Even the briefest business communication was crafted and polished to give pleasure and entertainment to the addressee He was also a brilliant blurb-writer. His favoured dress of jeans and denim shirt looked out of place among the wide-shouldered suits and sleek plastic surfaces.The clumsily managed sale of Secker, along with other Reed imprints, to Random House earlier this year saddened and angered him, and he became a freelance, editing his loyal authors from home. His office was an attic room at the top of a twisting, precipitous staircase, crammed to the eaves with an organised chaos of books, proofs, and manuscripts. There was always a bottle of white wine in the fridge, and the aroma of Gauloises in the air. If your meeting was well timed, there would be an adjournment to a nearby pub.

He kept himself fit by cycling to work and regular skiing holidays – and continued to do so till his death.But when the firm was acquired by Reed and moved to an open-plan office in Michelin House, he seemed less at ease There was no room for organised chaos in his little cubicle. As the imprint was bought and sold in the era of corporate takeovers, as Tom Rosenthal’s successors – David Godwin, Dan Franklin, Max Ellenberg – came and went, John Blackwell remained, a valued custodian of the Secker tradition. That Secker continued to publish a list of distinctive literary merit through these turbulent times was due in no small measure to his continuing presence.Blackwell himself was happiest in the days when the firm occupied a tall, narrow, rambling house in Poland Street, Soho. Several intriguing stories of Blackwell’s surveillance exploits at this time are in circulation, none of them entirely reliable, but none probably without some basis in fact.In 1958 he went up to Jesus College, Cambridge, to read English, and there met his wife, Pamela, whom he married in 1966. After holding a variety of short-term jobs, he edited the journal of the Iron and Steel Institute (acquiring a knowledge of heavy engineering with which he would later impress some of his authors) and then joined Secker & Warburg when it was an independent firm headed by Frederic Warburg, succeeded shortly afterwards by Tom Rosenthal.

He was my own editor for an unbroken 25 years.John Blackwood was born in Coventry, and attended the King Henry VIII Grammar School in that city. He did his National Service in the Royal Navy, a three-year stint during which he was trained in intelligence, learned Russian, and perhaps acquired from the climate of espionage a habit of reticence about his personal life. He was a perfectionist; and, since most writers are too, his expertise was highly valued by those fortunate enough to be edited by him. These included, at various times, Angus Wilson, Andre Brink, J.M Coetzee, Michael Moorcock, George V. He preferred to work, by patient questioning and tactful suggestion, on a completed manuscript, tuning it and refining it, removing wrinkles and blemishes, and ensuring that nothing in the physical appearance of the printed text would interfere with the communication of the author’s vision to the reader.He had a remarkable mental database of knowledge – technical, linguistic, literary – which saved many an author from embarrassing error. Higgins, Tom McGuane, Tom Sharpe, Malcolm Bradbury, Louis de Bernieres and Tim Parks.

John Blackwell, publisher: born Coventry 23 October 1937; married; died London 5 November 1997. John Blackwell was a publisher of a kind rapidly becoming extinct, a senior editor who devoted himself to editing, including the time-consuming business of copy-editing, rather than seeking advancement in a corporate career.
He did not usually act as a “creative” editor, collaborating with an author in the development of a book. Within a few months he had returned to his first love, Swansea Town, before slipping out of the Football League to join Hereford United. Daniel spent seven years at Edgar Street in the relatively undemanding arena of the Southern League, including a stint as player-boss, before leaving the game in 1967.Thereafter he worked successively as a publican in Swansea, as a regional manager for the Courvoisier brandy company and as a sub-postmaster in Cockett, a village on the outskirts of his home town.Daniel will be remembered as one of the most gifted and charismatic of all Welsh players , if one whose prime might have lasted a little longer; and as a warm-hearted, wise- cracking fellow who lived his life to the full..

Matters worsened in 1957 when the club became embroiled in controversy over illegal payments to footballers, several of whom, including Daniel, were briefly suspended.That year proved a watershed in his career. He lost his place in the Wales team to Mel Charles – thus missing out on the rousing progress to the World Cup quarter-finals the following summer – and he was transferred to the Second Division Cardiff City for pounds 7,000. But in the long term the so-called team of all the talents never gelled, results were frustratingly poor and when the manager Bill Murray experimented with the Welshman at centre-forward it was to little avail. Firmly established at Highbury, he seemed likely to consolidate his role as an Arsenal stalwart for the remainder of the decade, but a disagreement over playing styles contributed to a surprise switch.Sunderland, then in the top flight and known as the “Bank of England club”, were in the process of assembling a star-studded side and Daniel was persuaded to join his friend and fellow Welsh international Trevor Ford on Wearside.After the pounds 27,500 move – a record for a defender at that time – Daniel gave some of his most polished displays, helping to achieve fourth place in the First Division in 1954/55. However, though the Magpies took the silverware, the glory went to the Gunners, who battled bravely with 10 men for most of the match after losing Walley Barnes to injury.