Jim Markwick was responsible for a remarkable act of altruism when he persuaded the Guardian in 1973 to take on Gemini, a struggling business devoted to producing news features about developing countries in the Commonwealth.
Gemini posted copy to far-flung newspapers in the pre-internet era and was a major contributor to what was then talked about as a new, less westernised, international information order. It was the brainchild of Derek Ingram, formerly a deputy editor of the Daily Mail, who saw the Commonwealth as a new, exciting project and believed that newspapers within it deserved all the support they could get.
The business never made money for the Guardian, which disposed of it after nine years. But its offbeat stories and bold graphics broke new ground at the time. Jim had therefore made a real contribution to the developing world.
