Few journalists with a successful career in Fleet Street would quit at the age of 42 and work for the rest of their active life with development and environmental charities. But after working for Reuters, the Guardian, the Observer, the Times and the Daily Herald, partly in Cyprus during the troubles, my friend John Rowley, who has died aged 91, gave up his job as deputy editor of the Western Mail in 1973 and joined the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
He was persuaded to take the job by the assistant secretary-general, Patrick Crosse, who himself had left the Reuters agency and was keen to produce publications of quality to communicate the importance of population and development issues to an influential audience. John recalled that Patrick said, as if suggesting a walk round the park: “Why don’t you take a swing through Asia? Find out what’s going on. And why not take a photographer with you?” Thus he teamed up with Mark Edwards, the environmental photographer, to make many reporting trips across the developing world.
