Former Daily Record chief, credited with ‘colouring the world’s newspapers’, dies – aged 87.

A FORMER chair of the Daily Record and Sunday Mail newspapers – credited with ‘colouring the world’s newspapers’ – has died, aged 87.

Derek Webster oversaw the Daily Record when, in 1971, it became the first mass-circulation newspaper in the UK to print in colour.

Reports The Drum media and marketing magazine, he died of a heart attack, at his home in Glasgow.

Writes former Sunday Mail editor, Noel Young, in The Drum: “The Record was then being produced with hot metal typesetting and clapped out presses at its old HQ , 67 Hope Street in Glasgow. Much more was needed to crunch [rival newspaper] the Express. The Mirror management boldly decided to replace the lot with a brand new printing plant at Anderston Quay with full colour web-offset printing and computer typesetting.”

The Herald today also notes Webster’s death.