My former Guardian colleague John Paterson, who has died aged 80, was chief subeditor on the Rand Daily Mail newspaper in South Africa during a turbulent period of the 1970s when opposition to apartheid intensified along with state repression.
John and his wife, Maggie (nee Stent), a fellow journalist whom he married in 1965, were staunch opponents of apartheid, and like many others in their profession in South Africa, played an important role in the fight to try to reverse the racial laws of the country. However, they decided to leave when the black daily newspaper on which Maggie was chief sub, the World, was closed down by the government in 1977, and life became increasingly dangerous for journalists.
In 1979 John, Maggie and their children moved to Britain, where John joined the Press Association as a subeditor before moving in 1980 to the Guardian in subbing roles on the foreign and home news desks. In 1982 he became a subeditor on South magazine, which provided economic and political analysis outside prevailing western thinking, before re-joining the Guardian in 1986 until his retirement in 2008.
John’s maternal grandfather, the missionary Edwin Lloyd, travelled in 1895 as an interpreter with the “three great African chiefs” to lobby Queen Victoria successfully to block Cecil Rhodes’s plans to incorporate Botswana into Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The youngest of four siblings, John was born in Durban. His father, Walter, a soldier who fought in the first world war and survived the 1916 Battle of Delville Wood and a prison camp, died when he was a toddler. John was educated at King Edward VII school in Johannesburg, but when his mother, Vida (nee Lloyd), died when he was 16, he chose to leave school early.
John’s first role in journalism was what he described as a “dream job” in Rhodesia as a photographer-reporter for the Rhodesian Farmer newspaper, a post that allowed him to roam the country taking every possible detour into the wildest places. It also meant that he could indulge his passion for natural history; he had specialist-level knowledge of birds and snakes, and once told me that “perfection is camping close to elephants”.
From the Rhodesian Farmer he joined the Rand Daily Mail as a subeditor, eventually becoming chief subeditor there until he moved to the UK. Although John never returned to live in his birthplace, he did spend six months back home on sabbatical in 1986, working as a subeditor on the ANC-aligned community newspaper, New Nation, during a period when its editor, Zwelakhe Sisulu, was in jail. He also lectured at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism in South Africa.
Throughout his career in the UK John mentored young journalists informally, among them his friend the BBC broadcaster George Alagiah, who said that John showed him “not just how, but why, we do journalism”.
In later life John suffered from poor health, but was able to keep up with his interests. These included a fondness for his local pub, which sent him complimentary pints of Guinness when he was too unwell to get there.
He is survived by Maggie, their children, Jim and Bindy, and five grandchildren.
