Mervyn Pauley: former News Letter colleague remembers him as 'one of the doyens of Northern Ireland reporting'
A former colleague of Mervyn Pauley has remembered him as one of the great political reporters of his era.
Sam Butler was a former editor of the News Letter, and worked at the paper from about 1976 to 1990.
Mervyn's widow, Marie, is also his cousin.
"Mervyn was a great journalist,” said Mr Butler.
"A huge contacts book – he knew what was going on. He was a hard grafter, and really as well as good journalist he was a great writer. He wrote a regular political column during my time, and it was always beautifully-written and well read.
"He was part of the great school that involved Billy Flackes of the BBC and John Wallace at the Telegraph. They were three doyens of political reporting at that time…
"Mervyn was pretty well in touch and knew all the political parties and Secretaries of State, and they all respected him. They knew if they told him something in confidence he would keep it. He wasn't one for breaking a confidence so he could get byline."
He said “the Anglo-Irish Agreement would've been his big story in my time, a very traumatic period”.
Mervyn “never talked that much about the violence although it affected him – it affected us all, because there wa no great pleasure getting up to see the death toll the next morning”.
Mr Butler had wanted to move Mervyn from being political editor to being a full-time leader writer, but recalls that he wanted to stay put with politics.
"He could've been editor if he'd wanted to be,” said Mr Butler. "He just didn't want it."
He added: “He was a decent guy – and someone I was proud to call a friend as well as a colleague.”