In a career that spanned three continents and in the early 1990s included the editorship of the Daily Mirror, David Banks, who has died aged 74 of pneumonia, showed a flair for dealing with challenges. Though the business is renowned for cynicism, back-stabbing and disloyalty, he navigated his way through newsrooms around the world leaving nothing but friends in his wake.
The episode that most severely tested the widespread good relations that “Banksy” enjoyed came when he left the Sun in 1985 as its assistant editor, apparently to spearhead the launch of Rupert Murdoch’s new London evening newspaper. He would be based in a new building in a part of the East End of London that few of us in the conference room for his send-off that evening had heard of, let alone visited.
