Odile Leroux

Bernard Edinger sums up the late Odile Leroux perfectly in his tribute: passionate in her devotion to her adopted family as well as to Africa, to Reuters and to the tyrannical Harold King, mellowing in his later years. She was a generous colleague, patient with younger journalists, and always excellent company, telling stories of the foibles and eccentricities of “her” African leaders.  And, yes, she had a volcanic temper.

The only time I faced the full fury of Odile’s wrath myself was the moment Bernard mentions, at the funeral of Harold King, when I was responsible for introducing his unknown son to her. The younger King’s appearance out of the blue in the church of St Séverin was clearly a terrible shock to her and she exploded in anger. Why had she not been told?

The reason was simple: no one knew in advance. The day before the funeral a man telephoned Reuters headquarters saying he had read of the death of a journalist called Harold King and he thought he might be related. His own name? Harold King.

I called the man back and questioned him. He was a respectable Cambridge academic in his sixties. The voice sounded strangely familiar, not the accent but the tone. I found someone who confirmed that Harold King had indeed had a son of whom he never spoke, and gave me some questions to ask him. I was soon convinced that this man was in fact the son of our late colleague, estranged for obscure family reasons.

At the end of our telephone conversation, he asked me if there was still time to attend his father’s funeral. This was quite late on the night before the service in Paris. On the spur of the moment, I decided to help him catch an early morning flight from London and I met him outside the church. There was no time to warn Odile or anyone else. Her violent reaction as I introduced “young” Harold King took me by surprise.

Mr King sat at the back of the church during the service and came to the burial afterwards. He was clearly very moved to attend the funeral of the father he had never known and intrigued to find that “HK” had been such a celebrity in French political circles. Odile, on the contrary, remained most upset. Rather than try to join her and other mourners after the burial, I took Mr King off to lunch separately, before he was due to catch his plane back to London.

I chose to go to one of HK’s favourite haunts, La Brasserie Lipp, where I introduced the son to the maître d’hôtel. “Your father was a great man,” he said immediately, “and I would have been at his funeral today if I had not been on duty.” He treated us as honoured guests, recounting stories of the famous French politicians that HK had brought to his restaurant over the years.

Mr Harold King, junior, went back home and told me later that it had been the most extraordinary day of his life. Odile sulked for a while, but she soon relented and we re-established our old friendly relationship.

RIP Odile, one of the great Reuters characters. ■