Pat Randall has officially left the Bristol Observer after 17 years as editor.

He was taken ill in January and had been doing much of his work from home before deciding to retire.

Pat joined the paper in 1985 from the rival Dursley Gazette series of weekly newspapers and set about improving the local news content.

Having cut his teeth on weekly broadsheets, he was a great believer in no-nonsense journalism, based firmly on local people, places and events.

Pat was instrumental in steering the Observer through the switch-over to new technology, with many new processes tested on the Obsever before being transferred to its sister daily papers, the Bristol Evening Post and Western Daily Press.

And one of his greatest achievements was the launch of a new Observer edition in Stroud, introduced to fight off a new publication from a rival newspaper group, which hit the streets just two weeks after the initial meeting.

He also helped to launch further editions in Clevedon and Nailsea.

To mark his retirement Pat was presented with a special tribute front page of the Observer by Simon Harding, who has been Pat's long-time deputy and has now taken over as editor.

To read more about Simon, click here.

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