Sinclair Newton, who became the youngest-ever news editor of the Worcester Evening News, has died.

He had been ill for some time and died four days short of his 56th birthday.

His break into journalism came when he was offered a job as office junior at the Evesham Journal.

The job involved mostly making copious amounts of tea, but he was soon writing stories and taking delight in parish pump politics, amused that vegetable show competitors could argue so much over the size of the biggest turnip.

He then joined the Worcester Evening News as a reporter, and at the age of 24, he became its news editor.

He was one of the most talented journalists to be employed by the paper, and under his enthusiastic guidance, coupled with the editorship of Leon Hickman, the newsroom embraced investigative journalism, the highlight of which was the reporting of the scandal surrounding Sunningdale.

The pair sent reporter John Ware – now frontman for BBC Panorama – undercover to the former sanatorium at Knightwick, where destitute families were forced to live in rented squalor.

Readers were appalled as the nightly diary exposed inadequacies in the county’s social housing policy.

Sinclair’s tenure of the newsroom also coincided with two of the 1970s most gruesome stories, the Worcester Paraquat murder trial and the triple killings of three city children by their babysitter.

In 1974, he moved to Manchester, where he took a newsdesk job with the Daily Mail and worked there until the paper closed its Northern office.

He then ran his own news agency, most recently producing his own gourmet food magazine.

His funeral will be held on Monday.

Do you have a story about the regional press? Ring 0116 227 3122/3121, or
e-mail [email protected]