Veteran writer Keith Waterhouse has brought down the curtain on a remarkable 60-year career in journalism by retiring from his twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail.
Waterhouse, who has been a regular columnist for the Mail for nearly a quarter of a century, has written more than 2,000 columns.
Before joining the Daily Mail he worked at the Daily Mirror for 35 years, after beginning his journalism career on the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Waterhouse's stellar career also saw him write about 60 books, including 16 novels, plays, film scripts and TV series.
He is perhaps best known as the author of Billy Liar, the story of a funeral parlour worker, Billy Fisher, who indulges in Walter Mitty-like fantasies to escape his drab existence in a fictional Yorkshire town. The novel was later filmed in 1963 by John Schlesinger, starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie.
Married twice, Waterhouse has recently suffered ill health and has been cared for by his second ex-wife, Stella Bingham.
The Daily Mail broke news of the decision to end his writing career today, with editor Paul Dacre paying tribute to Waterhouse in an article on page 2 of the paper.
"The phrase 'Fleet Street legend' could have been invented for Keith. But he was much more than that, he was a chronicler and brilliant observer of late 20th century life, whose characters became part of our national psyche," Dacre said.
"It has been a privilege for the last 23 years to have such a legendary writer as part of the Daily Mail story. He will be massively missed."
In effect, Waterhouse's slot will be taken by Craig Brown, who joined the Daily Mail recently after being dropped by the Daily Telegraph, where he had been a columnist for 14 years.
The gentlemenranters.com website, dedicated to Fleet Street veterans, revealed on Friday that Waterhouse had stopped writing, with his career coming to a quiet conclusion when in the place of last Thursday's Daily Mail column was the line "Waterhouse is away".
His last Daily Mail column, "It's English as she is spoke innit?", about a taskforce looking into education reform for seven- to 11-year-olds, appeared on Monday, 4 May.
Waterhouse, who turned 80 in February, was born in Leeds in 1929 into a modest home. Leaving school at 14 with no qualifications, he took his first journalism job on the Yorkshire Evening Post as the paper's Pennines walking reporter.
An earlier job as an assistant in an undertaker proved useful inspiration for the novel Billy Liar, which was published in 1959. His first screenplay, Whistle Down the Wind, came in 1961, telling the story of three children on a farm mistaking a fugitive hiding in their barn for Jesus.
Whitehouse also scored a notable West End success in 1989 with his play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, about the antics of the eponymous drunken journalist.
As Waterhouse's fame grew he was hired by the Daily Mirror, where he stayed for 35 years as a columnist known for his straight talking.
He fell out with the new Daily Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell in 1986 and joined the Daily Mail, from where he introduced the world to a series of comic creations, including shop assistants Sharon and Tracey, and the workings of Clogthorpe District Council, all written on his old Adler typewriter.
In February, Waterhouse told the Independent on Sunday that he had finished writing a play about the dying days of Fleet Street, The Last Page, which he hoped to see produced later in the year.
If so, it could sit alongside his book Waterhouse on Newspaper Style as an indispensable text about the newspaper trade.
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