Obituary Mr Allan Cole

Press, 12 August 1985, Page 13

Obituary Mr Allan Cole

PA Auckland Mr Allan Victor Cole, a former editor of the “New Zealand Herald” newspaper and a leading figure in journalists’ training, has died in Auckland. He was 65.

Mr Cole retired from the “Herald” on March 29 after 46 years’ service with the newspaper, including 5% years as editor. He had been ill for some months. Journalism was the first aim of the young Allan Cole. He was born in Te Kuiti and schooled at Kawakawa, and first saw himself in print in a journal called the “Bay of Islands Luminary.” He began to win awards for writing while he was at school. In 1935 he won a British and Colonial Industries competition. He was one of only two double winners of the Cowan Prize for excellence in journalism, receiving his awards in 1951 and 1967. Mr Cole was awarded the gold badge of the New Zealand Journalists’ Association in 1963. He joined the “Herald” staff in March, 1939, as a copyholder in the proofreading department.

During World War II he served from 1942 to 1944 in the Ist Field Regiment, New Zealand Artillery, and the 7th Medium Battery. In the years after he returned to the “New Zealand Herald,” Mr Cole’s reporting rounds made him familiar and respected in the Auckland courts, police station, and town hall. He also spent three sessions in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He liked to say that his journalistic career spanned 10 Prime Ministers from Savage to Mr Lange. Among his journalistic successes, Mr Cole regarded his greatest scoop as one about the Tangiwai railway disaster when he obtained the story of Cyril Ellis, the man who tried to stop the train as it approached the washed-out bridge at Tangiwai on Christmas Eve, 1953, before plunging into the flooded river. From the middle of the 1950 s Mr Cole served in a series of senior “Herald” posts. He became chief reporter in 1955, a leader writer in 1964, editorial manager in 1971, and deputy editor in 1976. He succeeded

the late Mr John Hardingham as editor on October 1, 1979. Beginning in the 19605, his reporters’ courses held at the “Herald” attracted entrants from throughout New Zealand and even the Pacific Islands. Mr Cole was foundation secretary of the Journalists’ Training Committee, he gave lectures in journalism at the Auckland Technical Institute and in various parts of New Zealand, he was convener of the training and education committee of the New Zealand section of the Commonwealth Press Union, and was chairman of the New Zealand Journalists Training Board from 1973 to 1976. Among his other services to journalism, Mr Cole was New Zealand representative on the Commonwealth Press Union council in London, a member of the executive committee of the New Zealand section of the C.P.U., and a member of the newspaper editors’ committee of the section (chairman in 1984-85). Mr Cole is survived by his wife, two sons, and two daughters.