Malcolm Dean (1955) died in July, 2025, aged 86. He left King’s to train as a reporter, first at the Wilmslow County Express, and then embarked on a series of overseas adventures – first in a remote gold-mining town in the frozen north of Canada, then in the US and the Caribbean area – he in fact played rugby for Trinidad and Tobago at one time! – and then in Australia and South-East Asia, before returning to the UK, where he studied Economics and Politics at Ruskin College, Oxford for two years. This was followed by a Harkness fellowship in the USA, during which time he worked as a speechwriter in Congress. Eventually, though, he returned to the UK in 1969 and took a position - what turned out to be the love of his working life - on the staff (for what turned out to be 37 years!) of the Guardian. Having begun as a general reporter, he soon became social policy leader writer, and he developed knowledge and understanding in that area second to none; health, education, social security, race relations, criminal justice, equal opportunities – they were all topics on which he was able to write with great authority. In due course, he also founded and edited for 21 years the paper’s highly-respected Society section, and was also invited, very unusually, to sit for seven years on the Scott Trust, the body that owns the Guardian.

Malcolm also had political involvement, unsuccessfully standing in Bath as an SDP/Liberal Alliance candidate for Parliament during the 1980s. After retirement from the Guardian, he also took up a 2-year fellowship at Nuffield College and wrote a book: ‘Democracy under Attack: How the Media Distort Policy and Politics’.
(see p? for a reminiscence from a schoolfriend).