Former art editor of the Daily Mirror, Manchester, Peter Donlan,
sadly passed away at his home in Chorltonville, Manchester at the age
of 68.
Donlan started his journalistic career working on
Manchester weekly newspapers for a court reporting agency, progressing
to the News Chronicle as a junior reporter. Keen to join the nationals,
he soon moved to the Daily Express where he held the positions of
deputy art editor and deputy features editor.
After seven years
he joined the Daily Mirror, where he spent the next 21 years in work he
loved. During this time he was features editor, then chief liaison
executive when new technology was introduced.
He spent some time
in Fleet Street when computers were introduced, and finally became art
editor before Robert Maxwell served redundancy notices and ended the
northern edition in 1988.
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Donlan chose not to move to London.
Instead, he and a Mirror colleague, Dennis Wills, decided to expand
their existing company of six years, Journalist Services.
As
associate members of the BAIE (British Association of Industrial
Editors) – now CiB (British Association of Communicators in Business)
they moved in to industrial editing. Offering a complete subbing and
design service, this was essentially a continuation of his national
newspaper work. Receiving copy and pictures from client editors,
instead of from reporters and photographers, his approach was the same
– to produce pages with impact.
Journalist Services won several
design awards and awards of excellence from the BAIE. He also ran
training sessions, passing on his skill and expertise in this field.
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Although
officially retired, Donlan continued to exercise his inquisitive mind
and traced his family history to pre-famine times in Ireland.
He
joined the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society and in no
time at all became the Secretary of the Irish Ancestry Branch,
regularly contributing to their magazine.
His enthusiasm for
genealogy successfully united many members of the Donlan family and
kept everyone informed of news, history and gatherings with his
newsletter Donlan Despatches!
To David and myself he was Dad. To
others he was Peter: Phyllis’s loyal husband; Margaret’s loving
brother; Freya’s doting grandad; Manny and Magda’s father-in-law; Uncle
Peter to his nieces and nephews; the perfect brother-inlaw; the
inspirational colleague; the true friend; the bloke who always made you
laugh….or at least smile!
He will be greatly missed.
Peter leaves behind his wife, Phyllis, and twins, David and Susan.
Susan Lee (daughter)
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