Tribute to former journalist Nick Herbert who has died aged 88

Former colleagues described him as a “visionary” and “a champion for editorial freedom” who “inspired a generation of journalists to create campaigning and compassionate community newspapers”.

He is credited with modernising the regional and local press by appointing young, energetic and often untested editors.

Nick also fought against any threat to editorial integrity, be it from politicians, advertisers, lawyers or the unions.

Allan Prosser, who Nick made editor of the Acton Gazette at 25, recalled: “When a production union threatened, just before midnight, to ‘black’ a story they didn’t like he asked me four quick questions: ‘Was the story accurate; was it fair; was it balanced; did I trust the reporter?’

Once satisfied he said: ‘Tell the union that if they interfere with editorial content then publication will be suspended until the story runs in the form that you deem acceptable as editor.’

After a hastily convened chapel meeting the report went in as written and the paper hit its deadline.” It is one of many examples of Nick supporting his editors to the hilt.

Nick, who lived in Hemingford Abbots, started on the Reuters sports desk before moving to the diplomatic desk in America.

He then joined The Times as assistant Washington correspondent, under the legendary Louis Heren, in 1960.

Nick covered the assassination of JFK, the Cuban missile crisis, attended the first Beatles concert at the Washington Coliseum (which he described as sounding like a jet engine taking off due to all the screaming fans) and interviewed Martin Luther King Jr while walking over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

He was appointed Middle East correspondent and moved, with his wife Jenny and two small children, to Beirut. There he covered the Six Day War in 1967, the Shah of Iran’s inauguration and the withdrawal of British troops from Aden.

Nick returned to Britain as deputy features editor at The Times and in 1970 took on the editorship of the Cambridge Evening News. Four years later he was appointed editorial director of Westminster Press — owners of 120 regional and local newspaper titles including The Northern Echo, the Oxford Mail, the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, the Bath Chronicle and the Brighton Evening Argus.

The role included appointing, guiding and supporting his editors. Nick, who was a keen sportsman, said that being captain of his school cricket and rowing teams stood him in good stead for the task.

During his tenure he guided the WP titles from hot metal to new technology, set up the renowned editorial training centre in Hastings and, as chairman of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors, was an architect of the Society of Editors.

Dennis Nicholas Herbert was born in Watford in 1934 to Dennis and Elizabeth Herbert, spent his early childhood in Uganda, where his father was a headteacher, attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire and read English at Clare College, Cambridge.

He married Jennifer Bailey, who he met at a New Year’s Eve party, in 1958. The couple had four children Libby, Cally, Alice and Chris and 12 grandchildren. Jenny died in 2018.

Nick and wife Jenny (Image: FAMILY)

Nick found happiness again and married the novelist Jill Paton Walsh in September 2020 but she died just three weeks after the wedding.

His daughter Cally said of her father: “He stoically bore the pain and sadness of both deaths and continued to live independently with help from family, friends and a dedicated team of carers until his last day.”

In 1982 he succeeded his father, a hereditary peer, becoming 3rd Baron, Lord Hemingford of Watford and used his maiden speech in the Lords to speak against water company privatisation.

He left the House of Lords in 1999 when the Labour Government restricted the number of hereditary peers. His last speech was on the introduction of the Press Complaints Commission.

In retirement Nick enjoyed time as regional chairman of the National Trust (East Anglia) and served on the Trust’s executive committee. He is remembered by those who worked with him as “an exceptional mentor of staff who liked and respected him for his modesty, quiet authority, unexpected insights and wisdom”.

The funeral will be held on Friday February 3 at 2.30pm in St Margaret’s Church, Hemingford Abbots. The service will be streamed on this link:https://youtube.com/live/VZFJyhJ8qms. If you would like to donate to one of Nick’s favourite charities in his memory, please visit https://dennisnicholaslordhemingford.muchloved.com/ and click on the donate button.