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Economic cycle comes to an end for Post legend

An economics editor who has seen four separate recessions come and go has retired for a second time.

Nevill Boyd Maunsell, left, joined the Birmingham Post’s city desk in London in 1973 and has kept tabs on the ups and downs of the West Midlands business scene ever since.

Although he retired in 1993, he continued for working for the Post three days a week until his final curtain call on Friday.

Bidding farewell to readers, Nevill takes a trip down memory lane in which he recalls the state of the economy when he first joined the title.

During his tenure, he reported on the three-day week, the remnants of the former Birmingham Stock Exchange which still traded in the city and the suicide of a West Midlands industrialist in 1981.

He had attended a speech by Mrs Thatcher’s industry minister at the time Sir Keith Joseph who had mused about the unimportance of manufacturing industry to Britain.

Nevill said: “I have seen the West Midlands adapt and reinvent itself twice – once for computers, more recently for the global economy.

“It has been a proud achievement. I have had a wonderful 36 years observing it and recording my observations.

“I must thank the Post for letting me go on doing it long past what is, for the time being, regarded as retirement age.”

A native of Leamington Spa, Nevill was educated at Winchester and University College, Oxford.

He did National Service with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and worked at Comtel, the financial and commercial wing of Reuters, and then as a sub-editor on the Financial Times.

He was the second winner of the Wincott Prize for regional financial journalism after the Post’ former City editor Ian Richardson, who died last year.

Among those paying tribute to Nevill’s service are Post editor Marc Reeves.

He said: “Too many journalists on the occasion of their retirement are described by misty-eyed colleagues as ‘legends’.

“Some, though, truly deserve the description, their career path being studded with the milestones of genuine scoops and investigations and other journalistic achievements.

“More importantly, though, the truly great journalists are those who consistently interpret the complexities of the world and explain to us in simple terms what is going on. Nevill Boyd Maunsell is one of those.

“Few people can relate the current recession to their direct experience of the last one – let alone the previous four, as can Nevill.

“Even with decades of experience, Nevill knew he would never stop learning, and it is that natural inquisitiveness that marked him out as one of the all-time greatest journalists on the Birmingham Post, if not the regional press.”