My former colleague Barry Johnson, who has died aged 67 from bowel cancer, was a skilled and much respected Guardian journalist from 1986 until 2021, during which time his roles included home newsdesk editor and chief subeditor. Those who worked with him remember his intelligence, kindness, wit and unflappable calm.
Barry was born in Liverpool, the son of Molly (Muriel, nee Newbery) and Sydney Johnson. His father was a bank manager, and his mother had been a wartime land worker, a Norland nanny and then a matron at a school for blind children.
He attended Bolton school, and graduated from Downing College, Cambridge, in natural sciences in 1979. Between school, university and journalism he worked in a biscuit factory, a bleachers and dyers mill, and as a driver for a machine tool company.
He entered journalism in 1980 as a trainee reporter for the Glossop Chronicle in High Peak, Derbyshire, and then became the paper’s district news editor, before working from 1983 to 1986 as a news subeditor at the Yorkshire Evening Press in York and the Yorkshire Post in Leeds.
Barry met Jay Sivell in 1981 at a United Newspapers journalist training course in Preston, bonding over a shared desk and a Guardian quick crossword. She became his partner and they both joined the Guardian as home news subeditors. They travelled together, to the USSR, Africa, India and Australia, and married in 2004 when their daughters, Jess and Molly, were old enough to be witnesses.
In his younger years Barry enjoyed parachuting, playing the guitar and motorbikes. Later in life he preferred to read, particularly poetry, tackle cryptic crosswords, and cook for the family. But he retained an eye for the bigger picture – when he retired from the Guardian, he received a telescope as a leaving gift.
A clue to his guiding principles may be found in a job application form apparently filled out for Cambridge University’s careers advisers in 1980. He wrote: “From my study of physics I gained little of relevance to my chosen career of journalism. My philosophical reading has however given me a broader intellectual outlook and an increased ability to spot specious arguments. I imagine that both these qualities can be of use to a journalist, but one of the most important parts of my education has been that which I have gained on the factory shop floor. I have found that I can mix with all sorts of people.”
He is survived by Jay, Jess and Molly, a grandson, Vince, and his brother, Tim.
