Meet the Team
Dennis |
Claire |
David |
Debbie |
Murray |
Peter |
Stephen |
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Click HERE for details of Dennis's New book 'So I Started a Newspaper'
President of Downs Mail is the founder Dennis Fowle, who retired as Editor-in-Chief and chairman at the end of 2008 after spending a lifetime in newspapers and publishing. He started as a junior reporter at the Kent Messenger's Sittingbourne office when he was 17, became manager of the Gillingham office at 22 and News Editor of the Kent Messenger at 26. In 10 years at Maidstone he became Managing Editor and chief editorial executive of the group, which by then included also the new evening newspaper in the Medway Towns and two county magazines.
He then became a director of a mainly personality book-publishing company and typesetting business before returning to writing with publications on Kent cricket and then successful specialist tax publications called Tax File (operated from offices in Park Wood, Maidstone) and Business Tax. After selling Tax File he spent two years on voluntary work as chairman of both Maidstone and Kent County Neighbourhood Watch before returning to his favourite career - writing and running a community newspaper. "There cannot be many jobs more exciting and rewarding than being a trusted journalist working closely with a local community," he says...
He ran the Downs Mail campaign for a pedestrian bridge over the A249 at Detling - and this won him the award for Kent's Campaigning Journalist of the Year.
The Chairman of the Downs Mail is Claire Procter, co-founder and former Advertising Director. She has lived in the heart of the Downs Mail area at Bearsted, Maidstone, most of her life, and attended the village's junior schools. Her sales experience was gained with Next, the ladies' fashion retailers, where she held various management positions. Claire enjoyed a break from selling while she and husband, Cliff, had three daughters. Claire started her own business, Spectrum Advertising, which published in 1998 The Bearsted Directory and represented several advertisers.
She teamed up with her father (an experienced newspaper editor) to launch the Bearsted Mail (now the Downs Mail) and when the business was incorporated she became a director of the company. After heading an increasingly-busy advertisement department and running the Downs Mail's office at Bearsted Green Business Park, in the heart of the village, Claire looks forward to leading the company into 2009 in her new role.
Sales Director - David Dadswell
David Dadswell is very much a local man - born and educated in Bearsted and resident there for most of his life. His first work was as a trainee dental technician and he trained for five years to qualify. He also kept busy with part-time work in sales and in 2000 he changed direction to take on regular advertising sales work. Since joining the Downs Mail as a Sales Executive David has progressed through to Regional Sales Manager, running the successful sales team and overseeing production of the newspaper. In August 2005 David's career with the Downs Mail was furthered still as he was appointed to the board as Sales Director.
David married in 2001 and is now proud father to Katie, who was born December 2004.
Debbie Neave was born in Maidstone and has resided in the borough all of her life. Married for 27years, Debbie has three sons who in her own words "still keep her on her toes."
When leaving school Debbie’s first work was as an accounts junior for a local bedding manufacturer. She went on to work in a local insurance company and a high street bank, remaining with accounts throughout her career.
Debbie holds the proud title of being the very first employee of mail publications ltd back in 1999 heading the accounts department and has been instrumental in the growth of the business over the past 10 years.
Debbie Joined the board of directors in 2009 and looks forward to the new challenges ahead.
Editor-in-Chief - Murray Evans
Murray Evans has been Editor-in-Chief since the retirement of Dennis Fowle at the end of 2008. A career spent in various forms of journalism began as a junior reporter on his own "local" - the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham News. Sub-editing on a number of newspapers was followed by editorships at the Medway News and Standard, the East Kent Gazette Series, based in Sittingbourne, and the Essex County Standard.
In between he worked as a freelance sub-editor on several national newspapers and a short wanderlust was satisfied by a year spent as sports editor of the Mid-Ocean News in Bermuda.
He also spent 12 years with a successful Public Relations agency in Rochester, where clients included the city council, Ford Motor Company, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and English Estates, in its redevelopment of the former Chatham Dockyard.
After leaving a full-time position as Head of Media at Gillingham Football Club, he was keen to return to "grassroots" journalism and concentrate on providing an interesting digest of local news for the public, and says he has found the ideal outlet for those ambitions at the Downs Mail.
Deputy Editor Peter Erlam has spent all his working life in journalism, starting in 1974 as a junior reporter on a weekly paper in Stockport, Cheshire, before moving north to Carlisle where, after spells reporting on local government, he was appointed news editor of the Cumberland News.
A move south in the late '80s took him to the Kent Messenger Group as assistant editor of the company's daily paper, Kent Today.
After more than five years there, he took a break from print and joined Teletext, the text service on ITV and C4, first as a duty editor and later as assistant editor during a period of rapid expansion in the digital era.
Teletext was based in west London, which involved Peter in a four-hour daily commute from his Maidstone home and back.
After joining the Downs Mail in November 2008, he is now enjoying the relatively short journey to work in Bearsted!
Peter is a keen sportsman and walker. It was during his time in Cumbria that his love of cricket and the Lake District developed. He combined the two recently when he completed a 193-mile coast-to-coast walk, via Lakeland, with a pal from Teston Cricket Club. Peter captains the Village League team on Sundays.
News Editor - Stephen Eighteen
Stephen has been associated with the area since leaving his hometown of March, Cambridgeshire to study Media & Society at the University of Greenwich in September 1998.After graduating with BA Honours three years later, Stephen began his journalism career at Southwark News, an independent community newspaper in south London, where he covered Millwall Football Club – including their unprecedented run to the FA Cup Final in 2004 – and all aspects of news throughout the borough.He developed a detailed understanding of the nature and needs of the local community, and was particularly active in large regeneration schemes in Walworth, Elephant & Castle and Peckham, where he regularly provided a voice to those caught up in the heartbreak of gang-related crime.
Despite his busy diary, he found time to spread his wings and made contributions to a number of national newspapers, both independently and through his relationship with the Wardle’s sports agency. He also pioneered an online podcasting service that provided post-match and general analysis on Millwall.In October 2006 Stephen became communications officer at Crystal Palace Football Club, where he penned the bulk of the matchday programme and provided written and verbal content for the official website, which included the Palace World video service. Six months later in April 2008, Stephen reverted back to news and became News Editor at Downs Mail. As a keen dog walker, he already knew plenty about the area through his escapades along the North Downs Way, and feels preserving the natural beauty of our surroundings is key to what Downs Mail is all about.
He says: "The moment a building of any kind is created on rural land, that part of the countryside – which has lasted for thousands of years – is lost forever. Together with active members of the public, our aim is to ensure that only the most necessary of changes will take place in a stunning area that we all have a lot to be proud of."