John Jenkinson, the Mirror's secret weapon in the circulation war.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

Unless you worked at Mirror Group in the 1960s through to the early 1990s, it is unlikely that you would have heard of John Jenkinson, who died aged 84 on new year's day.

He shunned the limelight. Yet John, affectionately known to his colleagues as JJ, was one of the Mirror titles' secret weapons in the national newspapers' circulation war.

He was the man who ran the Mirror's promotions department with the kind of skill and commitment that endeared him to six Daily Mirror editors (including me), four Sunday Mirror editors and eight People editors.

Oh yes, plus a couple of editors at The Sporting Life and those at the long-defunct weekly, Reveille.

JJ was brilliant at one of the most …