obituaries Syd Richardson


Syd Richardson, who has died at the age of 82, was bound for a career in journalism from the tender age of nine when he discovered how to make the national headlines. He and his 13-year-old sister Millie triggered a police hunt after they embarked on an epic journey from Hitchin to the Isle of Lewis. The previous summer, they had been on a family holiday to Tolsta in the north of the island, and they enjoyed it so much they decided to make a return visit – without informing their parents.


They set off with sixpence three farthings and a bag of stale buns, and proceeded to outwit all the staff they encountered on the train to London and the overnight express to Inverness. They even tricked their way onto the ferry to Stornoway.


Not long after they made it to their grandparents’ croft, they were besieged by disbelieving reporters who all wanted to know how they had done it. “We were treated like minor


celebrities,” said Syd, who soon decided journalism was the life for him. He was indentured to Hertfordshire Express Newspapers when still a teenager. I met Syd on the Cambridge


Evening News in 1972 where it was obvious that he commanded the respect of everyone in the office. As father of the NUJ chapel, he


made it clear to the management that the union meant business on a range of issues. Small wonder that the chapel soon established a national reputation for its militancy, including a demand that it should have a say in the appointment of the new editor. He didn’t stay in Cambridge for long. He didn’t stay anywhere for


26 | theJournalist


long. That childhood trip had seeded a wanderlust that took him to a host of provincial and national newspapers, including The Telegraph, The Times and the Financial Times, where his sub-editing and layout skills were highly prized. His restless spirit also took him to Dublin, Canada and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where he quickly became a popular mentor to the young Chinese staff on the business desk. If you asked Syd to name the


newspapers he had worked on, you quickly discovered that it was easier to ask him which ones weren’t on his CV.


His mode of transport was also a talking point. Close friend Ray Williams describes how, during a spell of casual shifts on the Observer, he would “rattle down the M1 in a shaky old Messerschmidt three-wheeler bubble car with his white-knuckled pillion passenger clinging on for dear life in the back”. Syd’s journalistic skills were


exceeded in the second half of his career only by his ability to hoodwink bosses into believing he was at least 10 years younger than he was.


After returning to the UK and


following more stints on national broadsheets, he moved north with his beloved wife Beverley and worked for a variety of periodicals. After all those years, he described his ideal newspaper as one featuring the best of the Financial Times and Private Eye. His skills extended way beyond reporting and the subs’ desk. He would never be defeated by a challenge, restoring windows and fireplaces as well as rebuilding walls at their house in Knaresborough. He was also in his element


maintaining the tandem he and Beverley rode majestically through the Yorkshire Dales. Syd died after a short illness. He


leaves two sons, Neil and Ben, who followed Syd into journalism. His middle son, Iain, predeceased him. Their mother, Joan, was Syd’s first wife. He will also be much missed by his granddaughters Ella, Aine and Hazel.


Allister Craddock


the Today newspaper as a feature writer. In 1991 and 1992, journalism took him to Albania and Bulgaria for the Sunday Times and other publications, where he wrote about the ailing state of the schools, the healthcare crisis in hospitals and neglect in children’s orphanages.


In 1992, he took a trip through Rob Richley


Former newspaper journalist and lifelong member of the Newspaper Press Fund and NUJ Rob Richley has died aged 71. Rob was born in Hammersmith to journalist parents. He went into journalism inspired by his father Noel, who was a Press Association chief news editor. He trained on a weekly


newspaper in west London but a desire for adventure saw him buying a horse and a gypsy caravan to travel around England for three summers. His love of driving horses never faded. Rob settled in Norfolk where he


spent six years restoring a 500-year-old farmhouse. He worked as a journalist and later chief reporter for the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) in Norwich. In the autumn of 1986, he landed


a coup to cover the hunt for two teachers who had gone missing while on a cycling holiday in Brittany. He persuaded the EDP editor to send him with a photographer to France to cover the story and distribute hundreds of posters in French, printed by the paper, to unearth clues to their disappearance. The couple were later found bound and murdered in a cornfield.


A life-long member of the Labour


party, Rob had socialist principles – his sense of fairness and diplomacy made him a brilliant union negotiator as father of chapel on the paper.


In 1989, he met Philippa when she joined the EDP as features editor, by which time Rob was picture editor. They shared many happy times


in Norfolk before a move to London. Rob worked as a reporter on the Mail on Sunday and also on


Jordan and then to Israel to report about Palestinians building their own health service in the West Bank. During that same trip, Rob proposed to Philippa. They were married in 1992 in


Hampstead and, a year later, left London after falling in love with the Somerset Levels. They set up a business, Westword,


producing newspapers and magazines mainly for the public sector. Rob also started writing for the Observer on environmental issues – his favourite subject. He carried out these successful assignments for three years with photographer David Mansell, who became a life-long friend. Their son Fabian came along in 1995 and Philippa and Rob juggled baby and business. Never one to shy away from a fresh challenge, Rob used his media skills in 2010 to support young people on a two-month project to capture life on their Bristol estate on film.


Rob also loved gardening. When


journalism and PR began to pall, he jumped at the chance to join a friend in her gardening business in 2012. Two years on, he set up on his own and developed a thriving enterprise. He worked until a terminal diagnosis forced him to give up last summer. Over the years, his passion for


the environment and love of trees helped found a local green group and he led the creation of two woodlands and an orchard. Rob was chair of governors at his


son’s first school where he helped plant trees and improve the environment. He was also one of the founding board members of Wedmore Community Power Co-operative set up in 2013. He is survived by wife Philippa and son Fabian.


Philippa Richley and friends of Rob


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