Paul Bach, who has died aged 72, was the founder-editor of Saga Magazine which, within a decade, grew from a specialist forum for holidaying pensioners into the largest-circulation monthly magazine in Britain.
Paul Bach
By persuading often-reluctant leading writers to contribute to what was then seen as an unfashionable area, Bach achieved this publishing phenomenon almost single-handedly.
He brought in columnists such as Keith Waterhouse (ex-Daily Mirror, Daily Mail), Katharine Whitehorn (ex-Observer), Paul Lewis (who went on to present Radio Four’s Money Box) and Michael Parkinson.
His pressman’s nose for news also led him to break significant stories, run hard-hitting campaigns and introduce revealing celebrity interviews. When the likes of Twiggy and Mick Jagger made it on to the cover, the fact that they were “Saga stars” was national news in itself.
Bach’s recipe for his magazine was based on his belief that older people had more experience to relate, more wisdom to impart and, quite simply, “more to say”.
One of his proudest moments was when his publication overtook Reader’s Digest as Britain’s biggest-selling monthly. Circulation continued to grow to 1.25 million.
Paul George Roger Bach was born on November 13 1938 at Forest Gate, east London. His father was a professor of languages at King’s College, London, and later a languages teacher at a school in Ilford. As a teenager, Paul cycled from London to the Lake District and back, and regularly cycled to and from Brighton in a day.
On leaving Plaistow Grammar School he found a job as a reporter on the Stratford Express before moving to south Wales to take various posts with Thomson Regional Newspapers. He won an award for his coverage of the Aberfan disaster in 1966.
After a stint as editor-in-chief of the Celtic Press group of 12 regional newspapers, Bach became editor of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph in 1972 and returned to east London in 1976 as group editor of the Stratford Express series of newspapers.
In 1979 he left news for public relations, moving to Folkestone to work for the family-owned Saga Holidays. There he took a simple contacts sheet (used by senior trippers to keep in touch with fellow holidaymakers) and turned it into a monthly magazine.
Saga Holidays also expanded, dropping its original 65-plus “age limit” to 50 and branching out into lucrative financial services. The publishing arm, too, was seen as a growth opportunity.
When Saga’s owner, Roger De Haan, son of the company’s founder Sidney De Haan, decided to sell the family firm for £1.4 billion, management changes meant Bach reluctantly giving up the magazine editorship in 2001. “It was as if he’d lost a child,” said a friend and colleague, “and, in a way, that magazine really was his baby.”
Shortly after he retired, Paul Bach’s wife, Florence, suffered a severe stroke, and he devoted the next nine years to her care, despite his own failing health. He survived her by nine months, until his own death on September 18.
His three sons survive him.
Paul Bach, born November 13 1938, died September 18 2011
On leaving Plaistow Grammar School he found a job as a reporter on the Stratford Express before moving to south Wales to take various posts with Thomson Regional Newspapers. He won an award for his coverage of the Aberfan disaster in 1966.
After a stint as editor-in-chief of the Celtic Press group of 12 regional newspapers, Bach became editor of the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph in 1972 and returned to east London in 1976 as group editor of the Stratford Express series of newspapers.
In 1979 he left news for public relations, moving to Folkestone to work for the family-owned Saga Holidays. There he took a simple contacts sheet (used by senior trippers to keep in touch with fellow holidaymakers) and turned it into a monthly magazine.
Saga Holidays also expanded, dropping its original 65-plus “age limit” to 50 and branching out into lucrative financial services. The publishing arm, too, was seen as a growth opportunity.
When Saga’s owner, Roger De Haan, son of the company’s founder Sidney De Haan, decided to sell the family firm for £1.4 billion, management changes meant Bach reluctantly giving up the magazine editorship in 2001. “It was as if he’d lost a child,” said a friend and colleague, “and, in a way, that magazine really was his baby.”
Shortly after he retired, Paul Bach’s wife, Florence, suffered a severe stroke, and he devoted the next nine years to her care, despite his own failing health. He survived her by nine months, until his own death on September 18.
His three sons survive him.
Paul Bach, born November 13 1938, died September 18 2011
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