influence on the coverage of stories. Cigar consumption rose to match the increase in daily pressures, with City reporters taking advantage of the quality brands available at corporate lunches and handing them over to Davies.
Davies enjoyed his contact with business leaders, although some could be intrusive. The worst was Robert Maxwell, the Daily Mirror publisher. He had a habit of ringing Davies near deadline, mischievously checking whether the Telegraph knew what stories its rivals had.
The growth of the public relations industry posed another challenge for Davies and his team as PR advisers, attempting to protect their corporate clients, deflected journalistic inquiries. New technology and the 24hour business news cycle added considerably to the pressures on a oneman news desk, but Davies, who retired in 1988 at the age of 62, rarely missed a deadline.
John Davies’s wife Irene, whom he married in 1949, predeceased him. He is survived by three sons.
John Davies, born December 28 1925, died April 19 2016