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Regional newsman-turned-PR boss dies aged 79

A former regional news chief who tasted reporting duties in two of the world’s major trouble spots more than half a century ago has died aged 79.

Tributes have been paid by ex-colleagues to one-time Nottingham Post deputy news editor David Levine who has succumbed to the effects of a long-term medical condition.

David had spells working in Kenya and Israel before joining the Newark Advertiser in 1972, switching to the then Nottingham Evening Post in 1974.

He rose to the position of deputy news editor at the Post but left the newspaper in 1982 and set up a successful public relations consultancy, Editorial Associates, which he continued to run for the rest of his career.

Love of his life . . . David Levine with wife Malka

Former Nottingham Post health and medicine correspondent Terry Wootton said: “David was talented, well respected and popular among colleagues and a very good municipal reporter.

“He was earmarked for a top level post at the Post until he decided to go into PR. Everyone thought he would have made a good editor.”

Former Post deputy chief reporter David Lowe, who still contributes to this newspaper’s Bygones section, said: “David was an expert commentator on local politics, with a vast array of contacts in the city council and at County Hall.

“We first worked together on the Post news desk when Bill Ivory was news editor. David was a kind, considerate and thoughtful man and he will be deeply missed.”

Lincolnshire-born David started his journalistic career on his home town paper – the Grimsby Evening Telegraph.

But in 1959 he jumped at the chance of heading off to Africa to work on a new English-language national daily newspaper called The Nation – in the year the notorious and protracted Mau Mau Uprising ended.

In Nairobi he was the youngest member of the newsroom and, keen to make a name for himself, soon found himself at odds with the local bureaucrats.

His son, Avi Levine, 51, said: “Dad had a spat with the Ministry of the Interior, having criticised the shoddy uniforms of the guards posted outside the building. He was keen to point out, however, that by the time he left the country, the guards had tidied themselves up.”

David’s next foreign assignment was Israel, where he earned his living as a stringer and also worked in public relations.

“Dad was a freelance journalist during one of the few times when Israel was not at war with one of its neighbours, so news was thin on the ground,” Avi added.

It was in the Middle East that David met the ‘love of his life’, Malka, and they were married in September 1962.

David, who died last month, leaves Malka, children Avi and Elaine and two grandchildren.

Evening Post newsroom of yesteryear . . . with David Levine, second from right, reading the paper