John Junor

Who was John Junor?

Sir John Donald Brown Junor was a Scottish journalist and editor-in-chief of the Sunday Express, having previously worked as a columnist there. He then moved to The Mail on Sunday.

Born in Glasgow, he studied at Glasgow University and had a wartime commission in the Fleet Air Arm. At Glasgow University he became president of the University Liberal Club, and later stood unsuccessfully three times for Parliament for the Liberal Party. He was knighted in 1980.

Junor married in 1942, and had two children. The journalist, Penny Junor is his daughter, and the journalist, Sam Leith, his grandson.

His Sunday Express column was noted for recurrent catchphrases, two of them being "pass the sick-bag, Alice" and "I don't know, but I think we should be told". Junor frequently mentioned the small town of Auchtermuchty in Fife.

Junor could be brutally forthright in his column. He once wrote: "[W]ith compatriots like these [the IRA Brighton bombers] wouldn't you rather admit to being a pig than be Irish?". Following complaints that the comment was racist, Junor was censured by the Press Council in May 1985.