A privilege to work with the very best in the business - the late, great Graham Brooks
Former Chichester Observer editor Graham Brooks, who has died at the age of 95, remains the only person ever to have given me a full-time job. He also gave me the perfect model to follow.
For Graham journalism was all about fairness, balance and decency. He also made it about kindness. I always thought of him as the perfect gentleman, every moment of his working day for the three years we coincided.
I was privileged to start my career under his leadership and alongside the late and equally great Peter Homer, chief reporter at the Chichester Observer series. Between them they upheld the highest ideals of journalism. I never once heard anyone complain that Peter had been unfair to them in any respect – except just the once when someone muddled him up with me! Balance was Peter’s watchword.
Equally I never once heard anyone say a bad word about Graham. The respect he enjoyed in the community was huge – and hugely deserved.
At first it really used to strike me that anyone I spoke to in Chichester would preface their comments to me with an unvarying “Oh, I have known Graham for 30 years, you know” – almost like a warning shot across my bows. It took me a year or two to realise that it was nothing of the kind. It was simply a measure of his standing in Chichester and beyond.
He told me off just the once in the three years we worked together, and as tickings-off go, it came with the lightest of touches. I had described a 62-year-old in the paper as an “elderly man.” Graham wasn’t impressed. It was precisely Graham’s age, I discovered to my dismay – and there was nothing remotely elderly about Graham.
Appropriately Graham had the last laugh six years later when I ran my first marathon. As fate would have it, Graham, by now six years retired, was the first person I bumped into when I was back in Chichester, probably still wearing my medal, the next day. I was pumped up and full of myself with my debut marathon under my belt.
Two minutes of conversation with Graham was all it took to be reminded that he still had two marathons faster than mine under his belt – despite being considerably more than 30 years my senior. But it wasn’t remotely said in a gloating way. No, he was just gently encouraging me to go faster!
But then again, encouragement was all part of his trademark kindness. Graham was a remarkable man. It was a privilege to know him – and to see exactly what it means to be a gentleman in the world of journalism.