Mike Jerram

The Editor presents a tribute from his friends and colleagues

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It is with great sadness we must report the death of Mike Jerram, Pilot magazine’s longest-serving contributor and editor. Latterly ‘chief nitpicker’−the title he laughingly gave himself−Mike’s first published contribution was, as he described it in an email, ‘a moody sunset shot of a Rothmans Stampe, shamelessly aping James Gilbert’s photographic style at [US magazine] Flying’. At the time Mike was working for a regional newspaper in Hampshire as a journalist/photographer.

‘I submitted it and others of similar vein to James’s predecessor, Brian Healey,’ wrote Mike. ‘They came back by return of post with a curt note that “Pilot does not publish this kind of picture”. When I saw James’s name on the masthead of that April 1972 issue I thought I’d try again. He ran the Stampe shot full-bleed on the Contents page and paid me a vast sum. I don’t recall exactly how much, but I do know it paid more than a week’s rent on our flat down in Portsmouth, and far more than the local paper had paid me for covering weekend events that the staffers didn’t want to bother with (Women’s Institute tea parties, baby contests, nonLeague soccer etc.)

‘On the other hand, and perhaps fortunately, aviation photography did not offer such life-enhancing experiences as being attacked by militant students while covering an Enoch Powell speech, and only avoiding injury by swinging my Pentax SV with 200mm lens around my head like a whirling cosh−a trick taught me by one of the staff snappers who was doing the same alongside me.’