A journalist who worked for a group of sister weeklies until just two years ago has died aged 91.

Tributes have been paid to Terry Cringle, who worked in journalism for 72 years and wrote for Isle of Man Newspapers until his retirement at the age of 89.

Terry had written the nostalgia pages of the group’s newspapers for around 12 years.

His death featured on the front page of this week’s Isle of Man Examiner, which turned its masthead black in tribute to him.

Alan Bell, Terry’s long-time colleague and friend, told the Examiner: “He was head and shoulders above everyone else, Terry.

“He was the professional’s professional, a very consummate journalist.”

Manx native Terry was brought up in his parents’ boarding house in Douglas and first joined the Examiner as a junior reporter in 1948, aged 17.

After National Service, he spent another short spell at the Examiner, before finding work on newspapers in England, in Southport, Nottingham and Newcastle, and finally on the Manchester Evening Chronicle.

He returned to the island in 1962, rejoined the Examiner to report on the Tynwald, the Parliament of the Isle of Man.

In 1969, he went freelance and later convinced Alan to join him as his business partner.

They often freelanced for UK newspapers worked together at Manx Radio, where Terry set up the radio station’s first newsroom.

For many years, Terry also served as Border Television’s Isle of Man reporter.

In the 1990s, he worked for publisher the Manx Experience, writing about Manx history.

More recently, he continued to write weekly columns and features for Isle of Man Newspapers and other publications, as well as broadcasting on Manx Radio, before finally retiring in 2020.

Stewart Watterson, former general manager of Manx Radio, said: “Terry was a wordsmith par excellence and the island’s leading personality journalist of modern times.

“We think of some of the stand-out personalities of Manx journalism who forged the path to the free speech we take for granted today, but they were different times.

“In the context of successful journalism in the post-war years, Terry was a one-off.”