A GREAT JOURNALIST

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24750, 15 December 1945, Page 6

A GREAT JOURNALIST

* —— MU JAMES BONE TO RETIRE The retirement at the end of this year of Mr James Bone, London editor of the “Manchester Guardian" alter 43 years’ service with the paper, Will be like removing a landmark from Fleet street, where Mr Bone has served his journal for 34 years. His successor will be Mr E. A. Montague, a son of C. E. Montague. i A Scot, like many Scots who have gone to London' and made It their own, Mr Bone is an authority on London’s architecture. His delightful and gracefully written book, “The London Perambulator,” reveals many a hidden and forgotten corner of the city Aithough well past 70 years of age, Mr Bone was constantly at his desk through the height of the London blitz and except for a short visit to the United States, was there throughout the whole of the war period. ~ lf; T was during his return voyage from the United States that JVtr Hone demonstrated his indestructible duality. He had undergone in New York a serious operation, and was still under the care of a doctor. In the Atlantic in midwinter his ship was torpedoed and he and his fellow passengers had to take to the boats, in which they spent six hours before being picked up by a tramp. The voyage to Scotland was completed m indescribably overcrowded conditions, Mr Bone himself having to sleep on the floor under a tab!e On arrival in Scotland, while the other passengers sought beds and hot baths, Mr Bone sat down at his typewriter and sent to his paper a description of his experiences. At that time he was 73 years of age. Back in London, he saw the war out Now he is retiring from the scene of the labours of as stout a newspaperman as ever breathed. . In , a tetter to a friend in Christchurch. Mr Bone writes: “We are tidylr*S.,uP things here now, and London, w tide shabby as ever, is a little neater ana the lights are shining out everywhere, a portent, I hope, of the mental lights to come. It is a little difficult to believe m this old land that new things happen in a night or in five years, but there are some differences already and a lot of new hopes/*