John Bailey obituary
Other lives: Journalist, press officer and trade union activist who became president of the National Union of Journalists
My friend John Bailey, who has died aged 86, was a journalist and press officer who was much involved in trade union affairs, notably as president (1973-74) and then treasurer (1975-82) of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
An imposing figure, noted for his courtesy, civility and good humour, he showed steel and determination in both roles, particularly as treasurer when he was one of the central co-ordinators of a seven-week strike in 1978-79 against low pay by 8,000 local newspaper journalists – the largest stoppage in the NUJ’s history – which won a national pay increase of 14%.
John was born in Southend, Essex, the only child of Ernest, a second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps, and Josephine (nee Smith), a secretary. The family was posted to Kingston, Jamaica, until John was eight, and in those formative years he was taught by Jesuits at Campion college in the city, a circumstance that influenced his later devotion as a Roman Catholic. After the family returned to the UK his father was stationed near Wolverhampton, where John attended St Chad’s boys’ grammar school. It was situated opposite the girls’ grammar school, where Maureen Neenan was a pupil: they married in 1963.
On leaving school John entered journalism as a trainee reporter at the Grays and Thurrock Gazette in Essex before joining the Hartlepool Mail for 11 years as a news reporter. It was there that he began his concerted involvement in union activity, representing local newspaper journalists in the north-east of England on the NUJ’s national executive council.
Moving to the Sunderland Echo in 1974 as features editor, he was NUJ president and treasurer while there, and briefly represented the NUJ on the Press Council in 1978 prior to the union’s withdrawal from that body.
His enthusiasm for union good practice extended into the family setting, where, to his children’s amusement, he created a collective bargaining mechanism to negotiate a written agreement on their pocket money, renewable every six months.
From 1998 until his retirement in 2005 John worked as a press officer for Sunderland city council. Outside work, on a part-time and voluntary basis from the mid-1980s until 2010, he revived The Northern Cross, a monthly Catholic newspaper in the north of England, and was editor of the publication for most of that time. In retirement his coalition-building ethic remained strong, and he worked with the ecumenical group Churches Together.
Maureen, a teacher, died in 2023. John is survived by their eight children, Tim, Clare, Dympna, Greg, Colette, Ben, Dom and Dan, and 16 grandchildren.