Daily Mirror legend Sydney Young has died aged 82.
One of the greatest reporters of his generation, Syd, as he was universally known, died in hospital on Friday with his beloved family by his side.
Tributes have flooded in for Young, who worked for the Mirror in New York, Belfast, London, Manchester and the West Country.
Close friend and former Tony Blair spokesman Alastair Campbell said: “He was a great reporter, but more than that he was a wonderful man.
“What made him a great reporter was that he loved stories and he loved people. What made him a great man was that love for people, and a zest for life.
“I am one of many, many young reporters Syd took under his wing.
“He was one of life’s givers. There in the good times, and the bad. I will miss him hugely.”
Piers Morgan said: “Syd Young wasn’t just a Daily Mirror legend, he was a Fleet Street legend.
“He was a brilliantly inquisitive and persistent journalist with a fabulously well-honed nose for a cracking story, and a wonderful character, beloved by his colleagues.”
Daily Mirror editor Alison Phillips said: “Syd was a true Daily Mirror legend.
“He was a fantastic reporter - one of the very best of his generation.
“He was a much loved and respected reporter throughout Fleet St and he will be very much missed.”
Syd was always proud to call himself “a Mirrorman” and still attended the annual reporters Christmas lunch in Fleet St.
Indeed, he served the paper he loved dearly for 37 years before his retirement in 1999.
Young was particularly proud of his roots in Manchester, where he hailed from the working class streets of Ancoats at a time the city was a mighty hub of Britain’s newspaper industry.
Posted to Northern Ireland, he earned deserved distinction from his coverage in the early 1970s of the savagery surrounding the erupting terrorist campaign, when bombings and shootings became a brutal fact of daily life.
Next came a dream move to the United States and a prize role in the Mirror’s bustling New York bureau.
“I always wanted to go to America, the original land of opportunity, and I made it,” he commented later.
The moved allowed him a front row seat at historic events, including the fall of US President Richard Nixon.
On his return to Britain, he opted for a move to the West Country where he achieved more professional success.
Among the many highlights was the extraordinary Jeremy Thorpe affair, which centred on the allegation that married Liberal Party leader Thorpe, then a major public figure, paid a hitman to kill his secret gay lover.
A decade later one of the most gruesome British crime stories ever unfolded on his patch - the horrific murders by Fred and Rose West.
He bore the fibrosis and pneumonia, which ultimately claimed him, stoically.
But it could not prevent him raising a laugh and telling tales during visits to his bedside until just hours before his death.
He is survived by his widow Jackie, sons Andrew and Jonathan, daughter Alison and seven grandchildren.
