JIM McDowell’s funeral took place at the weekend and, while his death is above all an immense loss to his family, I am not at all sure if journalism in particular and life in general is ever going to be quite the same again.

McDowell – the unmistakable voice at the other end of a telephone line only ever used the surname to identify himself, so I will do the same – was a giant of the newspaper industry, as the warm tributes to him have confirmed.

I still feel that some of the appreciations may have undersold McDowell’s wider contribution, which in fairness he also tended to do during irreverent discussions about his work.

He loved to present himself as the archetypal hack, the foot in the door specialist who nailed the story, named the bad guys and held court afterwards in a range of city centre bars.

However, he also clearly understood the responsibilities associated with his role, and the need to develop understandings and insights which went well beyond all the inevitably brash tabloid headlines.

I first met him 50 years ago next year, when he was on the interview panel, together with the late tutor Joan Fitzpatrick, supervising the selection process for the National Council for the Training of Journalists course at the long-departed........

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