Patrick Stoddart, music-loving Sunday Times journalist

It wasn’t exactly the scoop of the century, but the journalist Patrick Stoddart would recall for the rest of his life the words that David Bowie said to him when they were alone in his dressing room in 1973 and the singer was about to go on stage in his Ziggy Stardust incarnation for one of the last times: “’Ere, Pat, zip me up!”
As a print journalist at the London Evening News and The Sunday Times Stoddart broke down the old-fashioned barriers between hard-bitten newsroom reporters, where the story and speed were everything, and the feature writers, where style, depth and elegant composition were at a premium. Though he might have balked at the term, he was a British exemplar of what American academics would come to call “new journalism”, a writer who could report, and a reporter who could write.
When he started on local papers in the early 1960s Stoddart would write about and spot the emerging styles in the cultural youth quake, pointing out for readers that the Rolling Stones and Manfred Mann — as novel as they seemed — in truth owed a “debt to American performers like Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters”.
The boom in beat-led club music of the 1960s was well timed for him. He could even be credited with discovering the Zombies and managing them for a time. “In the wave of enthusiasm for the Mersey beat I wrote a feature headlined ‘Is there a Watford sound?’” he recalled.
“The town hall’s entertainment manager launched a beat contest to find out. There were eight bands competing on consecutive Sundays, with judges including minor pop stars, people from record companies and me. Easily the best band were these five very young lads from St Albans, the Zombies. They were all about 17 or 18 and wondering whether to go to university or try their luck at music.
“As it happened I’d just written a feature about a recording studio in Rickmansworth run by two brothers, John and Malcolm Jackson, the sons of a then famous DJ called Jack Jackson. They had asked me to keep an ear out for anyone a bit special so even before the contest was over I invited the Zombies to put down some tracks, one of which was She’s Not There, which in true rock’n’roll fashion they finished off in the back of the van on the way to the studio.” It would be a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1964.
Stoddard continued to mix with rock glitterati and interviewed Jimi Hendrix shortly before the guitarist’s death in September 1970.
Patrick Stoddart was born in Watford in 1944 to Thomas Stoddart, a carpenter, and Anne (née Power). He was educated at Watford Grammar School for Boys and, in what was then time-honoured fashion for aspiring journalists from humble backgrounds, he joined the Watford Observer straight from school as a cub reporter. Stoddart moved on to the London Evening News when it was the capital’s bestselling newspaper and after it closed in 1980 he joined The Sunday Times as media editor and television critic.
He would go on to become a regular media commentator on television and co-presented the Radio 4 travel programme Breakaway on Saturday mornings.
After a spell as a media consultant, during which he helped launch Virgin Radio in 1993, he took the opportunity to impart his journalistic wisdom as a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster.
For nearly 20 years, students on the journalism course were mentored, entertained, inspired and cajoled by his lectures. Former students became close friends, and more than once his family home outside Watford became a stopover for alumni in need of help, advice or even just a bed for the night. His wife, Nicki, a literary agent, survives him. Stoddart retired from full-time lecturing in 2021.
“He was a brilliant teacher,” said his old university colleague Jim McClellan. “He had so much professional experience and wove it into his lessons with skill, humour and modesty. He was also incredibly creative, always coming up with scenarios and games to help the students learn. He made his classes fun as well as informative.”
Stoddart’s deep, gravelly voice betrayed a man who had enjoyed the Fleet Street lifestyle to the full, not least with the Fleet Street Strollers cricket team. He was also a stalwart of the Old Fullerians veterans rugby team, playing into his sixth decade as a hooker and accompanying his half-time orange with a glass of champagne.
His love of music never left him. A couple of years before his retirement, to the surprise of staff and students, he took to the main stage on the university’s music day, and on vocals delivered some delta blues from his musical hero Jimmy Reed.
Patrick Stoddart, journalist and lecturer, was born on November 23, 1944. He died on July 24, 2024, aged 79