The late Maurice Landergan of the Guardian was a supporter of Pulford Editorial Services who had been a guest tutor with the company. The book referred to in the first paragraph is The Adventures of Sir Samuel Tuke, published by Ituri in May 2003 (see Ituri Publications section of this site)

[First published April 4, 2003 by the Guardian. Copyright Pulford Media Ltd. This article may not be reprinted or distributed either electronically or on hard copy without permission]

MAURICE LANDERGAN, who has died aged 81, was a stalwart of the Guardian newsroom for two decades and, finally in retirement, was correcting proofs for a book publisher days before his last illness. He belonged to a generation of sub-editors for whom the difference between colons and semi-colons mattered. Maurice was a major contributor to Guardian house style - but lost his battle for computer disks to be spelt like other sorts of discs. None of this affected Maurice's ability to see the bigger news picture and as the revise sub-editor - the last line of defence for editorial quality - he was for many years at the centre of the Guardian's news effort.

In the earlier years he had to cope with a Heath Robinson system of printing. This was teletype setting: material edited in London or Manchester appeared simultaneously in the other centre. It was clumsy and slow and put great burdens on the sub-editors. Maurice was, however, imperturbable; it was one of his chief professional qualities.

He loved a yarn, and relished above all the measured telling of a yarn. He once, late at night, offered to a colleague a lift to Liverpool Street Station. This colleague was a person of precise habits and profound punctuality. When the car reached the station some time after midnight Maurice got out his old briar pipe, 'baccy pouch and Swan Vestas, lit up, got the pipe going well and began an anecdote. The telling lasted until the train had departed. His colleague had to wait more than an hour for the next one. Maurice grew up in south London, where his father was a borough engineer. Educated at Addey and Stanhope School, he enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris, but his studies there were cut short by the outbreak of the second world war. During the war he served in RAF Bomber Command, flying the maximum number of sorties. It was a period of which he spoke little, but he occasionally expressed the survivor's guilt.

After the war, Maurice joined the South London Press, then as now a well known training ground for journalists. He worked at Exchange Telegraph, at that time a competitor with the larger Press Association in supplying news copy to newspapers. When Extel gave up the unequal struggle with PA and dropped its general service, Maurice was out of a job.

He joined the Guardian in 1966 and settled into the longest and most important stage of his career, as one of the team of sub-editors whose skills are vital but unseen. After he retired in 1986, Maurice worked for another nine years as a part-time sub-editor with the Guardian's syndication service. His appetite for journalism was such that only two years ago he commented that he still "felt guilty" about not going to work.

Maurice's wife Barbara died in 1983. Her friend Monica became a great support to Maurice, and no-one was surprised when they married. Maurice's step-daughter Margaret died in 1997. He is survived by Monica, two sons from his first marriage, Geoffrey and Philip, and Monica's children, John, Mark and Kim Elizabeth.

CEDRIC PULFORD

Maurice Henry Landergan, journalist, born December 5 1921; died March 31 2003

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