COMPTON 'MAC' IFILL

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

2010 has started on a sombre note with the news that much respected former ‘Birmingham Post’ journalist Compton ‘Mac’ Ifill had sadly passed away in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Long time ‘Post’ co-worker Steve Pain has put together an obituary, which you can find here, but this is my own tribute to someone who I knew as a friend and colleague for many years.

I first came across Mac when he joined the ‘Post’ at the beginning of the 1990s.

Mac was supplements editor, and had the unenviable task of basically starting all over again with this important department.

He had to work with limited resources and as supplements took off, he often recruited freelance help, which is where I first came to work with him.

As Steve remarks elsewhere, Mac was hard but fair – but he certainly didn’t suffer fools gladly. But if you weren’t a fool, you were OK!

Mac was proud of the fact that, under his leadership, supplements helped bring in a significant sum of money for the ‘Post’, achieved against a backdrop of falling circulation in the 1990s.

Some of those supplements, which included the monthly ‘Commercial Property Review’ and the annual ‘Corporate Finance’ features, were incredibly popular with the business community.

When Mac left the ‘Post’, it was with much sadness. He didn’t want to go, in reality, and I think he found it rather hard to adjust to retirement.

He still had his hobbies, which included Apple Mac computers, on which he was something of an expert (particularly ‘comms’, as he put it), and he also enjoyed socialising, often being found holding court at his local hostelry, the Lord Leycester.

He loved to relate a story about a heated argument he had with someone in the Lord Leycester, which resulted in him getting a pint tipped over his head – it was a story he told with much laughter, as Mac was not in any way egotistical.

However, he was someone who commanded respect. As Steve Pain says, he was a product of the old school – you never saw him without a jacket and tie, and a handkerchief neatly folded into his breast pocket.

He did not look his age, which tended to hide the fact that he suffered many bouts of serious illness, including gout and heart problems. But he never complained, and soldiered on regardless.

I hadn’t seen him for a while, but we remained in touch via email (he was always keen to find out about the latest goings-on at the ‘Post’).

I’ll miss him – and I know that there will be plenty of other people, colleagues and friends, who will feel the same way.