Frank Johnson (journalist)

Johnson was born in London.[1] failed his 11-plus examination, and was educated at a state secondary school in Shoreditch in East London, which he left at the age of 16. Unlike many senior journalists of his time, he did not have a background in further or higher education, and instead, had taken a job as a 'messenger' on a national newspaper.[1]

He was a junior reporter at the North-West Evening Mail in Barrow-in-Furness from 1965 to 1966. One of the duties of news staff was to cover sport, which was an unwelcome intrusion into the weekend. Johnson once reported the score of a Barrow rugby league match inaccurately and was robustly criticised by his editor on the Monday morning. However, he never had to cover sport again.

He wrote for The Times from 1981 to 1988, moved to The Daily Telegraph as a columnist and editor from 1988 to 1995, and was the editor of the conservative Spectator magazine from 1995 to 1999.[1] He had a particular reputation for his work as a parliamentary sketch writer, as which he was regarded by many as one of the most incisive and amusing commentators of his generation.

He married Virginia Fraser, the widow of Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, in 1998. He died from cancer in London on 15 December 2006.[1][2]