A FORMER managing director of the former publishers of The Northern Echo and its sister papers, died on Monday a month after his 99th birthday.

In 1950, Shannan Stevenson took on the position at The North of England Newspaper Company's Priestgate offices in Darlington and steered it through the print strike of 1959 against fierce union opposition.

He was also a director of parent company Westminster Press and High Sheriff of County Durham.

Following the dispute, it was his proud boast that The Northern Echo had not lost a single issue since its 1870 launch.

Mr Stevenson, whose time at the helm saw the charismatic Harold Evans appointed as editor in 1961, taking the paper to record circulation levels, also served on the Newspaper Society's council for 17 years and was made president in 1964.

Born in Tynemouth, North Tyneside, the son of north country newspaper proprietor Ronald Cochran Stevenson, his newspaper heritage stretched back to 1849 when his great-grandfather founded the Shields Gazette, in South Shields.

The family company, The Northern Press, bought and founded other newspapers in Northumberland and was itself taken over by Westminster Press. Under this new ownership, Mr Stevenson became managing director of The Northern Press.

However, naval life was also in his blood, his father having been a founder of the Tyne Division Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and he went to the Royal Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth.

There, he was a contemporary of Prince George, fourth son of George V and Duke of Kent, and the pair became shipmates aboard HMS Bee, to which Mr Stevenson was posted as a 22-year-old lieutenant.

On this duty on the China station, he met his wife, Daphne, among the evacuees the ship rescued in January 1927 following anti-British riots.

Later that year he returned to England, joining the family's newspaper business, but was recalled to active duty when the Second World War broke out.

One of his last acts before leaving for war was to prepare his newspaper plants on Tyneside for German bombing raids. This proved successful because direct hits on the South Shields plant and the printing works in North Shields, in 1941, failed to stop a single issue.

He retired at the end of the war with the rank of commander.

In 1963, Mr Stevenson served as High Sheriff of County Durham.

The following year, he and his wife moved to Bolton Old Hall, in North Yorkshire.

He died at Nightingale Hall Nursing Home. A funeral service is planned for St Mary's Church, Bolton-on-Swale, at 2.30pm on Thursday, April 25