TRIBUTES have been paid to former Mid-Devon Advertiser Sports Editor Roger Lane, aged 72.
For many years Roger edited the sports pages of the paper and was well known on the local sporting scene.
He retired from the newspaper business seven years ago, having started as a compositor with the Sunday Independent. He was a father of the NGA union Chapel there.
He started in newspapers when he was 15 as an apprentice linotype operator at The Cornish & Devon Post and after five years was a fully fledged compositor. He came to work with the Mid-Devon Advertiser early in the 1990s and helped train staff to use Apple Mac computers.
He left the MDA around 2004 and the spent 10 years working nights at the Samworth Brothers factory in Launceston, in doing this he hoped to have more time fishing.
Former MDA editor George Taylor said: ‘Roger was a sub-editor with the MDA when I became editor in the early 1990s and he taught me – and other staff – the computer system for that newspaper’s page make-up. Roger was a first-class sub-editor who was well-liked in the town and was much appreciated by his colleagues for his good humour and tremendous breadth of general knowledge.’
Former MDA deputy editor Mike Taylor said: ‘I worked with Roger at the paper for a good few years, mostly while I was in the pre-press department.
‘I remember him being very professional in his work and showed great commitment to the job as the sports editor.
‘He used to commute from his home just across the Devon/Cornwall border to the Newton Abbot office every day for an 8am start.
‘Most lunchtimes he’d have an hour’s snooze in his car – and who could blame him after his early start – but sometimes Roger and I would wander down to the Wolborough Inn for a pint and a game of pool.
‘He took a lot of interest in the local sports that he wrote about but his passion was always fishing.
‘He was a keen angler and would often tell me how he’d spent the weekend with his dog on some Cornwall riverbank, be it in rain or shine, talking about the one that got away.
‘Roger always had a good tale to tell and he reminded me of an old Cornish seadog... I for one will miss his yarns.’
The MDA’s former news editor John Balment said Roger used to travel daily into the Newton Abbot office from his home in Cornwall and never missed in all weathers during the winter months.
‘He was a character and popular with everyone. Away from the office his passion was salmon fishing. Our thoughts are with his family. Lovely bloke – sad news indeed.’
He leaves a wife, Rosemarie, two daughters, Rebecca and Sarah, and two grandchildren. Hew lived in Tregadillet.
Rosemarie Lane said: ‘He was a newspaper man all his life and loved working on papers.
‘Wherever he went he always took a keen interest in newspapers. It was in his blood.’
He died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage.
The funeral service for Roger Lane will be held at the Glynn Valley Crematorium at 11.30am on Tuesday, September 14.