It wasn’t so much a farewell, more a gentle bowing out last week as Sir Ray Tindle, 90, who bought his first local paper with £300 of his demob money and ended up owning 220, announced that his son would be taking over.
There’ll be time enough to contemplate future difficulties, but for once let’s dwell in the past and Ray’s roseate presence, where local papers were more than failing cash machines. Here he is, announcing his retirement.
“When the bombing of London started, schools still operating in the capital were evacuated. I was in one of many long queues at Paddington Station. Entirely through my own fault, I returned from a visit to the loo and joined the wrong queue! I ended up in Torquay where I was allocated to a family in Paignton. Their neighbours were Charles and Kath Crook and their two daughters. Charles was the advertisement manager of the Torbay Herald & Express.
“I owe them so much. I fell in love with local papers then (1940) and I’ve been in love with them ever since.”
Love? It seems an odd word to use about the ruthless cut-and-cut-again world of newspapering. But anyone who knows Ray knows that he means it. He’s never squeezed the last penny or set heady revenue budgets. He’s rescued dozens of papers locked in a downward spiral. It’s what he loves to do.
