Northern news editor of the Guardian who was proud of being a 'Manchester man'
Harry Whewell, who has died aged 90, was a long-serving news editor of the Guardian – and previously of the Manchester Guardian. He was one of a loyal team who saw the paper through lean financial years and played an invaluable part in maintaining the efficiency of its news operation during the paper's move to London.
Rather to his surprise, in 1957 Whewell was appointed news editor of the Manchester Guardian by Alastair Hetherington. Following his own appointment as the paper's editor the previous year, Hetherington set about transforming its situation. In 1959 came the change of name; in 1961, printing in London as well as Manchester; and in 1964, the transfer of the editor and major departments to the capital. Before becoming news editor, Whewell had been a reporter with the paper for seven years, most of them spent covering the northern industrial scene. Much of Manchester's life then still revolved around cotton and he was the last correspondent dedicated to the subject.
Hetherington and Whewell began making an annual trawl of the older universities in search of writing talent. Those who joined Whewell's newsroom in this way included Michael Frayn, Neal Ascherson, David Marquand, Benedict Nightingale and many others who went on to forge reputations elsewhere.
These recruits rubbed shoulders in Cross Street with such established figures as Brian Redhead, Anthony Howard, Richard West and WJ Weatherby. This talented cast were encouraged by Whewell to pursue often outlandish stories that gave them freedom and space envied by their colleagues on other papers.
They were given to understand that it was better to come back from an assignment empty-handed than with a story contrived to justify the journey. Young reporters, and some older ones, found that it was a sensible policy to join Whewell for a lunchtime drink in one of the city-centre pubs, where many newsworthy projects were dreamed up. The abstemious Hetherington frowned on those who frequented "ale houses", but accepted that his paper's air of somewhat detached academe needed to change.
The quality and even-handedness of the paper's coverage of the Northern Ireland Troubles were due in no small measure to Whewell's determination to make the complexities of Irish politics understandable to its readers. And he was solid in his backing of the reporters – Simon Winchester, Simon Hoggart, Derek Brown and others – whom he sent to work in Belfast in what were, initially, unenviable conditions.
In the early days of the Troubles, Winchester worried that his dutiful daily accounts of Ireland's factional strife might not be making their intended mark on the readers. Whewell told him: "I don't care if the readers do think it's boring. You report it all, every day – we'll get it through to them in time – it's a duty."
News editors seldom expect to be popular, but Whewell was well-liked by most of those who wrote for him. He revelled in his reputation for mild eccentricity and disdained anything that smacked of order or regimentation. Even by the standards of news desks, his was conspicuously untidy. Order was boring; only ideas mattered.
He was an excellent raconteur, and his infectious laughter could be heard over long distances. His quick and shrewd wit was appreciated on television and he was a popular presenter of What the Papers Say. And he enjoyed his occasional appearances as a TV games panellist and broadcaster on local radio.
From 1961, Whewell's role became that of northern news editor, and he fought his corner to see that the paper's columns continued to reflect the nature and distinctive colour of life outside London and the south-east. He was, and remained, a "Manchester man" who never wanted to be anywhere else except, perhaps, beachcombing near his Anglesey cottage and collecting curious objects to add to his office clutter.
Born in Stretford, to the south-west of Manchester, Harry was the youngest child – he had two older sisters – of the unassuming but determined Ada Whewell and her dustman husband Walter. Harry recalled that while he had aspirations to be a vet, his father wanted him to become a sanitary inspector.
A scholarship took him to Stretford grammar school and in his teens he took part in productions by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Union, the forerunner to the Theatre Workshop. Between leaving school at the age of 16 and volunteering for the RAF in the second world war, during which he reached the rank of flight lieutenant, he worked for the local council. While based in north Wales, he met Esther Rose, stationed nearby as a Wren, and in December 1945 they got married. She went on to work for the News Chronicle and Daily Express, and was then the long-serving story editor of Granada's Coronation Street.
Following some months in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as an education officer, Whewell was demobilised in 1946 and took a degree in modern history and economics at Manchester University. There he encountered the historian Lewis Namier, who, as a former adviser to Chaim Weizmann, helped to stimulate Whewell's fascination with Israel.
In his later years with the Guardian, from 1975 until his retirement in 1988, Whewell was the paper's northern editor. This allowed him time to write a quirky, tongue-in-cheek column that older readers readily identified with. He wrote with a disarmingly light touch, but the words never came easily. Nor was he ever entirely at ease with a typewriter. Almost to the end his thoughts were recorded on a seemingly endless supply of yellowing, lined foolscap. In 1987 he was appointed OBE.
Esther died in 1986 and Whewell is survived by his son, Tim, now a correspondent with BBC's Newsnight.
Peter Preston writes: Harry Whewell was a Guardian legend: often hilarious, sometimes whimsical, yet always with a wonderful eye for off-beat stories and for the reporters to do them justice. But he also, haplessly and very sadly, became a symbol of the paper's transformation and journey from north to south during the 1960s and 70s.
The Harry of 1963 (when I joined the paper) was a force to be reckoned with, news editor of the newsroom that still mattered most, the training ground of Michael Frayn and other shooting stars but still the bedrock of national coverage. The foreign department and Brian Redhead's features were just down the corridor. Granada, in its creative pomp, was only a few hundred yards away.
Almost month by month, though, as Alastair Hetherington took the night sleepers back and forth between Manchester and London, you felt that power diminish. Harry could have been a high executive in London, but he would not leave his roots and his city. So the Guardian gradually left him.
At the time it all seemed inevitable: the Guardian was poor and sometimes desperate. It could not support duplicate production in two centres. It could not field a full northern news force. Harry and a wonderfully supportive George Hawthorne kept the spirit alive, producing stories from beyond the smoke, exploring the intricacies and flavours of non-metropolitan life. He was as rumpled and lateral as ever: a funny writer, a welcoming host, yet also a remembrance of great times past. Without Harry, the Guardian would have been a drabber, far less talented place. He brought the two halves of his newsroom – part Oxbridge, part brilliant local-paper hands who had learned their trade the hard way – and made them whole.
And he lives on today in more than memory. Whenever I see his brilliant son, Tim, reporting for the BBC from some dangerous, complex spot, hair flapping in his eyes, Manchester redolent in every syllable, Harry seems there with him, too.
• Harry Hodges Whewell, journalist, born 30 January 1923; died 29 April 2013
• James Lewis died in 2002