My good friend and former colleague Maureen O’Connor, who has died aged 84, was a journalist, writer and the founding editor of Training Guardian.
The Guardian administration was undecided the complement would take off when it was created in 1972, so Maureen’s first contract was for six months. Nevertheless it labored and Training Guardian grew to become beloved by a technology of academics, dad and mom and educationists.
Within the Nineteen Nineties, Maureen switched to writing crime fiction, publishing 25 novels underneath the pen title Patricia Corridor.
Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, she was the eldest daughter of Roscoe Jones, a headteacher, and Edith (nee Garlick). She went to Bradford grammar faculty for women, after which she utilized to Oxford College. On the interview, she was advised she would have been provided a spot however for the dearth of locations for ladies at the moment. As an alternative, she studied English at Birmingham College, the place she edited the coed newspaper and met John O’Connor, then a biochemistry pupil, whom she married in 1963, a yr after commencement.
Having labored on the Yorkshire Submit throughout her holidays, she was accepted on to the one-year graduate traineeship on the Manchester Guardian. This was adopted by a yr on the London Night Commonplace.
After a short time in Torquay, Devon, for John’s work, the couple settled in Wimbledon, south-west London, for him to take up a lectureship at Surrey College, in Guildford, and Maureen labored on the BBC regional radio information programme for the south-east.
In 1972 she was provided the Training Guardian job on a contract foundation, and undertook it with aptitude for seven years. In 1979, John Fairhall took on the position, and I joined as schooling correspondent, changing into agency mates with Maureen, now the primary characteristic author on the complement.
A scrupulous and socially aware journalist, Maureen beloved nothing higher than holding a flame to the toes of presidency within the articles she wrote. She impressed me along with her calmness and skill to ship good copy on time, week after week, even when there have been troubles with the publish. Throughout this time she additionally wrote A Mother and father’ Information to Training (1986) and her first crime novel, The Poison Pool (1991), acquired constructive opinions.
The household, now with two sons, Michael and James, had moved to Oxford in 1976, for John to take up a place at Oxford Polytechnic (later Oxford Brookes College). Maureen grew to become chair of governors at her sons’ highschool and was a dedicated Labour celebration activist. She remained a loyal Guardian reader to the top, describing it as one of many highlights of her day. She nonetheless needed to get out on to the native political marketing campaign path into her 80s. As she advised me: “It’s the political fury that retains me going.”
John died in 2014. Maureen is survived by her two sons, and two granddaughters, Ameya and Arya.
