obituaries


editing the house journal of the TI group from a grand office in Bridgewater House, near St James’s Palace. Later, he changed career again, to become an investment analyst in the City. Here, his sharp journalistic mind proved invaluable to his employers. He finally retired when he was 75. However, he never forgot


The Star. He was still organising reunions until he was in his mid-90s, when only three or four survivors remained. He rarely told anybody that he


Sidney Rennert


My father had just been appointed industrial correspondent of radical London evening paper The Star, after several years as parliamentary correspondent. Then, one evening in October 1960, the editor, Ralph McCarthy, called a meeting of the 100 editorial staff, to tell them that


they had just seen off the very last edition of the paper. Sidney soon found himself a new, better-paid post on the Daily Sketch, but his left-wing politics did not chime with those of his new editor.


He then settled into a more sedate job in public relations,


had begun life as a Jewish boy in Germany between the wars, in a virulently anti-Semitic climate. His father helped Jewish families to escape abroad. Eventually his parents and sister emigrated to Israel, while he was sent to England ‘for a good education’. He arrived, aged 13, without a


word of English. But, after a brief language course in Brighton, he took up a place at a boarding school


– Clifton College in Bristol. As an adult, he spoke without any trace of a German accent. At 16, he had to leave Clifton


to avoid being interned as an enemy alien. He went to London as a trainee journalist on the Daily Sketch,


He also studied for a part-time history degree at Birkbeck College, London University – this was not helped by a bomb that destroyed his flat as well as all his lecture notes. He moved north to work on the Manchester Evening News, where he met his first wife, before returning to London for his 12-year stint on The Star. He was much involved in


the work of the NUJ in London. On occasion, he would tell me in confidence of the dreadful way some colleague had been treated by an employer. He had a very strong sense of justice.


Jonathan Rennert


Mike McKeand


Mike McKeand has died peacefully aged 84, in Portsmouth Hospital from natural causes. The life-long journalist started his career as a young man in New Zealand, having sailed there from England aged 17 in pursuit of his girlfriend, Ruth. They soon married and Mike went for a job on the Otago Daily Times in Dunedin - presenting his English Prize from Birkenhead School as


18 | theJournalist


proof of his ‘talent’. In 1960, with two small boys, he took a job as a reporter working for a young Rupert Murdoch on the tabloid Daily Mirror in Sydney, Australia. He also enjoyed a stint as a showbiz reporter on TV Week. In 1968, he took a six-month sabbatical and returned to England. At the end of a tour around Europe with Ruth and their three


children, they decided to stay. Mike took a job as a news sub-editor on the Daily Mirror in Manchester in 1970 and stayed until its demise in 1986, when he was invited to join the Daily Star in London, where many of his old chums from the Mirror in Manchester also landed. Kind, warm and with a sharp sense of humour, he was loved and respected by all who worked with him. Mike had a love of life, a vast general knowledge - particularly of the arts - and had travelled extensively. He was a calming presence in a newsroom, especially for chief sub editors who could depend on him to sub a story on any subject quickly, accurately and, where appropriate, with his trademark wit. He was a mentor for many of his younger colleagues - both journalistically and in a wider sense.


After retiring in 2010, Mike


moved from Clapham, south London, to Bosham near Chichester to enjoy his life-long love of sailing. He was tempted back by the Daily Express for shifts, but this foray


was his last and he quit after a couple of years. A huge supporter of the NUJ,


Mike was awarded Life Membership in 1999. He leaves his wife Ruth and three children, John, Nigel and Jennie.


Nigel McKeand


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24