My husband, Seán Day-Lewis, who has died aged 90, felt himself a journalist from an early age. As a small boy in Lyme Regis, Dorset, he turned his back on the sea and read the newspaper. He later wrote for several, including the Daily Telegraph for nearly three decades, and called himself “a hack”. After he retired to Devon, he wrote letters to newspapers instead.
Seán was the elder son of the Irish-born poet Cecil Day-Lewis, who later became poet laureate, and his first wife, Mary (nee King). He was born in Cheltenham, where Cecil taught at Cheltenham college. The family moved to Musbury in Devon when Seán was seven and there he created his own newspaper. One edition ran the headline “General has kittens”. Family cats were named after politicians they resembled – this one looked like De Gaulle.
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