My friend, Stewart Bonney, who has died aged 78, was a quiet, unassuming journalist with a passion for publishing. He always wanted to run a newspaper. Instead, he launched a highly successful countryside magazine.
Today, after 204 editions, Stewart has a lasting legacy – the bi-monthly Northumbrian, dedicated to places and people; rich in history, nature, food, and endearingly quirky. It is sent to thousands of subscribers in the UK, and overseas, who lap up the “fine writing, great photography, quality reading” described in its subtitle.
Launched in 1987, the glossy Northumbrian is a countryside magazine with a difference. Rather than serving the “county set”, Stewart was determined to give his magazine broader appeal. “Some people told him ‘you need to feature society weddings, hunt balls and all that’,” recalled the local wildlife writer Ian Kerr, a regular contributor since the first edition in winter, 1987, which featured his piece dedicated to the kingfisher. “Stewart would have none of it.”
Stewart had his ear to the ground. After editing each edition, and writing parts of it, he would spend days delivering copies to outlets around Northumberland, meeting readers along the way. At home, at Espley near Morpeth, his wife, Norma, worked as subscriptions manager.
In 2019, Stewart relinquished the Northumbrian editorship after 170 editions, while remaining consultant editor – and still writing for the publication. Jane Pikett, the current editor, recalls a modest, thoughtful and talented journalist-cum-entrepreneur.. “You wouldn’t believe the number of letters we receive from all over the world – it’s beloved by so many because it’s so different from anything else.”
Stewart was born in the Fenham area of Newcastle upon Tyne, only son of Charles, employed in the nearby Vickers engineering complex, and Olive (nee McFarlane) , who worked in Fenwick’s department stone. Educated at Rutherford grammar school, he left for London in his late teens. As an office boy at Reuters news agency, he developed a passion for journalism and subsequently worked for a weekly newspaper in Weston-super-Mare.
He moved back to Newcastle in the early 1970s to become a reporter on the Journal, the regional daily, where I first met him. This was followed by a spell with the Daily Mail in Manchester. He returned to Newcastle in 1975, set up a news agency serving national newspapers and then a publishing arm producing local books alongside a public relations consultancy. Stewart had a passion for horse racing, and gardening – maintaining a sizeable vegetable plot beside the family home. A meticulous man, he kept detailed annual crop rotation records to get the best from his soil.
In 1969 he married Norma Smith, and she survives him, along with their children, Laura and Peter.
