Mike Lowe, August 2009 - Credit: Helen Lowe

What words are there? Our esteemed former editor, proud Mancunian and formidable journalist, Mike Lowe, travelled to the great compositing room in the sky in July – and he’ll be missed more than any of us would have had the nerve to tell him when he was still around. Here are just a few of the memories of ‘Lowey’ from those who knew, admired, respected... and were even a tiny bit afraid of him

'Ten years ago this month I was relaxing at home having recently fled the battleground of regional newspapers when a very nice chap phoned me up and asked me if I’d like to become editor of Cotswold Life. “Why not,” I thought. “I’ll do it for a few months. It’ll be a laugh.”' Cotswold Life editor's letter, February 2016 - Credit: Cotswold Life

He was my first boss and he terrified me and fascinated me in equal measure. 

Mike Lowe died at the far too young age of 68 after a short illness. 

He was accurately described by media website Press Gazette as “a legendary editor from the heyday of local newspapers”. 

It went on to say: “Mike was a regional newspaperman from the era when editors would wave imitation firearms around and throw typewriters out of windows when they wanted to make a point. He was remembered by colleagues for his skill, creativity and quick wit.” 

I can testify to that. 

He was the editor who gave me my first job as a junior reporter on the Derby Evening Telegraph in September 1993. 

Mike was editor of the Gloucester Citizen before the Derby Evening Telegraph and went on to edit the Bristol Evening Post and, perhaps surprisingly for a gruff, tough Mancunian who loved football, finished his career in journalism as the editor of Cotswold Life, a magazine for the wealthy, refined folk who reside in that picturesque corner of England. 

Mike in his Bristol Evening Post days - Credit: Bristol Post

His father was a sports writer in the northern office of the Daily Telegraph, covering Mike’s beloved Manchester United. 

Mike himself began his career at a Hull-based news agency before working as a sports writer in Lincoln, at the Hull Daily Mail and then at the Sentinel in Stoke-on-Trent. 

His time as an editor was clearly influenced by Kelvin MacKenzie, the Aussie editor of The Sun responsible for the memorable headlines: “Gotcha” and “Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”. 

Derby wasn’t a hotbed of headline grabbing news stories so Mike and his team made the best of what us reporters could find. 

I remember one story I brought in about Derby County’s Baseball Ground digital scoreboard crashing because of a computer virus. 

It was headlined: “Sick As A Parrot”. 

There was great celebration in the newsroom one day when a reporter brought back a story about a pensioner waking neighbours in his sheltered housing scheme with late night parties. 

His name was Gordon Bennett and the headline simply read: “Gordon Bennett!” 

When another neighbour rang the newsdesk to complain that Gordon had once flooded her flat below his own apartment, a photographer was dispatched to take a photo of the angry woman brandishing a mop outside her front door. 

The headline on the front page story was: “Gordon Bennett II”. 

Obituaries of Mike Lowe mentioned his memorable headline from the Bristol Evening Post when Prince Charles announced his upcoming wedding to Camilla. 

It simply said: “Tetbury man to wed.” 

David Parkin. First published on copagroup.co.uk 

Tetbury man to wed: Mike's memorable headline from the Bristol Evening Post when Prince Charles announced his upcoming wedding to Camilla - Credit: Bristol Post

‘Mike Lowe was a lovely man. He was a great editor, who enchanted us year after year with Cotswold Life, by capturing not only the beauties of our countryside, but also the charm and variety of its inhabitants. 

Mike was, as well, a brilliant, hilariously funny writer, as can be seen in his very last columns in the magazine. Here, whilst taking the mickey out of the BBC and the Archbishop of Canterbury, he also touchingly captured his wife Helen’s devotion to a blackbird she had tamed. 

Mike was also the most considerate of men. How many of us who encountered or were employed by him, appreciated what Wordsworth has described as “that best portion of a good man’s life; his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love,” 

To sum Mike up, I’d like to quote Plato : 

“Thou wert the morning star among the living,  Ere thy fair light had fled ;  Now having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving  New splendour to the dead.” 

And I bet Mike’s really cheering them up in Heaven.’ 

Jilly Cooper CBE, bestselling author 

A pair of handsome Northerners: How could Jilly Cooper resist? - Credit: Cotswold Life

Unsung hero is one of those phrases bandied about far too easily, repeated to the point of being meaningless. And yet Mike Lowe was a genuine unsung hero. Until, of course, his untimely passing produced all that singing of his praises.  

He would have hated the tributes, of course. Anything approaching praise or, as he might see it, sucking up to him, produced that distinctive, dismissive snort and a quick moving along of the conversation. 

I first met Mike when I became an editor with Northcliffe Newspapers Ltd in the late 1990s. I was the newly-appointed young weekly editor who nervously turned up at the company’s annual conference to be confronted by a gathering of many of the industry’s big beasts gathered in the bar. Being a ‘weekly boy’ often meant you were ignored by those daily paper big boys, but that wasn’t the case with Mike. He was welcoming, engaged and bloody good fun in the bar at night.  

To sit around a table with Mike and his cohorts, watching as they discussed the issues facing the industry, in a fog of fags and foaming pints, was to learn more than it was ever likely you would sitting in conferences or management presentations all day.  

I never really saw Mike the newspaper editor in action in the newsroom, and others will have tales of their own of his legendary prowess when it came to leadership and producing brilliant papers, day in day out. But as well as a superb editor, he was a brilliant writer, often working under a pseudonym for other publications, such as the Manchester United fanzine Red Issue, or when penning his savagely funny column as put-upon mythical sub-editor Grey Cardigan for the newspaper trade magazine Press Gazette. 

Some people expressed surprise that in later years Mike, the daily newspaper editor, became a hugely successful editor of Cotswold Life. But it was no surprise to me.  

Addressing guests at a Cotswold Life drinks reception - Credit: © Thousand Word Media

Mike, like all great editors, understood and appreciated who his audience was and served them what they wanted month after month, beautifully packaged and presented with a fastidiousness for design and detail which is only evident when not done properly or corners are cut. And, of course, every month there was his Editor’s Letter, a ‘must read’ column of creativity and curmudgeonly sideswipes at all and sundry. How fabulous that when he stood down as editor that column still found its way into the magazine’s pages in another guise. 

Some years ago, I found myself in a little local difficulty with some management types breathing down my neck and making life at work pretty miserable. Mike quietly intervened in a decisive manner that didn’t even bear his fingerprints and my problem went away. When I saw him a few weeks later and caught his eye by way of acknowledgement he just nodded in my direction, said “Everything okay, Andy?” and resumed reading his paper. We both knew what he had done on my behalf, but no thanks or acknowledgement was sought. 

That encapsulated the Mike I knew: giant of journalism, outstanding operator and fearsome friend. We shall raise a pint to him at our usual gathering spot, the Foston’s Ash Inn, later this month in quiet tribute. He wouldn’t want it any other way. 

Andy Cooper, Devon Life editor 

The editor casts a critical eye over his baby - Credit: © Thousand Word Media

Mike was a football-obsessed Mancunian with an accent as thick as a chip butty. He had spent much of his life editing a series of regional daily newspapers, where he liked people to believe he was the despotic Walter Matthau in The Front Page. In truth he was an extraordinarily kind man.  And so, for Mike to edit the genteel Cotswold Life was not the oxymoron it first appeared to be. He was a brilliant operator working with a tiny budget, who was equally at home with Lord Lieutenants as he was with linotype operators. 

Shortly after he got the job, he asked me to write a monthly column for the magazine that would make his readers cross. ‘They like it if you make them angry,’ he said, and suggested that I could knock the column off in an hour. I couldn’t… but he could.  He wrote at speed to a deadline. He was, after all, first and foremost a newspaperman. If you cut him, he would bleed printer’s ink and it mattered not a jot to Mike that that ink was now on glossy paper.   

Adam Edwards, national newspaper journalist and former Cotswold Life columnist 

Mike Lowe: First and foremost a newspaperman - Credit: Bristol Post

Mike was a character who had a wonderful knack of letting you know what he thought about something without saying a word. He was a wonderful writer and always knew what he wanted for his magazine. When you met him, he didn’t have the look of a magazine editor or a Cotswold resident, but his success at the helm of Cotswold Life was remarkable. 

Of course, I had my disagreements with him, as most probably did, but I will always be grateful to him for entrusting me with a monthly column in his magazine; something I truly treasure. Thanks, Mike. You will definitely be missed. 

Emma Samms MBE, actor and Cotswold Life columnist 

Mike talks to guests at a Cotswold Life event held at Steepleton Court, Tetbury - Credit: © Thousand Word Media

The first time I worked with Lowey he was the shaven-headed, earringed Man U fanatic with a reputation for throwing typewriters out of windows and people that annoyed him out of morning conference. Every woman in the building had a crush on him. Every bloke wanted to football and drink with him. The second time around, Mr Lowe was the editor of Cotswold Life; a country gent, very happily a part of life in the Cotswolds who created not only the best Life title in Archant, but the best regional magazine in the UK. Both times he was a journalist with a supreme news sense who did not suffer fools and never dropped his journalistic standards or compromised his beliefs. Much respect. 

Joanne Goodwin, editor of Cheshire Life

Adopting the Cotswold look: Mike Lowe bravely dons a pair of red trousers - Credit: Thousand Word Media

I have to go back to the beginning – to 2005 – when I learned that one Mike Lowe was to become editor of Cotswold Life magazine. I googled instantly, of course. And, in that very second, morphed into Appalled of Minchinhampton. Mike Lowe was none other than Barry Beelzebub, whose ranting Bristol Evening Post columns (where he had been editor) seemed mainly aimed at ‘lentil-eating, sandal-wearing Guardianistas’. I mean, honestly, I only wore sandals in summer; but I piously took umbrage. This Mr Beelzebub – known as the Devil’s Advocate – clobbered everything from corner shops (seem to remember something about only stocking cobwebbed tins of baked beans) to, well, just about every other sacred cow he could turn into mincemeat.  

Even the Guardian – ‘Beelzebub relocates to the Cotswolds’ – feared for Gloucestershire’s reclaimed-wood coffee tables innocently awaiting their genteel monthly glossy. 

Before the man started, I penned him an email explaining how unsuitable I thought he was. 

A part-time Cotswold Life writer, telling the new editor she didn’t approve! 

It makes me smile now but, really, what on earth was I thinking? 

Mike Lowe, autumn 2009 - Credit: Thousand Word Media

He only ever referred, even obliquely, to it once. We were driving to Jilly Cooper’s – whom he adored – when he said to me, ‘You thought I was the devil, didn’t you?’  

No – but I really did think he was his advocate. 

I couldn’t have been more right, and more wrong. 

I used to tease him, ‘You’ve accidentally become nice since working for Cotswold Life.’ 

In truth, whether or not the magazine had an effect on him is largely immaterial; he had a profound effect on it. I remember an early issue featuring naturists. (Not sure how that went for him; people mainly kept their clothes on in subsequent issues.) But what he did was to give Cotswold Life an edge: unafraid to try new things; determined to continue singing the praises of Old Spot sausages, while pairing them with the spicy relish of controversy. 

One of his first requests was for an interview with AA Gill, who had recently called Stow-on-the-Wold the worst place in the world. During our chat, Adrian embellished with, ‘If you could call up suicide bombers like taxis, I would have them queuing up in Stow.’ Mike was beyond thrilled… Unlike the outraged reader who could only bring himself to refer to me, in his letter to the editor, as ‘Jarvis’. 

Mike’s editorship was liberating. He knew where to trust and gave me free rein, taking consequences on the chin. It was also the most generous editorship. He wanted people to have fun. I pretty much explored the world on his travel features: no one exactly knew where the Cotswolds began and ended, so there was little problem in including Africa, India and the Caribbean within its expanding borders. 

He quickly dispensed with ‘announced’ restaurant reviews. I was to visit, eat, pay anonymously, claim back on expenses, and write the truth. Thus, among the true Cotswold greats, I reviewed a restaurant so bad, I assumed the bang of a window-blind meant someone had shot themselves. (Almost certainly a diner.) And the other where a waiter looked me up and down before checking I’d actually grasped the prices. ‘Arf,’ would be Mike’s comment of choice. 

I also would like to pay tribute here to Helen, Mike’s wife, whom I have come to admire and like tremendously. One of the things Mike told me at our first meeting – with such obvious happiness – was about their wedding. 

Being interviewed by Rowena Perkins of Cotswold TV - Credit: © Thousand Word Media

Probably my fondest memory – the one that endlessly makes me laugh out loud – is difficult to translate for those who didn’t know and love Mike Lowe. But here goes. He got an email from a local school, extolling his virtues as an editor, and asking if he’d give a talk. Mike instantly forwarded it on to me, with the sentence (and – I have to be honest here – I’m paraphrasing somewhat), ‘I can’t be bothered to do this. There’s nothing in it for us.’ Only he hadn’t pressed ‘forward’. He’d pressed ‘reply’. 

I received an urgent (rare) panicked phone call. ‘We have to do something about this.’ Err… ‘We’, Mike? 

‘It’s just a class of 15 kids. Go and give them a talk.’ 

So, still laughing, I printed off 15 hand-outs, made my way to the school. And was welcomed by a teacher, who told me, ‘You’ll be speaking to the 350 students in the school hall.’ I stopped laughing immediately.  

So many stories abound. Only recently, an old hack was telling me about an interview he once did with the Bishop of Clifton for the Evening Post. It ended up wrongly by-lined with a staff reporter’s name, ‘who happened to be the paper’s leading atheist. ‘Naturally, the Devil’s Advocate found it a capital joke’. 

Then there are the many tales of how – in Mike’s newspaper days – young reporters would be flung a 20-quid note and ordered to get him a ‘packet of fags’. Once, I might have dashed off an outraged email. I came to learn, very quickly, the subtext of these stories. Affection. Pride. Humour. What they were really saying was, ‘Mike Lowe? Yes, I’ve worked with him.’ They so wanted you to know that. 

So, there you go. Mike Lowe? Yes, I’ve worked with him. 

I’ll miss so much. The generosity. The honesty. The straight talking. The humour. 

But maybe what I’ll miss most of all is Mike’s simple comment, ‘That was a good read.’ Best feeling in the world. 

Katie Jarvis, Cotswold Life chief writer

A publishing tradition: Mike Lowe's Cotswold Life leaving cover, December 2020 - Credit: Candia McKormack

You know where you are with Northern men, what to expect: blunt-as-a-spoon honesty, no airs or graces, and wit that could pierce a brake disc. Mike Lowe was the epitome of that.  

When he became my late husband’s editor, some 16 years ago, Mark wrote: ‘He’s a no-nonsense Mancunian, with a gin-dry humour, and sharp as mustard. We’ll get along just fine.’ And so it was.  

And so it continued when I started writing for the magazine under Mike’s renowned editorship; he showed great faith in his columnists, allowing us to get on with the job we love. Candia McKormack is made of the same brilliant stuff. Mike will leave a large hole in the lives of all those who knew and loved him, and the vast majority of Cotswold Life readers will miss the burn of his wonderfully opinionated, forthright views. 

Mike Lowe, a man of integrity. May his ink never fade in the vast beyond, for I respected the cut of his nib. 

Lorraine Child, Cotswold Life columnist 

From Manchester to the Cotswolds... a true countryman - Credit: Helen Lowe

Mike was passionate about good journalism, a certain football team and about the Cotswolds. Beneath that irascible exterior was a man who cared greatly for people and inspired so many to have faith in themselves. I count myself as one of those fortunate people who Mike supported. He made me feel that I could conquer the world and to embrace change at a time when my career was taking a very different – and unexpected – direction. That faith in my ability made all the difference to me and I have so much to thank him for. 

That undeniable Lowey charm - Credit: © Thousand Word Media

RIP, Lowey. Gone but not forgotten. I was his news editor in his later years at The Bristol Post. 

His rivalry with fellow editor Terry Manners at the Western Daily Press was legendary – with each going the extra mile to trump the other. 

At one UK Press Gazette awards ceremony in Manchester, where both titles had been nominations-led for Regional Newspaper of The Year, that rivalry reached new heights. 

Manners wanting to put one over, Lowey went to great expense to hire an executive coach with all the bells and whistles, including a full bar, for the trip from Bristol to Manchester. 

Lowey never let on to any of us that he had planned to outdo Manners – but his regular trips to see his beloved United gave him an idea. 

As soon as we’d waved the WDP crew off for their arduous journey up the M5 and M6, he ushered us into taxis and we headed to Bristol Airport where he had bought tickets for eight of us to fly to Manchester. 

We arrived at the venue in Salford Quays by barge and were well into our drinks when the WDP bus arrived. 

The face of Terry Manners was a picture as Lowey said: “Took your time getting here, didn’t you?” 

Just one of the great memories working with Mike at a time when there was still good times to be had. 

Taking the rough with the smooth as a newspaper editor: In traditional fete style, Mike gets a soaking - Credit: Mike Lowe

I knew Mike for 15 years; I only wish it had been 50. 

During that time, I spoke with him virtually every week. Often just to catch up on sport, news or political gossip. But just as often, to seek his counsel and advice. 

Mike was sage, erudite and an amazing problem solver. As well as a brilliant editor, no one I worked with knew their audience better. He was, of course, an amazing writer. All who read his columns over the years, always wanted him to write more. 

I first met Mike in 2007 when I was appointed MD of Cotswold Life, a year after he had been appointed Editor. His view, as with all good editors, was that my role was purely to sign his expenses. Slightly mis-understanding my role, during our first week working together, I cautiously ventured into his office and asked him how the cover of the next issue of the magazine was coming on. “Why do you want to know?” he replied. Not particularly taken aback, as Mike’s reputation on how to manage senior people who knew far less than him, preceded him. I dutifully replied. “Oh, just interested.” 

He pointed to the wall where the was an amazing picture of Princess Anne, talking to her horse. 

You can probably remember that cover. Naturally, it became the best-selling issue up to then. 

*That* Cotswold Life cover - from August 2007 - of Princess Anne, talking to her horse - Credit: Cotswold Life

Every inch the countryman and Cotswold Life editor - Credit: Thousand Word Media

I’d learnt my lesson, he knows what he’s doing, he just needs me to sign his expenses! 

Our relationship (and friendship) became much more than that. His loyalty to me was humbling during many difficult times as print media diminished and many misunderstood the jewel that Mike had created. I hope I repaid that loyalty to him. 

He helped my career and me as a person on numerous occasions, and was also generous with his fellow editors, willingly sharing ideas and giving advice and support when requested. Never criticising or patronising, always in his avuncular style, maintaining a shade of northern bluntness.   

I have so many things I want to share and discuss with Mike; his passing is a tragedy. 

My thoughts are with Helen and their families. 

Many will write better words than me, but fewer will miss him more. 

Tim Thurston, former Cotswold Life MD 

Mike Lowe at home with Sidney and Cecil - Credit: Helen Lowe

I never once saw Mike wearing a long grey mackintosh or a battered trilby with his press card tucked in to the band – but that’s how I always pictured him. I also know that he’d have hated the journalistic cliché of that image. But while he didn’t conform to the hackneyed dress-code of the ‘typical’ newsman, in every other respect he lived up to the ideal; a proper, old-school journo with a nose for a good story, an inquiring mind and trust in his own instincts (I can’t imagine Mike having much truck with focus groups or, heaven forbid, consumer behaviour modelling)! Publish and be damned, that was Mike.

His was the ‘assume-no-knowledge, question everything’ style of reporting, where an hour or two in a busy pub could unearth the next day’s front-page exclusive. What shocked me most about his death was the discovery that he was only 68 years old; it feels as if he’s been around forever. By the time I arrived in Gloucester to host a daily radio news programme, well over 30 years ago, Mike was already a legendary figure in the long list of editors at The Citizen. In those days, local newspapers and local radio sparred with each other over breaking news, the best stories and the biggest scoops; a rivalry which he welcomed (and even encouraged), in the certain knowledge that it raised everybody’s game to the benefit of the readers and listeners. Years later I found myself contributing to Cotswold Life and testing Mike’s patience every time the monthly copy deadline sailed past. I wasn’t the only one pushing their luck, but our tardiness would prompt a typically pithy email: ‘Twiddling my thumbs here, chaps.’ It was all that was needed. 

When he left the magazine in 2020, Mike famously insisted he wasn’t retiring. So, now he’s gone, let’s just say that he was robbed of many years of happy, leisurely and well-deserved non-retirement. And we have been robbed of a great journalist, a unique character and a forthright, fearless champion for Gloucestershire. 

Vernon Harwood, journalist and broadcaster

Award-winner: Mike Lowe with Cotswold Life award - Credit: Thousand Word Media