Bernard Vickers

BERNARD Vickers, who has died aged 82, was one of Scotland's great tabloid editors, steering the Daily Record through the most successful period in its history.

Under his skilful, populist guidance the newspaper boasted a circulation of which others, most notably The Sun, could only dream with sales regularly averaging 750,000 a day. At one point it was said to have the highest market penetration of any newspaper in the world.

Vickers' secret was that he knew exactly what his readers wanted from their morning paper. He made the Record the natural choice for the working class population of Scotland, delivering a blend of serious news, features, TV soap stories (he was one of the first editors in the UK to recognise the importance of Coronation Street and Dallas to a tabloid readership) and Labour-friendly political writing.

This, together with bold, eye-catching page design and top-rate sub-editing, ensured that the Record increased its circulation in each of the 15 years he was in charge.

Armed with what was probably the best (and certainly the best paid) tabloid editorial team in Scotland, the newspaper enjoyed an outstanding journalistic reputation during Vickers' tenure.

The huge profits which the Record and its sister paper the Sunday Mail made over the period for owners Mirror Group was the result in no small measure of the bespectacled Mancunian's efforts. In a newsroom populated by some of the toughest and most cynical hacks in the game, he commanded immense loyalty and respect.

Yet, like the newspaper itself, Vickers' fortunes were adversely affected by the arrival of the notorious Robert Maxwell at Anderston Quay in 1984. Though he was not intimidated by Maxwell directly, he was devastated by the cruel and contemptuous way the corrupt mogul treated his staff and his beloved paper.

At one point, as part of his clumsy, ill-conceived efforts to "reform" the still enormously profitable Scottish papers, Maxwell ordered the offices to be surrounded by barbed wire.

Vickers could do little to limit the irreparable damage caused by the new owner and is said to have been moved to tears when in 1986 a resulting strike ended with hundreds of journalists and print workers losing their jobs.

Two years later Maxwell moved him to London as "assistant publisher responsible for forward projects" - a position which Vickers recognised as being a non-job and from which he promptly resigned with his integrity intact. He ended his remarkable career on the staff of his local free newspaper, the Haslemere Messenger, in Surrey.

Bernard Vickers was born in Manchester and educated with a scholarship at St Bede's RC College. After National Service as an air traffic controller in the RAF he returned to his home city and began his career in journalism. Manchester was an important newspaper centre and in the early 1960s he worked there in the northern offices of the Daily Mirror and the Daily Herald. Then, when the Daily Herald was relaunched as the broadsheet Sun in 1964, he became its northern editor.

When Rupert Murdoch bought The Sun in 1969, Vickers, still in his 30s, took a redundancy package and headed north to Scotland, joining the Record as deputy editor in 1970. He was appointed editor in the mid 1970s.

A gregarious, mildly eccentric character, he was always convivial company in an age when long, liquid lunches were legendary.

A gifted editor who followed his instincts, he was not averse to making his formidable presence felt on the editorial floor.

Under Vickers, the Record was manned by an outstanding editorial workforce, most of them hand-picked by the editor himself. In tabloid terms at least, it had the best columnists, the sharpest reporters and the most talented sports writers in the business.

This, coupled with Vickers' almost innate ability to strike a perfect balance each day between real news, human interest, showbiz, politics, industry and sport, ensured that the newspaper remained the market leader.

An Englishman he may have been, but he knew what was important to his Left-leaning Scottish constituency. Indeed, it was said in the aftermath of the nation's Devolution Referendum in 1979 that, between them, Bernie Vickers and Arnold Kemp (The Herald's legendary editor) had kept "the flame of devolution burning". Like Kemp too, Vickers not only held the respect of his staff, he also had their affection. They liked him.

He never returned to live in Scotland, choosing instead to remain in the south of England. He retired to a village in Surrey where he enjoyed classical music, travelling and following the fortunes of Manchester United.

He is survived by his wife Mary and daughters Suzanne and Tina.