Lord Deedes suffers stroke

Lord Deedes is expected to make a full recovery

Former Daily Telegraph editor Lord Deedes has suffered a mild stroke during a five-hour helicopter journey.

Lord Deedes, who at 87 is still a columnist for the paper, was travelling from the Indian earthquake zone to the Gujarat state capital Ahmedabad.

He will be in hospital for about five days but is expected to make a full recovery, the Daily Telegraph said in a statement.

"He insisted on completing his Daily Telegraph dispatch from the stricken area in hospital, in between being given an ECG (electrocardiogram) and having a CT brain scan," the statement added.

Dear Bill

William Deedes edited the newspaper between 1974 and 1986 and was immortalised in Private Eye's Dear Bill column.

The Conservative MP for Ashford for 24 years, he was a minister in the 1950s and 1960s.

He started his writing career at the Morning Post in 1931 as a general news reporter and later as a war correspondent in Abyssinia.

He was invited to join the Telegraph in 1937 and became its editor in January 1975 before handing over the job to Max Hastings.