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Allan Barker, a great Aussie

Deeply saddened at the death of yet another of our veterans, Allan Barker, a valued friend first met in New York decades ago. After that I was on my travels and we didn’t meet much. The next time was when he had become Features Editor in London and I was heading to the World Desk. I wrote a lot of feature stories, one of them on the 100th anniversary of the Sherlock Holmes saga.

“A bit bright, isn’t it?” said Allan cautiously as he read my copy. The feature was used worldwide and Allan was kind enough to notice. After reading my autobiography, Snapshots, years later, he wrote “Love your book”.

Distance meant we didn’t see much of each other in retirement. He also kept in touch with Ronnie Batchelor’s widow, and his help was much appreciated.

A great Aussie, what more can be said?

Another old colleague on the Obituary list is Clare Hollingworth, a veteran of the British newspaper world, who made it well into her hundreds. I was heading the Cairo office whenever she visited Egypt. She had once been married to our ambassador in the Egyptian capital. I remember how she shuddered, gin and tonic in hand, as she stared out bleakly from her hotel room across the rooftops of Cairo, replete not only with hung-out washing but also goats and other animals. “God”. She said. “How they’ve let the place go down”. ■