Jean Bourne (30 May 1926 – 2 December 2016) was a British journalist.

Early life and education

Jean Bourne nee Stead was born in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...

, Yorkshire, 30 May 1926.

Career

Stead trained as a reporter on '' The Yorkshire Post'', working as a reporter for 10 years in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. In 1963, she joined ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' as a reporter, specialising in writing about housing and the

homeless Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...

and race relations, and occasionally a columnist on the women's page. In 1968, she became a deputy to news editor John Cole, then succeeded him as news editor from 1970 until 1979. Stead was later appointed Special Projects Editor, supervising investigative reporting, book serialisation, and specialist columns, such as those concerning legal affairs and motorcycling. She became known for her international correspondence covering the motorcycle Grand Prix in Europe. Stead also wrote extensively about the nuclear disarmament movement in Europe, particularly in Germany, at the height of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. She was threatened with arrest, and her exit visa was taken from her after she interviewed dissident writers under house arrest in the Soviet Union, while covering a Scandinavian women's peace march across the Soviet Union. Stead wrote the first articles about the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp protest against the siting of American Cruise missiles at the base, and its significance for feminism. From 1983-88, she was ''The Guardians Scotland correspondent, covering the national miners' strike, the Ravenscraig steelworks and shipbuilding on the Clyde, as well as Scottish politics and the nationalist movement. From this work she published in 1986 the book, ''Never the Same Again'', an account of women's involvement in the miners' strike. After her retirement in 1988, Stead returned for a short time as archaeology correspondent after archaeologists protested at the burial of the Rose Theatre site and the original Shakespeare Globe Theatre. She also wrote a number of articles about major discoveries nationally and internationally, including at the site of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

. Stead edited the current affairs journal, ''The New Reporter'', from 1994 to 1995, designed by her husband, John Bourne. In 2006, she was one of the organisers of a 25th anniversary exhibition of the Greenham Common women's protest. Stead was the UK co-ordinator for Grandmothers for Peace International, based in Elk Grove, California, which opposes nuclear weapons, and led protests against the Iraq War. She served as an adviser to UKLAW, a committee to help Afghan women which was established by Joan Ruddock.

Personal life

Stead was married for nearly 60 years to John Bourne, a journalist. They had two children and three grandchildren, and lived in London and Cornwall. She died on 2 December 2016 at the age of 90.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stead, Jean 1926 births 2016 deaths British journalists The Guardian journalists Women's page journalists 20th-century British women writers Writers from Huddersfield