Our tribute to Tony Boram

Posted: May 29, 2025

TONY BORAM, our beloved founder, and the “father” of the Association of Mirror Pensioners, has been honoured with a special memorial plaque in the journalists’ church, St Bride’s, in London’s Fleet Street.

It is a unique way of remembering the debt we all owe to Tony, who, in the teeth of fierce opposition, led us to victory in the High Court and saved our pensions, risking his house as collateral in the process.

A CANDLE burns on the Journalists’ Altar in St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street in perpetual memory of journalists in danger or who have died. Also on the altar, there’s a display of commemorative photo plaques to journalists such as Marie Colvin, Jamal Khashoggi, and Lyra McKee, which is rotated regularly.

And now, on the front of the pew just to the left of the entrance into the church, this ebony veneer inscribed plaque for Tony Boram (above) is on permanent display.

Following the dark days of Robert Maxwell’s pensions plunder, Tony was praised by the late Geoffrey Goodman [Daily Mirror industrial and assistant editor], who said he had “a special kind of bravery under fire – his physical courage coping with terrible eye problems, and his moral courage to fight against Maxwell”.

Mirror pensioners are the living beneficiaries of that courage, and St Bride’s, where 400 friends and colleagues packed Tony’s 2004 memorial service, is a fitting place for our small tribute.

Former AMP chair, Deborah Thomas, who first suggested the memorial plaque, said: “It is a simple memorial to an honest, brave, decent and very special man.” The plaque was financed from AMP funds, and committee member Jean Carr oversaw the project in conjunction with James Irving, St Bride’s head of finance and fundraising.

St Bride’s, (above), on one of the most historic sites left in London, is one of the finest of Wren’s churches. Its distinctive wedding-cake spire survived a 1940 German incendiary bomb. The church’s links as a Ministry to Journalism began in 1500, when William Caxton’s apprentice, the wonderfully named Wynkyn de Worde, set up a printing press in the churchyard. The emerging profession of journalism established its national base nearby, around Fleet Street. And St Bride’s remains the spiritual home of all in the news and media.

Its Rector, Alison Joyce, reminds us: “Attacks on press freedom and on the individuals striving to bring us the truth are greater than ever, and our Ministry to Journalism never more important.” (Pix: Paul Duffett; Rosemary Cook)