Dave Jamieson, picture editor at the Evening Gazette on Teesside, has hung up his camera after more than 30 years at the newspaper.

Dave – better known to colleagues and friends as Jammo – joined the Gazette in 1971 after nearly five years with The Northern Echo.

Dave as he was

His career behind the lens began with training as a photographic printer with the Newcastle Chronicle and Journal in 1962.

Freelance work across the North-east and Liverpool saw Jammo capture many of the big names of the Sixties, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, with his pictures reaching a national audience through newspapers, magazines and television.

Highlights of a long and varied career include trips to Belfast with the British Army at the height of the troubles – “quite scary at times” and the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid.

As he is now

Dave’s eye for a great sports picture landed him the Northern Sports Council photographer of the year award in 1979. He had three exhibitions of work shown and had a picture hung with some of the world’s top press pictures in the Hague as part of the World’s Press Photographic competition. Another picture was published in the World’s Press Year Book.

Jammo became chief photographer at the Gazette in 1991 before being promoted to his current post the following year.

Editor Steve Dyson said: “Jammo is an old-school journalist and proud of it – and so he should be.

“I’ve certainly thoroughly enjoyed bringing out great papers with him, learning from the pearls of wisdom he brings to situations and – most importantly of all in this job – enjoying the work with him as part of the team.

“After almost 34 years on the Gazette, Jammo was the person I could go to with any question on any area or person in Teesside, and invariably he would have an answer.

“He also had the experience, quality and therefore the wellie to tell me when he thought a decision was wrong – and he sometimes did, always doing so via a quiet word behind closed doors.

“On occasions this meant we would change a front page story or a course of action, but at other times when we pressed ahead, Jammo also had the gravitas to respond professionally and to get on with the job.

“He is a great professional and the Gazette will miss him in many ways.”