London: It was with considerable sadness that Maritime CEO learnt yesterday of the passing of David Cheslin, the founder and managing director of PR firm Dunelm. He had been in hospital for six months having undergone two liver transplants and died suddenly on Monday.
The relationship between PR firms and journalists is naturally prickly, if it weren’t the latter profession would not exist, but in Cheslin maritime journalists had a firm friend and a useful fount of knowledge to call upon.
Cheslin was brought up in Hartlepool on the east coast of England. It was from there that his love of ships and shipping grew as he cycled around the shipyards of Tyneside.
As with many PR types in the maritime field he started out as a journalist, his first work appearing in the Liverpool Journal of Commerce and Sea Breezes.
Brian Singleton gave him his first proper job in shipping journalism on Shipbuilding and Shipping Record in the early 1970s. He went on to work on Cargo Systems and to work in the PR department of MacGregor Hatch Covers before becoming deputy editor of Containerisation International.
He was the first UK shipping journalist to go to Taiwan in the mid ‘70s to visit a fledgling Evergreen and from this visit a relationship was formed that was to last over three decades.
In 1978 Cheslin went into PR, working for Richman & Associates, and soon attracted Evergreen’s PR account as Evergreen expanded its European network. When Cheslin set up Dunelm Public Relations in 1981 the Evergreen account came with him and grew as Evergreen expanded, launching its Round-the-World service in 1984.
For journalists such as Maritime CEO’s editor, Sam Chambers, Cheslin was something beyond the normal PR man when it came to Evergreen. Taiwan’s top line has always acted in its own idiosyncratic way, rarely following the pack, and not necessarily keen to let journalists in on its methods and thinking. Cheslin became the go-to-guy for many people trying to get an insight into Evergreen and its famous but hard to pin down founder Chang Yung-fa.
Among other clients in the Dunelm stable was Rickmers Linie. Former managing director of the German breakbulk outfit, Sean Gay, commented: “Over the decades I worked with David he became very much the elder statesman of PR in the shipping industry, always interested in exploring new avenues and discussing challenging ideas.”
This comment is true, Cheslin being ahead of his time in providing PR to shipping, traditionally one of the world’s least transparent industries.
Again, unlike many other PR types, Cheslin lived and breathed shipping, establishing niche conferences and even an association to champion shortsea and feeder container shipping.
“David was a consummate PR professional,” his firm Dunelm said in a release yesterday. “He was the scourge of many a young account executive in his insistence on correct grammar and punctuation. If there was a typo in a press release you could guarantee he would find it.”
As one of his friendly competitors noted, “He raised the standards in maritime PR.”
Cheslin is survived by his son, Aidan, and his partner, Margaret.
A memorial service will be arranged to celebrate his life and achievements. [08/08/13]
