My father, Dugal Nisbet-Smith, who has died aged 90, was a journalist and newspaper manager who lived an extraordinarily colourful life. In later years he could be found in the Suffolk farmhouse he shared with his wife, surrounded by newspapers and blaring 24-hour news channels, completely absorbed in the politics and conflicts of a world he could no longer explore.
Born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the elder son of David Nisbet-Smith, a businessman, and Margaret (nee Fookes), he was a mischievous and inquisitive child, with a passion for rugby, like many Kiwis of his generation. A natural storyteller, he excelled academically at Southland boys’ high school in Invercargill, but decided against university, choosing instead to become a cub reporter on the Southland Daily News. His ambitions, however, were wider than the small South Island community. At 21, he boarded a ship for London and headed straight for Fleet Street.
He began work on the Daily Express, initially covering crime before moving into features, where he once spent an evening consoling the Hollywood actor Patricia Neal, who believed she had been cursed by a witch. His sharp writing and drive carried him quickly through the ranks, but ever restless, and by now married to Ann (nee Taylor), a cytopathologist, he moved his young family to the Caribbean. Still in his mid-20s, he became assistant editor and managing director of the Barbados Advocate.
Combative and fearless, he made enemies easily, using newspapers across the West Indies and West Africa to challenge the powerful and the corrupt. He believed deeply in the role of the fourth estate to expose wrongdoing, a conviction that often put him at odds with leaders. Returning to the UK in 1969, he ran the Scottish Daily Record for eight years before securing the plum job in 1978 of general manager of Times Newspapers. His overhaul of working practices contributed to the year-long strike that began later that year, and ultimately opened the door to Rupert Murdoch’s takeover in 1981.
Nicknamed “The Hawk” by the Evening Standard, he soon flew from his new Australian boss to become publishing adviser to the Aga Khan, marvelling at his new employer’s habit of changing his jewel-encrusted Rolex several times a day for hygiene reasons. His career then settled in 1983 into a long and influential period as director of the Newspaper Society, the trade body for Britain’s papers, during which he repeatedly clashed with Margaret Thatcher – always in defence of the profession he loved. He was appointed CBE in 1996 and retired in 1997.
The family still marvel at how he also found time to paint, sculpt and faithfully watch All Blacks games on Sky, even in the dead of night. He is survived by Ann, whom he married in 1959, and three children – my sisters, Sarah and Catherine, and me – as well as six grandchildren, Alasdair, Jamie, Angus, Julia, Anya and Fergus, and a great-grandchild, Logan.
