Former Manchester Guardian and Western Daily Press journalist, magazine editor and author JOHN HUDSON died at home in Chalford Hill near Stroud on August 4, aged 80. His
friend Richard Jones pays tribute, with more memories from another friend and colleague, Mike Wren.

“I first met John Hudson on the WDP news subs desk in 1986. We sat next to one another on our first shift – under the ‘watchful’ eye of editor Ian Beales – and neither of us really knew what we were doing. But John had worked on the Manchester Guardian and edited a magazine in Gloucestershire so I thought it best to follow his lead.
“I told John I had been doing shifts on The Observer, so he assumed I was an experienced sub. It was some time later that he realised I meant the Kingswood edition of The New Observer Homesense supplement – the Bristol United Press free, and heavily editionalised, weekly newspaper series.

“But we obviously did enough to muddle through and within weeks we were experienced hands on the subs desk, mixing seamlessly with the odd assortment of former Fleet Street hacks, regional newspaper wantaways and misfits who then inhabited that long desk with Beales at its head. More importantly, we also inhabited the Pride Of The Forest (now the outdoor bit of Gardiner Haskins Interiors) for the 9pm break where the landlord lured us away from the Printers’ Devil with free sandwiches and fine pints of Wadworths’ 6X. After the WDP news subs desk we went our separate ways within the Bristol United Press empire. I subbed on WDP features and sport before landing a staff job on Evening Post features.

“John worked shifts (or ‘spasms’ as he called them) on WDP features where his outstanding ability as a writer was recognised and he became a features journalist covering all sorts but especially nostalgia and particularly antiques – he had his own weekly antiques section up until the time he retired about 25 years after we first met.
“We kept in touch after I joined Future Publishing working as a magazine editor in Bath and London and, thanks to former EP features sub Ivan Ponting, a gang of us met every year for a Christmas get together.

“I left Future in 2000 and a few years later I was again working in Bristol as the publisher at Tangent Books. In 2012, I was one of the founders of Bristol Books CIC (along with former EP chief reporter and NUJ FoC Martin Powell and others).

“We decided our first two books would be biographies of Adge Cutler and Fred Wedlock, we just needed an author. Someone who could research and write the books quickly, accurately and in an informed, accessible style. I recommended John because he was the best, most meticulous journalist/author I have worked with. In 2012, we published our first title, Adge: King Of The Wurzels by John Hudson, swiftly followed by Fred Wedlock: Funnyman OF Folk.

“I think John wrote more than 20 books, many of them related to social history and workingclass culture, a subject that fascinated him and which he wrote about with expertise and affection.

“This was particularly apparent in his love of football, in particular Bury FC of Gigg Lane. He was a regular contribu tor to Total Football magazine over the years I edited it from
1996-2000 writing mainly nostalgia pieces. Bury FC were one of the great loves of John’s life. He’d followed ‘The Lads’ or ‘The Shakers’ since he was a youngster. He’d regale me with stories of great victories and tragic losses over our regular Friday lunchtime curry at the Old Castle Green in Old Market in the late 1980s
and early 1990s. Midfielder Colin Bell was one of the most famous players to come through the ranks at Bury. He went on to play more famously for Manchester City and England.
‘Why,’ I always asked John when he started reminiscing ‘isn’t there an end named after him at Gigg Lane?’

“But the yarn which has particularly stayed with me was on the occasion on which the
teenage John cycled from Bury to watch ‘The Lads’ play a midweek game and then pedalled on to Southampton for the Saturday fixture. Waiting outside the dressing room for autographs, one of the players asked him how he’d got to the match and before he knew it, John and his bicycle were on the team coach heading back to Bury. He loved that story. There’s so much more I could write about John… his conspiratorial whispers; his Gigg Ln personalised number plate; his mock outrage; his warmth and humour; his stuttering giggly laugh; his huge collection of Bury FC programmes stretching back (I think) to the mid 1950s; my occasional trips to Chalford Hill to visit him and Linda; our regular lunches at The Dog in Chipping Sodbury; our visits to Forest Green Rovers; a famous round trip to Gigg Lane for a midweek evening game (1991: Bury 3, Grimsby Town 2 since you ask). So much more… But let’s leave it there, a young lad clutching his autograph book, bicycle on top of the kit bags being driven back to Bury with his heroes.”

Mike Wren writes: “John Hudson was a Northerner like me. He was Lancastrian and I’m from Cheshire, but that still counts as Northern. We met on the subs desk at the Guardian in Manchester. He joined not long after me. A few years later the Guardian wound down its Manchester operations and John left to go south-west. When the same thing happened to me some years later and I joined the Western Daily Press in Bristol, John and his wife Linda were so kind to me and I remember lunch at their lovely home in the Cotswolds. We also made subsequent trips to seek out ex-Guardian folk who had made their homes hereabout. At my leaving do at the Punchbowl in Old Market John was a prominent guest.”