the times | Saturday August 1 2020 1GM 81
Readers’ Lives
and Nick, who is in computing. For
a while the family lived in Tufnell
Park, north London, and in the early
1970s Mark satisfied his burgeoning
interest in politics by becoming a
Labour councillor for Islington
alongside a young Jack Straw and
Margaret Hodge, and he was made
treasurer.
At the same time his marriage
started to break down and it was not
until 1989 that he met at a printers’
party his future partner, Caroline
Dilke, who was editing John Lewis’s
weekly in-house magazine. They
would be together for 31 years.
In 2004 Caroline moved down to
Bridport, Dorset, and Mark divided
his time between London, where he
was also chairman of the Barnes
Sports Club for 20 years, and Dorset.
In his later years he spent more time
in Dorset, where he edited the parishmagazine, offered financial advice to
Marshwood’s Bottle Inn pub and was
a director of the Acorn Multi
Academy Trust for primary schools in
Dorset and Devon.
A gracious man with a mellifluous
voice who suffered for many years
from ankylosing spondylitis, a disease
of the upper spine, Mark relaxed from
his — and other people’s — projects
by watching cricket (he was a club-
level umpire) and following West
Ham United.
He read three newspapers daily to
feed his obsession with politics. He
had an excellent memory — able to
recall what someone had said 20
years earlier, where they were sitting
and what they were wearing — and
an innate ability to understand
human nature. It did not stem from a
passion for literature. After recently
finishing George Eliot’s Middlemarch
on holiday in Tobago he commented
that the work was good enough, but
“could do with an edit”.If you would like to commemorate
the life of a relative, friend or
colleague, call 020 7782 5583 to
discuss the content and cost, or
email: [email protected].
thetimes.co.uk/static/terms-and-conditionsincluding taking children from lower-
income families on holiday. Mark was
the eldest of three boys. His brother
Andrew became a solicitor, and his
younger brother Robert was ordained
as a priest.
Mark was educated privately at the
Hall School in Hampstead and then
Westminster School, which did not
entirely agree with his adolescent
outlook and he left before taking
A levels. He went straight to The
Luton News as a cub reporter and in
his early twenties married Catherine
Candler, a violinist and at one time
leader of the York Symphony
Orchestra. They had two boys: Alex,
who worked in the gambling industry,In his spare time Mark Van de Weyer was a club-level cricket
umpire, a West Ham supporter and a director of an academy
trust for primary schools. Left, in the Caribbean in 2011“Cosmo’s sexier,
raunchier, cooler younger
sister”. The staff celebrated his
60th birthday with an innocent
mock-up of the front cover displaying
a photograph of Mark and the
headline: “The UK’s Naughtiest
Sexagenarian”.
Mark was born in St John’s Wood,
north London, in 1948 into a
comfortably-off family. His father,
Sylvain, was a partner at the estate
agency Cluttons and specialised in
the sale of church property. His
mother Jane (née Holmes),
remembered as a doughty ambulance
driver during the Second World War,
spent time on local good works,When, as a young editor of The Luton
News, the 20-year-old Mark Van de
Weyer learnt that owners of the new
colour televisions would need to add
£5 to their TV licence (on top of the
£5 they already paid for black and
white coverage) he swiftly detected a
potential news story. Was the newly
appointed chairman of the BBC
governors, Lord Hill of Luton, in
possession of a colour TV licence? He
was not. The chairman was quick to
acquire one but not before Mark had
leaked the story to Private Eye.
A sharp-minded, principled and
helpful figure, Mark spent a lifetime
applying his skill for spotting what
others might not have noticed,
whether, as a manager, it was rooting
out a corrupt element within an
organisation, as an entrepreneur
spotting a hole in the market, or as a
friend advising others how to take the
advantage in a dispute. Once engaged
with an issue he took a persistent,
fearless approach and learnt to
develop a tough skin.
After three years as editor of The
Luton News he joined a training
programme at the Financial Times,
which led to a position writing its
special reports. He had a lifelong
interest in politics at every level and
soon joined the FT’s branch of the
National Union of Journalists, rising
to become father of the chapel. An
articulate, efficient union rep, he got
Astute editor
and founder
of a feminist
magazine
on well with people on both sides of
the table.
His negotiating talents did not go
unrecognised by the newspaper’s
management and he was soon
appointed managing director of its
stable of magazines, among
them Investors Chronicle,
The Banker and Money
Management. It was
a position that
suited him, and
he was adept
at handling
budgets, finding
deals with
printers and
turning a profit.
In 1998,
however, he came
into the line of fire
of the group’s new
chief executive, Stephen
Hill — aka “Slasher” Hill —
and at the age of 50 lost his job. He
had been at the FT for 23 years.
Mark returned to and redeveloped
his role in a press-cuttings business
he had started with colleagues ten
years earlier. In 2005 they sold
Personality Profiles for a handsome
sum to the venture capital company
3i. At the same time Mark, by now
reinvented as an entrepreneur, went
on to found several publications in
obscure fields with varying degrees of
success, among them a magazine for
gamblers, a cosmetic surgery title
and Scarlet, a feminist periodical
dedicated to women billed asMark Van de Weyer, 72
Remembering loved ones
In
um
trus““Cosmo’s
raunchier, coo
sister”.Thestaffcelebs, among
ronicle,
oney
sephen
r” Hill —
0 losthisjob.HeOnce engaged with an
issue he took a fearless,
persistent approach
relationships with financial editors,
his eye always on the best way to
portray a story. In 1986, the year he
joined Inchcape, he noticed there was
a snappy headline to be made of the
company’s 86 per cent growth as it
turned over £86 million.
Born in 1936 in Henfield, WestConvivial PR director and cricket fan who bowled for Tony Greig
Sussex, JD left Steyning Grammar
School at 16 with what he described
as “two O levels including art and
needlework”. His upbringing was
strict. His father, John, had fought in
both world wars and was not prone to
praise. His mother, Doris (née
Withers), looked after the home and
he had an older sister, Marion.
JD’s first job was as a bank clerk for
the Natwest bank in Brighton, where
he met his first wife, Pamela Wells.
They married in 1958 and had
Alistair, who works in personal
development training, and Ged, who
is a children’s writer and storyteller.
In 1974 JD was plucked from the
branch to become Natwest’s media
relations manager based in Lombard
Street in the City and followed it with
spells at the communications
consultancy Dewe Rogerson and the
financial services corporation
American Express before becoming
the director of corporate affairs
at Inchcape.
Away from PR, he immersed
himself in cricket and football, and in
the early 1970s he became a weekendcommentator for BBC Radio Brighton
alongside Des Lynam. It brought him
into contact with the stars of the
Sussex cricket scene, who became
firm friends, and he would join John
Snow, Paul Phillipson and the like on
away matches and in the evenings.
Ever the bank manager, he helpedTony Greig, the future English
captain, to arrange a mortgage and
buy a house in Hove and was one of
his net bowlers when he tuned up for
England tours.
His marriage to Pamela ended in
1983 and JD moved from Hove to
Islington. In 1997 he married Helen
(née Siteman) who ran a technology
training company. JD retired in 1995
and took on consultancy positions,
also joining Helen in her company,
which became Banner Duncan. He
was the compere for more than 100charity cricket matches for the
Lord’s Taverners.
In 2011 he published Cricket
Wonderful Cricket, a collection of
interviews with aficionados such as
Rory Bremner and the Duke of
Edinburgh. He also wrote How to
Manage Your Bank Manager in 1982
and, as he suffered from the
neurodegenerative disorder, Simply
Parkinson’s, a guide for sufferers and
carers, in 2018. The latter he also
illustrated in his inimitable
humorous style.
If he was single-minded and
obstinate, JD was also party-loving,
generous and loyal, arranging his life
around his love of good food, wine,
friends and sport. He regularly
included John Arlott, the cricket
commentator, as a virtual guest at his
lunch table as, tucking in his napkin,
he would intone with mellifluous
accuracy: “And now the wine waiter
comes in from the carvery end with
what will be the last bottle before
lunch.”
In May John succumbed to the
coronavirus.John Duncan, the gregarious head of
public relations at Inchcape, the
international services group, operated
at a time when lunches were long,
expense accounts lavish yet standards
remained high. In the 1980s, when
press officers used to have to wait
anxiously for the first editions of
national newspapers to arrive to see
the fruits of their labour, John (known
to all as JD) liked to host an extended
dinner at the steak-and-fries
restaurant Rowley’s in Jermyn Street
between visits to the City bar Balls
Brothers. At the end of the evening he
would send a colleague off in a black
cab to King’s Cross station to pick up
the first editions and meet him back
at his house in Islington, north
London, for more beers and
amarettos while poring over the
writings of the City hacks.
With an unwavering confidence in
his own ability JD did not shy away
from a challenge. Supported by a
strong team, he forged good
John Duncan, 84
John Duncan commentated on sportHe arranged life around
his love of good food,
wine, friends and sport