My friend Patrick Kelly, who has died of cancer aged 68, was a press officer, journalist and author who wrote for many publications, including the Guardian, the Evening Standard in London and the Irish Times. He also co-founded, with me, the magazine Arts Industry, a monthly publication for those working in the cultural industries.
Born in Belfast, Patrick was one of the six children of Laurence, an office manager for a trade publisher, and Kathleen (nee Carey), a waitress. He went to St Malachy’s RC school in the city, and then studied history and politics at Warwick University, where he became involved in student politics, including a 1975 occupation of the institution’s senate building during a rent strike.
After graduating he worked at the Hillingdon Mirror newspaper in Uxbridge, Middlesex, and was active as a member of the National Union of Journalists in local and national disputes.
In 1982 he went to work as a press officer for the Greater London council and for Ken Livingstone, in whose name he wrote articles during the GLC’s confrontations with Margaret Thatcher. He also worked alongside John McDonnell, later a Labour shadow chancellor, who praised him for his trustworthiness as well as his “judgment and humanity”.
Patrick left the GLC shortly before it was abolished, moving on to become a press officer at the Association of London Authorities.
In 1987 he resigned from that job in order to spend two years in Barcelona, covering the news as a stringer for the Guardian and other newspapers. After returning to London in 1991 he and Julia Unwin, a social policy consultant, moved in together in Southwark, and he continued to freelance for the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Independent, Irish Times, the Times, Evening Standard and New Statesman.
He was also employed on a freelance basis by the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Camden to set up in-house publications for them.
Around that time Patrick also became involved in local politics. He was elected to Southwark council for the Labour party in 1998 and was chair of the council’s education committee.
He and Julia married in 2006 and the following year, when she became chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, they moved with their two daughters, Annie and Rachel, to York. There Patrick chaired York Labour party for a time and became a supporter of York City football club. He also continued to jointly co-edit Arts Industry and to contribute as a freelancer to other publications.
In 2014 he undertook a creative writing MA at Limerick University in Ireland and subsequently wrote a novel, A Hard Place, set in the Belfast of his youth. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2019 and became gravely ill late last year, a few days after the book was published.
Patrick had a gift for forging enduring friendships. He had a magnetic warmth and his great joy was to spend as much time as he could with family and friends.
He is survived by Julia, Annie and Rachel.
