A former regional journalist and magazine owner who once launched his own Sunday newspaper has died.

Tributes have been paid to Roy Faiers, formerly of the Grimsby Telegraph, who died shortly before Christmas.  He was in his 90s.

During his career, Roy owned a string of magazines including Lincolnshire Life, as well as starting his own national glossy This England and regional titles in Norfolk and the Cotswolds.

In 1966 he founded a local Sunday newspaper for Grimsby called The Link, but the venture only lasted around three months.

Born in the Lincolnshire fishing port, Roy was a wartime evacuee to Canada who returned to England to join the Royal Navy.

He then joined the Telegraph before leaving to go freelance.

An obituary in the Telegraph by Peter Chapman reads: “Eventually he owned a string of magazines all of a nostalgic nature and all illustrated by the late Colin Carr.”

“Roy left his Scartho home as This England flourished to live in Cheltenham.He had become a wealthy man and eventually sold all his publications.

“His occasional visits to Grimsby revealed him little changed – blazer and flannels, beaming smile. But the ideas had run out. He had been ill for some time before his death.

“I always looked for his name in the Honours’ Lists. But it never appeared. Perhaps that all his magazine titles survive – especially This England – is sufficient epitaph.”