Seamus Potter - Telegraph Potter was an enthusiastic supporter of old Fleet Street traditions but combined a fondness for long lunch hours (and a post-prandial "zizz") with a tough, unvarnished approach to newspaper production. As a sub-editor he brooked no interference from reporters with what went on to the page once they had filed their copy. Laid back, arty and with a laconic manner, during a stint as chief sub-editor of the foreign page of The Evening Standard he would relax by practising tai chi in Kensington Gardens in the break between the first edition going off to the printers and the start of the West End Final subbing cycle. A keen, though not greatly accomplished golfer, during his time as Scottish editor of The Daily Telegraph Potter once persuaded a colleague to take him to Muirfield, home of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, where he caused a collective attack of the vapours among more traditional members as he ambled round the course rolling his own cigarettes and with a T-shirt clearly visible beneath his shirt. As a young man Potter had once dated Helen Fielding, later famous as the author of Bridget Jones's Diary. Friends sometimes speculated whether one of Bridget's unsatisfactory boyfriends was based on Potter. Potter himself enjoyed telling the story of how a long-time girlfriend had left him, so that when he got home from a hard day's subbing he found his all his belongings were gone. The only thing she had left him was his goldfish in a glass of water on the draining board. He turned up to work some days later dressed as a cowboy. Seamus Potter was born on January 31 1955, the eldest son of John Deane Potter, a Daily Mirror features executive and writer, and Eve Chapman, fashion editor of the Mirror and later agony aunt of The News of the World. Raised in Chelsea and educated at the City of London School (in his 20s his name appeared in a list of London's 20 most eligible bachelors), Potter began his career in journalism running an English language newspaper in Istanbul before joining the Western Daily Press. There, according to a report in The Evening Standard, he was a founder member of the "Hole in the Head gang," a group of irreverent younger journalists who engaged in daredevil stunts. One one occasion he jumped off a ferry in the Irish Sea to rescue a fellow member who had dived overboard for a bet. In the late 1970s he joined The Evening Standard and went on, briefly, to become deputy editor of the revived Evening News, which had been launched by the Standard's owner Lord Rothermere in 1987 as a spoiler to sabotage Robert Maxwell's London Daily News. After both papers closed he used his generous redundancy to buy a house in Spain near Ronda, which he christened Château Maxwell in appreciation. In the early 1990s, Potter was recruited to The Sunday Telegraph, initially as deputy night editor. After transferring to The Daily Telegraph, in 1999 he was appointed the paper's first Scottish editor, directing Scottish editions of the paper from London. He left the Telegraph as City chief sub-editor in 2005, to become production editor of The Sportsman, a daily betting newspaper which lasted little more than a year before folding. Subsequently he returned to The Evening Standard as chief sub-editor of the paper's foreign pages. Seamus Potter's marriage was dissolved. He is survived by a son. Seamus Potter, born January 31 1955, died September 4 2012