Bob Edwards, who has died aged 86, edited three popular national newspapers. Yet his heart was always embedded in serious journalism. And in politics.
He was a fervent Labour party supporter, describing himself as a socialist. He began on the left but gradually moved towards the right as he faced up to the realities of dealing with the print unions.
I worked with him when he was editor of the Sunday Mirror in the 1970s. Though it would be fair to say I also worked against him in my role as self-styled "convenor of casuals" for the National Union of Journalists.
A short period of mutual admiration therefore gave way to a couple of years of bitter antagonism during which I was unduly critical of his editorship. By the time we were reconciled, many years later, I had come to appreciate his achievements.
I had recognised that editors were not masters of their own fate and that was particularly true of Bob's career, during which he worked for two mercurial and maverick proprietors - Lord Beaverbrook and Robert Maxwell.
It says much for Bob that, while first working for Beaverbrook at the Evening Standard in 1956, he refused to write leading articles in support of the Suez invasion.
What did Beaverbrook expect from the Labour party loyalist who he had plucked from the editorship of Tribune on the recommendation of his good friend Michael Foot?
I guess it also says much for Beaverbrook that he didn't hold it against Bob, promoting him in the following years until, in an astonishing move, he appointed him to edit the Tory-cheerleading Daily Express.
If that was surprising, then it was truly extraordinary that he should have reappointed him after firing him. Yet that's what happened.
Bob explored his complex relationship with Beaverbrook in his 1988 memoir, Goodbye Fleet Street, but there probably was no rational explanation beyond the proprietor's own quirky character.
After being fired yet again by Beaverbrook in 1965, Bob accepted the editorship of The People from another capricious newspaper chief, Hugh Cudlipp. At last, he was working for a paper that supported the Labour party.
In his six years years there - while it was still a broadsheet - he was responsible for publishing several investigative scoops. He risked alienating his readers with a 1970 revelation that British soldiers had been responsible for the massacre in 1948 of 24 unarmed people in Malaysia.
Labour's then defence minister, Denis Healey, told Bob he had behaved disgracefully by publishing the story while the Liberal party leader, Jeremy Thorpe, said he should be prosecuted for criminal libel.
It was a true story and the real disgrace was in the government's refusal to hold an investigation, which is still being demanded by people in Malaysia.
Bob was translated to the Sunday Mirror as editor in 1972 and spent 12 years there. He tried to hold back the gradual tide of celebrity-style journalism, though he did begin to publish occasional kiss-and-tell stories.
He got into hot water for a story claiming that Prince Charles had smuggled the then Lady Diana Spencer abroad the royal train. It later appeared that another "blonde" lady had been involved.
This was an unusual incident. Most of the time, he appeared unduly cautious, seemingly unsure of how to both please his readers and please himself. (More on this from another Sunday Mirror veteran, Revel Barker, tomorrow). I recall his minute attention to the leading articles that we sub-editors thought few Sunday Mirror readers bothered to read.
He was, indeed, a cut above the rest of us. He dressed well, happily naming his Savile Row tailor, and was also renowned for his killer smile, said to resemble that of the 1950s film star, Jeff Chandler. He was also famously, and sometimes hilariously, unable to fit names to faces.
He was still editor when Maxwell acquired the Mirror group in 1984. He and Bob had been friends in previous years, but working for Maxwell proved as great a trial as working for Beaverbrook, if not more so.
After five months, Maxwell made him group editor-in-chief and some time after that, vice-chairman. Both were non-jobs and, though he remained as a director, he was pleased to retire.
He eventually settled with his much-loved second wife, Brigid, in Penzance. He went on loving journalism but told me he read The Guardian and The Times every day. He no longer cared for the pop papers.