Former editor was ‘man of integrity and total honesty’
AFORMER editor of the Western Mail who devised his own guidelines for living has died at the age of 89.
John Rees, originally from Merthyr Tydfil, edited the paper from 1981 to 1987.
After being educated at Cyfarthfa Grammar School in Merthyr and doing national service in the Welch Regiment and the Royal Army Educational Corps, he began his journalistic career on the Merthyr Express, where he was a reporter and then sports editor.
He then spent 12 years with the Sheffield Star, rising to become its assistant editor.
Moving to become deputy editor of the Evening Echo, centred in Watford, he was meant to be one of the first to oversee a transition in newspaper production from hot metal to photo-composition and printing by web offset.
But the project ran into serious problems with the unions and he was diverted to Edinburgh, where he worked on the Evening News for several months until the difficulties had been ironed out.
Subsequently he edited the Evening Mail in Reading and then the Journal in Newcastle.
Mr Rees returned south in 1976, at which time he was asked by Thomson Regional Newspapers to undertake a tricky operation.
The Evening Post and the Evening Echo, which circulated in counties to the north of London, were suffering from drops in circulation and a large decline in advertising revenues.
The company decided the best option was to merge the two papers into a single entity called the Post-Echo.
He held as many as 100 meetings with union representatives to discuss staffing arrangements on the new title, at the same time editing both original papers, which were still being produced.
The Post-Echo was launched with a circulation of 93,000, working its way back into a healthy profit.
When journalists struck for more pay two years later, Mr Rees was left with just one non-union member of staff, working on the sports desk, to bring the paper out.
While his colleague dealt with the sports pages, he turned out the news and features pages single-handedly for 24 editions.
Another strike the following year saw him produce 37 editions with the usual pagination on his own.
Bill Gillespie, the company’s managing director who went on to become managing director of The Times, said: “This was surely a feat unequalled in British journalism. It was an astonishingly skilful piece of professionalism.”
In 1979, he was appointed assistant managing director, but in October 1981 he returned to journalism as editor of the Western Mail, remaining until his retirement in December 1987.
Another of the managing directors for whom he worked said: “He is a man of marked integrity in his personal and professional life.
“He is an editor cool in judgement and absolutely honest in his dealings with colleagues, staff and his readers.
“His sense of humour enables him to shoulder burdens cheerfully and with optimism.”
After his retirement Mr Rees worked for two days a week lecturing to postgraduate students at the Centre for Journalism Studies in Cardiff.
He later moved with his wife Ruth, a shorthand teacher, to Sheffield.
Mrs Rees died last September. Mr Rees, a devout Baptist, suffered post-surgery trauma and he died of old age.