My friend and former colleague, Nick Kent, who has died aged 72, was a journalist on the Daily Mirror; he later moved into book publishing.

With several others he and I launched the fortnightly Greyound Star newspaper in 1984 while we were both still at the Mirror, and by 1988 we had switched to working on it full-time.

Soon afterwards the two of us sold our shares in the business to concentrate on another venture, Ringpress, which published books about every kind of pet, from goldfish to parrots. Along with a third director, Julia Barnes, we sold Ringpress in 2002 and Nick decided to retire.

Nick was born in Southend, Essex (a circumstance that gave him a lifelong enthusiasm for jellied eels), to Frederick, a civil servant, and Emily (nee Ficken), a seamstress. After the early death of his father, he and his brother, Michael, moved with their mother to the village of Little Cornard, near Sudbury, in Suffolk, where he grew up.

He began his journalistic career while at Sudbury grammar school, writing a fishing column for the local paper. Later at Nottingham University he edited the student newspaper and, after gaining a degree in English and American studies he joined the Mirror Group graduate training scheme in 1974.

Working on provincial newspapers in the west of England for two years, he switched to London with the weekly tabloid newspaper Reveille in 1976 and then, in 1979, the Daily Mirror as a features subeditor.

By 1984 he had become one of the youngest chief subeditors in the Daily Mirror’s history, on the features desk; I was chief news subeditor on the paper at the same time. He also talked his way into being the Mirror’s first wine correspondent, once saying of an offering from the Co-op that “this wine is best drunk on its own, like your correspondent”.

After eventually selling Ringpress, Nick set up home in Cannes, in the south of France, with his first wife, the novelist Deanna Maclaren, whom he had married in 1987. There he discovered a passion for long-distance walking in the mountains above the Côte d’Azur and Liguria. He was also a volunteer driver, enabling people with disabilities to experience the joys of the great outdoors.

In 2014 he returned to London and set aside retirement to become managing director of the ailing Peter Owen Publishing, one of the oldest independent producers of fiction. While unable to restore the business to past glories, he kept it afloat until its sale in 2022, when he entered into his second retirement, in Saxmundham, Suffolk.

Though living with serious depression for much of his life, Nick had a remarkable ability to embrace new opportunities and interests. He had a passion for golf, wine and enjoying himself.

After a divorce from Deanna in 2017, the following year Nick married Antonia Owen, whose father had set up Peter Owen Publishing. She survives him.