Former Manchester Evening News picture editor Stan Royle has died, aged 78.

His first job in newspapers was with Kemsley Press in 1950, after which he joined York Press in 1953.

After joining the MEN as a photographer in 1956, one of his early successes was an acclaimed photo of workmen hundreds of feet up on a steel girder having a brew while at work on Manchester’s CIS building.

The picture won him a national award and set the standard for his future work.

He was in charge of the picture desk between 1981 and 1991, and during that time he was responsible for making sure the paper got the harrowing front page picture of the plane going down the runway on fire in the 1985 Manchester air disaster. It was an image shown around the world.

Among the major picture stories he worked on were the Moss Side troubles, the Strangeways riot, the Piper Alpha disaster and the Lockerbie air crash.

He was a personal friend of Manchester United star Duncan Edwards and the famous Busby Babes team. He covered the Munich air disaster.

Stan also snatched one of the first pictures of moors murderer Ian Brady and photographed the Aberfan tragedy.

He was also responsible for getting a picture that readers thought they would never see - an armed policeman on duty. Stan took the picture after a shooting in Kendal when it was unusual to see armed police in this country.

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