He grew up in Toxteth, Liverpool, and was the son of a minister in Harold Macmillan's cabinet, Reggie Bevins.
[3] Bevins started at the Liverpool Post in 1967, moved to London as its lobby correspondent in 1970, and then joined the political staff of the Sunday Express in 1973.
Bevins stood in the final union chapel meeting and told his colleagues, "I will go to Wapping with ashes in my mouth".
[1] Bevins joined The Independent before its launch in 1986, and was the newspaper's first political editor.
Significantly, his newspaper opposed the anonymous lobby system, preferring to find their own sources, a policy Bevins fully supported.