30th anniversary of the Editorial Centre

Marine Court in Hastings, home of the Editorial Centre

It is 30 years ago today that my wife Pam and I set up the Editorial Centre in Hastings. This evening we will raise a glass to mark the anniversary of the day our lives changed forever. I had worked as a reporter for the Shields Weekly News in Tyneside, a sub at The Northern Echo, shifted at The Sun, chief-subbed the Evening Despatch in Darlington and ended up as editor of the Echo.
Pam worked for the Echo as a promotions executive. We enjoyed every minute but after 15 years on the nightshift, and as parents of three young children, we were looking for the next move - especially as our GP had us down as 'a one-parent family'. 

In 1993 the Echo’s parent company, Westminster Press, offered me a management role in the South, based at its training centre in Hastings. It was a tough decision but we left our native North-East and settled in a village near Rye in East Sussex. Two years later the parent company, Pearson, announced it was to sell Westminster Press.

The incoming company would have no need for a deputy editorial director and I was offered an MD’s job at one of the regional divisions. I was also offered night-editing positions on national papers. We faced a huge dilemma. Was I ready to be an MD or to go back on the night-shift? Would a four-hour daily commute be feasible or would we move our kids, who had settled nicely in the village school, to London. If we didn't choose one, what on earth were we going to do? East Sussex wasn’t really a thriving media centre.

As we were pondering our options, along came an amazing opportunity. Pearson announced that one of the casualties of the sale was to be the pioneering but unprofitable training centre - the brainchild of Nick Herbert and Bob James.

Pam and I offered to buy it and, to our astonishment, the company said Yes. It was on December 22, 1995, that we bought the training centre in Hastings and we reopened it as the Editorial Centre on Monday January 8, 1996.

An early Editorial Centre brochure

By the time we signed the deal we had contracts to guarantee our business would be profitable for the first two years. Those working at the centre - Robin Thompson, Steve Nelson, Frank le Duc, Steve Gladwyn, Sarah Jackson (nee Dixon), shorthand supremo Sylvia Bennett and Anne Scott included - all came with us and helped turn it into a success. The first course we ran in 1996 had 21 trainees on it. In 2016 some of them held a 20th anniversary dinner near King's Cross. Gareth Dant wrote a nice piece about it here. 

The Editorial Centre trained thousands of people, many now award-winning journalists and executives. They include editor-in-chief of the New York Post Keith Poole, BBC broadcaster and comedian Matt Chorley, author Sathnam Sanghera, Sam Coates and Ed Conway of Sky, Sam Greenhill chief reporter of the Daily Mail who was named Journalist of the Year in 2025, Andy Bounds of the FT and Matt Nixson of the Express - to name just a few. We trained in Ireland too and many of today’s senior journalists passed through the training organised by the Irish Examiner.
Thirty years ago we set off on adventure, a gamble, which turned out better than we could have ever imagined. It has seen us work for almost every national and regional newspaper. It has led to jobs in India, China, America, Australia, Malta, Gibraltar, the Channel Islands and Ireland and with companies from Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Hungary and Russia. We have redesigned more than 100 newspapers, produced live publications with our long-standing partner, designer Mike Brough, and met some amazing people. We will always be indebted to Shamus Donald, the human resources director of WP, who eased the deal through, negotiated an ongoing contract and made it as painless as possible. Without him, none of what happened later would have been possible.

Some of the Editorial Centre's services

The Editorial Centre thrived for nine years before we sold it to the Press Association in 2004. Thanks to Paul Potts, Tony Watson, Pat Pilton, Nick Teunon and Steven Brown for setting that sale in motion. We then helped PA absorb it into its own training company, buying the Trinity training centre in Newcastle and establishing centres in London and Howden in East Yorkshire. In 2007 I stood down as training director and we set up our new company, SMS. We still work for many media groups, including the Daily Mail whose schemes we run in London and New York, The i Paper and The Spectator.
When I was 22 I loved being a reporter on the Shields Weekly News. As I walked down to the river Tyne each day to pick up the fish prices to phone over to the Shields Gazette, I could never have imagined where the journey would take me. Now I see countless young journalists starting out on their journeys and watch their twists and turns with fascination. 

We owe a big thanks to the many people who have helped and guided us, called on our services or just had a pint with us along the way. Here’s to the next 30 years!