FORMER Free Press editor Arthur Church is finally putting his pen down at the age of 88 after a lifetime devoted to the newspaper.

Mr Church, who first joined the BFP as a cub reporter in 1928, is giving up his weekly column in the Free Press which has been a voice in the community for the last decade.

He worked for two years as a trainee reporter before joining the Leicester Evening Mercury Group. He returned to the Free Press in 1933 after qualifying as a senior reporter, and has stayed loyal to the paper ever since, becoming chief reporter, sub-editor and eventually editor in 1956 - a post he held for 20 years until he retired.

Mr Church has witnessed dramatic changes in technology at the newspaper.

He said: 'It used to be much slower and was probably harder work. You had to have printer's ink in your blood to be in the industry.'

Readers will be familiar with his weekly column Church View on Page 6 of the Free Press, in which Mr Church has given readers some pearls of wisdom and recounted amusing life experiences.

He told us how he would get ribald comments from office colleagues for wearing black tie, which was part of his uniform during his service in the RAF during the Second World War.

Mr Church recalled one of his funniest BFP moments as editor was when he was asked if the paper wished to publish one of the first colour front pages - of a view of the earth from the moon. He said: 'I jokingly said it's not really in our circulation area but someone standing next to me took me seriously and thought I didn't want the photograph.'

He added: 'I would like to thank everybody I have worked with at the BFP. I think they are a great bunch of people and the paper is still so much a part of the community.'

He said editor Steve Cohen tried to persuade him to carry on but he decided to call it a day, adding: 'I'm quitting while I'm ahead. I have given it some thought and at my age I think I'm in pretty good nick but you slow down with age and it's time to make way for someone younger.'

Steve Cohen said: 'Arthur's contribution to the newspaper has been immense. He's been a stalwart of the paper for 72 years, longer than many people live.'

Mr Church, a great-grandfather, will spend more time attending to his garden and following Wycombe Wanderers.

Arthur's last column: Page 6