John Wilkins was editor of The Tablet for 21 years until 2003. He had previously been assistant editor of the paper in 1967 but left to join the BBC, rejoining it as editor in 1982. During his time as editor, circulation of The Tablet almost tripled. He was born in 1936, he went to Clare College Cambridge, and did his national service with the Gloucestershire Regiment.
Those are some of the bare facts about John Wilkins. But bare facts cannot do justice to one of the most lovable men I have known. I wrote for a number of years for him as an editor – he was especially hospitable to my pieces about the war in the former Yugoslavia – but he was also a great friend. He was a bachelor – I gathered the woman whom he would have married, died - and much of the time and energy that might have been expended on a family was devoted to the paper he edited and to his friends.
