PJ Wilson

Posted: March 21, 2026

Peter ‘PJ’ WILSON, former news editor of the Sunday Mirror, died on March 18 [2026], aged 78. His funeral is at the Memoria Crematorium, Staple St, Boughton-under-Blean, Faversham ME13 9HY on Friday, April 10, at 11.30am. Everyone is welcome at the service, and to further celebrate PJ’s life afterwards at the Red Lion pub in nearby Hernhill (The Red Lion, Crockham Lane, Hernhill, Faversham, ME13 9TU)

PJ WILSON joined the Daily Mirror as a reporter in 1966, and served as news editor of both the Sunday Mirror and Daily Mirror. He left in 1987, weary of working for the then proprietor Robert Maxwell.

Three things made PJ an exceptional journalist: He could spot the potential in a story, then get the story, often against the odds, and finally write it so fluently that the sub-editors invariably ticked it through. Those rare talents made him a brilliant reporter and an inspiring news editor.

PJ is remembered for his charm, bubbling personality and infectious enthusiasm. He was as comfortable as an on-the-road reporter working a doorstep as he was master-minding a prized buy-up.

At the Mirror, he always wrote under the byline James Wilson because, on the day he arrived at Holborn, he was told that Peter Wilson had already been taken by a famous sports columnist – but in the office and throughout the newspaper world he was known as PJ.

He started his career in the early ’60s as a trainee reporter with the South London News Group, and soon moved to the Wimbledon News where he worked with Peter Miller, who later became his deputy on the Sunday Mirror news desk, and Tony Purnell, who went on to become the Daily Mirror’s showbusiness editor.

PJ was renowned for his ideas, perhaps the best was during the Falklands War. The mother of one of the soldiers had written to the Sunday Mirror saying how much the squaddies were missing their English beer. Before the day was out, PJ had persuaded Newcastle Breweries to make a special version for the troops, and within the week the Ministry of Defence were shipping out vast quantities of “Sunday Mirror Falklands Ale”.

Another idea that worked brilliantly was when he persuaded all the residents of a village on Dartmoor to turn off their televisions for a week. It brought families together, and on Burns Night the Daily Mirror put on a party that packed out the village hall because no one was at home glued to the small screen.

His enthusiasm for stories saw him light-heartedly branded crazy. At one Daily Mirror newsroom Christmas party, the reporters wore badges declaring “I believe PJ is Normal”, and paid for someone to appear in a white coat and pretend to drag him away. He saw the joke and enjoyed the fun.

PJ would go to extraordinary lengths to get a story. He once ordered Sunday Mirror reporter Richard Moore to punch him in order to spark a melee and distract the rival tabloid pack. The trick secured PJ’s exclusive interview with Joyce McKinney, the beauty queen who kidnapped a young Mormon missionary.

Another of his Sunday Mirror team was Tony Frost. Recalling PJ’s interview with Sara Keays after she gave birth to a child from her 12-year affair with the long-wed Cabinet Minister Cecil Parkinson, he said: “PJ smoothed out Sarah’s demands and he was ecstatic when her lawyer signed the contract.”

John McShane remembers being sent to Germany on a Miss World story. “PJ told me to pretend to be from The People, which had already done a deal with the contestant. He wouldn’t listen when I told him their reporter was 30 years older than me, spoke fluent German and had a beard. It wasn’t easy but I still got a story that made the front page.”

Wensley Clarkson says PJ instilled equal measures of fear and bravado into his team. “He made every mission – even going to the pub – sound like we were going to bring down the Government.”

In 1984, PJ moved back to the Daily Mirror where he was joined on the news desk by Tom Hendry. “He was in his element on big story days – Royal scandals, big court cases, terrorist bombings – but on quieter days his schedule was still full of brilliant exclusives.”

No account of PJ’s career would be complete without mentioning the story he will be most remembered for. It concerned a train in a railway siding and a couple of Royals who reputedly stayed overnight in one of the carriages. The Sunday Mirror splashed on it. Buckingham Palace denied it was true. But PJ stood resolutely by its accuracy and the paper’s editor, Bob Edwards, stood by PJ.

In 1987, disillusioned with working for a control-freak dictator, PJ left the Mirror. He astonished everyone by announcing that he and his wife Jean were moving 600 miles away to Spean Bridge, a small village in the Scottish Highlands near Fort William. They bought a house with 17 acres and two holiday chalets.

But printing ink remained firmly in PJ’s veins, and while in Scotland he launched a village newspaper ‘The Braes’. Before long, he was travelling to London for shifts on the Daily Express. Then came a call from former Mirror Group executive Ernie Burrington, inviting PJ to join him at The Globe newspaper in Florida. He couldn’t say no. Jean often joined him, and he enjoyed two years in the States. So much for quitting journalism!

PJ and Jean met in 1965. They married in 1971, had daughters Victoria and Emma, and throughout his years with the Mirror they lived in the Old Rectory in Hernhill, a village near Faversham in Kent. Jean was the rock, the stabilising force in PJ’s life, always a calming and restraining influence.

They had expected to be in Scotland for only seven years, but enjoyed their life there so much they stayed for 27. And when, in 2015, they left to return south, their thriving business had grown to include a further house and a total of 15 chalets.

They bought a cottage in Hernhill where PJ worked in the garden, attended monthly parish council meetings, and resumed his acquaintance with his favourite pub, the Red Lion, where he would read the Mirror and grow increasingly despairing at its decline.