Editor John Rippin has retired from the Loughborough and Shepshed Echo after almost 50 years with the paper.

He joined the company in 1955 at the age of 16 as a trainee reporter.

Twenty-one years later he became the paper’s third editor – and the fourth, Andy Rush, is stepping up from executive editor to take over.

The Echo was founded in 1891 and John’s predecessor, Charles Harriss, continued in the editor’s chair until the age of 87.

John said he had always been proud to work for the Echo and added: “One of my main motivating forces has always been to try to carry on the good work of Echo stalwarts of the past.”

When he took over, it was still the era of hot metal. The Echo was a broadsheet and the front page was filled with estate agents’ adverts. Within a few weeks, the modernisation of the paper’s pages had begun.

During the past 10 years, the paper has won a number of awards. One of John’s proudest moments came in 1997 when the Echo was chosen as Campaigning Weekly Newspaper of the Year in a Newspaper Society competition.

The paper had conducted a sustained campaign to save Loughborough’s historic wharf from disappearing under tarmac.

John is a former regional chairman of the old Guild of British Newspaper Editors, and for three years was a member of the guild’s national council.

For the past eight years, he has written a by-lined opinion column that has featured some of his off-beat interests, such as charity firewalks, and John will not be completely lost to the Echo as he is to continue to write his column.

John Rippin (second left) and his wife, Rosemary, are presented with gifts by the Charnwood Mayor, Coun Mike Jones, new Echo editor Andy Rush, and Midland Weekly Media editorial director Tony Lennox

A retirement presentation ceremony was held at the newspaper, when the Mayor of Charnwood, Coun Mike Jones, presented gifts on behalf of the borough, and said John had made “an enormous contribution” to life in the Loughborough area.

The new editor, Andy, has been at the Echo for 11 years, during which time he has risen from general reporter to his new post.

The 43-year-old began work in heavy industry, before swapping overalls for a typewriter to become a trainee reporter with the Coalville Times.

He said: “It is a real honour to have been chosen as John’s successor. He’s a hard act to follow and the place will be poorer without him.”

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