His deputy at the Oxford Mail for several years, David Wynne-Jones, said: “Eddie was a superb editor, well respected and influential. He and his wife Vilma later moved to their current home in Summertown. When Eddie edited the Oxford Mail, the family lived in Cuxham, near Watlington. He was a member of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors for many years. In 1985 he became Editor of the Oxford Mail where he spoke of his pride at launching newspaper campaigns to reduce accidents on the A420 - dubbed ‘The Road to Hell’- promote the introduction of a 50mph speed limit on the A44 and campaigned for heart-start machines to be available in Oxfordshire. At each newspaper his editorial policies, combined with re-designs, resulted in increased readerships. When Eddie switched to Westminster Press, his first editorship followed at the Bucks Advertiser, Harrow and Wembley Observer and the Uxbridge Gazette. concentrating on local news, the paper increased its readership and circulation, from 29,000 to 52,000 copies a night.
Read more: Palace confirms date of King Charles' coronationĪfter national service Eddie returned to the Hunts Post as a senior reporter and then moved to a news agency in Cambridge.Īfter gaining more experience on local evening and weekly newspapers in Bristol and Bath, he returned to Cambridge in 1963 to become news editor of the Cambridge Evening News at the age of 26.Ī few years later he became assistant editor and. His duties involved working underground in the Churchill War Rooms in London, the headquarters of the Suez Command, and with the Army legal services, preparing written briefs for prosecutors and writing for the War Office news agency. His persistence paid off with the offer of a junior reporter’s job at £1.35p a week.Īfter 12 months he was called up for national service where his brief journalistic career was put to use as a sergeant in the special branch of the R.A.S.C. He achieved this four years later by cycling 10 miles from his home in Somersham, East Anglia, to Huntingdon where he waited three days to see the editor of the local weekly paper. The paper also won the national title of Regional Newspaper of the Year in 1992/93.Įddie himself was recognised for his achievements to newspapers, receiving his OBE from the Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) in March 1994.ĭuring his investiture, he chatted to the Prince about his Highness’s times as a student in Cambridge, where Eddie had been news editor of the Cambridge Evening News.īorn in 1936, Edward Arthur James Duller - always known as Eddie - announced at the age of 12 that he wanted to be a journalist.
Read again: Tribute to former Oxford Mail editor Eddie Duller
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