Watkins to retire after 45 years at the top

I wish a long and happy retirement to Roger Watkins who is to step down in the spring as editor-in-chief of Northcliffe's weeklies in Kent and Sussex. He has spent 45 years in newspapers and I first met him when he was a back-bench executive on the Daily Express, one of the nicest guys to work at a level where toughness and rudeness were the norm. Watkins, now 62, spent 26 years with the Express before returning to the regional press, where he - and the papers he worked for - prospered. He has been a credit to journalism. (Via Hold The Front Page)