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Journalist of the old school loses cancer battle

A highly respected journalist who started his career during the Second World War when he covered his patch on foot has died from cancer at the age of 85.

David Day, who covered the north Cotswold area for 36 years a reporter at the Evesham Journal and Cotswold Journal, died on 25 November.

He joined the Journal in 1942 and at the age of 18 was conscripted into the coal mines in Cannock Chase for three and a half years and wrote about his experience in his first book, The Bevin Boy.

He returned to the Journal in 1948 and was put in charge of the Cotswolds in the Moreton office where he covered the Queen’s Coronation as well as the return of the Cotswold Olimpicks in 1951.

Long-serving Journal reporter Gerry Barnett said: “David was a journalist of the old school, spending many hours in council meetings, local courts and the like and was very well respected wherever he went on his North Cotswold patch, which he knew so well.

“He was a stickler for accuracy and fairness in all his writing and he never failed to deliver on time. David’s book on his life as a reporter in the North Cotswolds should be read by every young or aspiring journalist to see what being a district reporter was all about in those days.”

David wrote All over the Wold in 1998 about his life as a Cotswold reporter followed by The Duck Pond Affair in 2005.

He became a prominent member of the community after taking early retirement and also wrote a history of the Moreton Show which he attended for every year for 50 years.

Friend Guy Stapleton said: “He was always a very private man, a shy one you would almost say, but he was a very good reporter.”

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  • December 14, 2011 at 3:18 pm
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    No young reporter could have a better grounding than the one I had working on the Evesham Journal with the likes of David Day, and fellow talented journalists Vic Davis, George Emms, John Bird and Bernard Webster .

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