A city weekly editor has bid farewell to the regional press after 23 years in the industry.

Stacey Barnfield, pictured left, has stepped down from the Birmingham Post to pursue “new ventures” after two years in the editor’s chair.

In a farewell piece published in last week’s edition of the Post, Stacey paid tribute to his first editor, John Connor, who took him under his wing at the Solihull News after “seeing something” in him.

John, who left the Solihull News to become a specialist motoring writer, was killed in an accident on the M4 last year while returning from covering a motor show in Spain.

Stacey’s career has seen him work at weeklies and dailies across Birmingham and the West Midlands area in a variety of roles including office runner, writer, downtable sub-editor, page editor, assistant editor and deputy editor.

He joined the Solihull News in 1992 before working on two now-defunct titles, the Walsall Observer and Sutton Coldfield News.

From there he landed a subbing job on the Sunday Mercury, produced in what he describes as the “Naughty Corner” of the Birmingham Post & Mail’s offices.

In his farewell piece in last week’s Post, Stacey admitted he will miss day-to-day newsroom life “enormously”.

He wrote: “My first editor (you always remember your first editor) on those weekly papers was a lovely man called John Connor, who sadly passed away last year.

“John saw something in me and took me under his wing, putting me on every training course available and becoming a mentor. For this, I’ll always be grateful.

“It was John who pushed me to get a foot in the door of the Post & Mail which resulted in the subbing job on ‘the Merc’.

“Boy, what a paper the Mercury was in the 1990s, doing everything a Sunday paper should be doing with exclusive after exclusive, page after page.”

Stacey added: “Those highfalutin Birmingham Post types occupied ‘Cravat Corner’ while the engine of the business, the Evening Mail, took out the rest of the space.

“It was during this time I had the fortune of working with some of the greatest journalists I’ve ever known. People like Richard Williamson, a quite brilliant feature writer with whom I’m proud to have shared a byline, and a beer.”

Stacey spent four years at the Mercury before working on the Post & Mail’s magazines division, before being offered the chance to work as the Mail’s assistant editor in 2005.

Three years later he rose to the rank of deputy editor under Steve Dyson, about which Stacey wrote: “As someone who delivered the Mail as a teenager it was with real pride I landed such a senior role on my home-town paper.”

He took on the role of Post editor in February 2013.

During his time at the Post, Stacey was responsible for launching the paper’s app and more than doubled its online audience in one year.

He also spearhead its ‘Hidden Spaces’ project, aimed at promoting rarely-seen Birmingham buildings through photographic supplements.

Stacey revealed his decision to leave the company in June, the day after publisher Trinity Mirror announced plans to make 19 redundancies in the Birmingham newsroom – although it is understood his own role was not among those at risk.

Reflecting on his time in charge, he wrote: “I’ve enjoyed enormously my time on the Post – pushing its digital presence with an emphasis on web-first publishing and launching a unique app that combines the traditional newspaper with a breaking news feed.

“It was always my intention to shape a newspaper that reflects the positive mood in the city surrounding regeneration and redevelopment, while continuing to challenge authority – most notably our campaign to demand the BBC gives the region a fair deal.

“I like to think we’ve had a decent go at it and the incredibly hard-working business writers Enda Mullen, Jon Griffin and Tamlyn Jones, led by Graeme Brown, deserve praise.

“Now, it’s time for pastures new. I’m not going far and I hope my new ventures allow me to follow and, where possible, continue to be involved in the great things happening in Birmingham and its fast-changing media and creative sector.”