Phil Jackman on May 12, 2003.Louie Palu/The Globe and Mail
Phil Jackman was one of the original members of a civil-engineering magazine, despite having no postsecondary education and having never built a building. He was the first editor on The Globe and Mail’s Facts and Arguments page, despite never getting into arguments. And he was one of the first editors on the paper’s Middle Kingdom feature, despite not knowing if the title referred to ancient China, the earth’s core, or the explanatory-journalism page’s placement in The Globe’s front section.
Retirement, however, posed the biggest challenge of all: How would a man who grew up in London (population seven million) and lived in Toronto (population three million) adjust to Orillia, Ont., (population 30,000) in retirement? He filled his time. He took up volunteering, bridge and, despite eschewing sports his entire life – except cheering for the Tottenham Hotspur soccer team – curling. Those who knew Mr. Jackman still have a hard time coming to grips with that one.
Mr. Jackman – writer, editor, graphic designer, raconteur, amateur golfer and curler – died Oct. 30 in Orillia’s Mariposa House Hospice after suffering from heart and lung problems. He was 74.
Philip James Jackman was born in North London on April 20, 1948. His mother, Dorothy, an office worker, was 40 when she gave birth to him. His father, James, was 41. James was a furniture polisher by trade, but for three years during the Second World War served with the British Army in North Africa and Italy, while Dorothy and their daughter, Leila (born in 1940), lived through the Blitz. Even though Phil was born in peacetime, he didn’t escape the war’s influence: As a child, he used to play in a V2-rocket blast site at the end of their street.
Phil was educated at Holloway Comprehensive School, an all-boys academy in North London, where he was bad at math, but excelled in English, French, Latin and history. Right after graduation, he got a job at a trade journal, and a 42-year career in journalism was born.
After joining the New Civil Engineer in 1970 in London he and a group of friends were at the startup for Offshore Engineer, another hugely successful British trade magazine.
By 1975, in search of a fresh start in life and to explore new avenues of journalism, Mr. Jackman moved to Toronto, where he worked for Maclean-Hunter’s large stable of trade magazines. Within a few months, however, he joined The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business section as a copy editor. Mr. Jackman (who admittedly was not good at finance) had the good fortune to be moved to another section.
In 1980, Mr. Jackman married Shannon Cairns, a wallcovering stylist, to whom he would remain married the rest of his life. They both had quirky interests and, despite his job, which occasionally required him to work late shifts, they always had weekends together – uncommon in the newspaper business. And, Ms. Jackman said, they never argued. “We had a lovely, close relationship, but never fought.”
Mr. Jackman’s talents shone wherever he worked in The Globe, whether it was in the Arts department or Features or Opinion. In 1989, when the paper launched its Facts and Arguments page, then editor-in-chief William Thorsell tapped Mr. Jackman for the job.
Phil Jackman in the Globe and Mail newsroom in Toronto, on Jan. 12, 2007.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
“Phil was a gentleman with a wry sense of humour, skilled in the language, and keen on new ideas and approaches in journalism,” Mr. Thorsell said in an e-mail. “Phil married erudition to a vibrant wit and curiosity about new avenues in daily journalism. He could pick up a new idea, discuss it and then take it away on his own with great enthusiasm and excellent effect.”
Mr. Jackman, who was also quick to learn newspaper pagination and design, was a superb editor. He had a light touch, always letting the writer’s voice shine, but always improving the copy.
Retired colleague John Allemang said he enjoyed working with Mr. Jackman. “He went about his labours with such crisp, collaborative efficiency. … He punctuated our daily tasks with those beloved Jackmanesque asides about golf, the latest obsessions of the British tabloids or the absurdities of the workplace,” Mr. Allemang wrote on Mr. Jackman’s funeral home tribute page.
For all his talents, however, Mr. Jackman had a sly subversive side. Once, he wrote about a penis museum in Iceland that was looking for donations of the male body part. His headline: Members only.
Mr. Jackman retired from The Globe in 2009, but continued to write the popular Collected Wisdom column (a question-and-answer feature that predated Google) for a few years.
When the Jackmans moved to Orillia (where Shannon was from), he became a joiner. He joined a Tuesday morning men’s breakfast group, a Thursday afternoon bridge club, and also became a regular (and pretty good) curler. A lifelong fan of the bass guitar, he took piano lessons. One of the things that kept him the busiest was his volunteer work for the Orillia Museum of Art and History, where he became a graphic designer and editor for the museum’s many publications.
Mr. Jackman leaves his wife, Shannon; sister-in-law, Mary Lou Davies; nephews, Wynn Davies, Logan Grahame and Paul Lindsay; niece, Sarah King, and her family; and his sister, Leila Smith.
“[Mr. Jackman’s] droll nature followed him wherever he drove,” former colleague Patrick Martin said in his eulogy, alluding to the intentional error on his car’s vanity plate, which read: EDITER. “He never failed to bring a smile to our faces.”
The end notes for the handout at Mr. Jackman’s funeral were written by his wife. But she gave the last word to her late husband, who said recently how happy he was that things worked out for him in his adopted city. He remarked he “had an amazing experience except for the final result.”