Former Press printer dies, 82

Brian Pudsey’s wife Pamela said he had been able to enjoy 32 years of retirement, thanks to being given a series of six pacemakers over the years to assist with a heart condition.

She said that after being fitted with his first pacemaker in about 1985, a heart specialist at York Hospital told him that until a year earlier, it would not have been possible for him to have one and he would have been sent home to die.

She said he took early retirement from the then Yorkshire Evening Press because of his health in 1987, aged just 52, after having been promoted to the role of production controller.

The newspaper - based in those days in Coney Street, where City Screen and Waterstones are situated nowadays - still used the old ‘hot metal’ production process at that time.

However, it was switching to a new printing system, as well as planning a move to a new site in Walmgate, where the paper is based today, when Brian left.

The paper reported in 1987 how Brian, inset, had spent two years at the Oxford Mail, owned by Westminster Press, before moving to the York paper, also owned by Westminster Press, where he worked for 26 years. The report said he and another departing employee were given a rousing send-off by colleagues.

A keen sportsman, Brian, who lived in Huntington, was chairman of Huntington Cricket Club and a life member of Clifton Cricket Club, as well as a keen fell walker.

Pamela said he also played for the Thorpe Perrow and Yorkshire Gents teams, and played football as well for a team of staff from the newspaper.

She said she and Brian loved fell walking and also listening to theatre organ music and sequence dancing.

Brian, who was born and brought up in Hutton Cranswick, near Driffield, had learnt his trade at the Driffield Times before doing National Service in the RAF, stationed at Southampton where they met.

They have two children, Juliet Marie and Gareth, and one grandson Sam.

Funeral arrangements had not yet been finalised, she added.