David Nicholson
Clare McDermott
Friday 08 July 2011
I was really sad to learn of the death of Clare.
I was the Moscow bureau chief and the Moscow-end Olympic Games Reuter advance organiser in 1980 when he brought his team out, only to have a strike declared in London at the end of the first week which NUJ members were all supposed to join. As far as I remember, it was in support of the Guild in a dispute with management in New York. Although an NUJ member, Clare was given union dispensation as an executive to continue working, and he worked himself into the ground over the final week of the Games. Dave Nicholson and Ron Cooper, one or two others in the Olympics team, and the Moscow bureau staff were also all given the nod by the union to carry on.
Despite the pressures of trying to cover the Games with only about 10 people, I saw Clare only twice show a glimpse of his famous temper – the first when Soviet security guards made him take his belt off at the entrance to the Press Centre one morning. These were days long before this became a common occurrence at airports. The second was when a couple of Soviet journalists came round to the Reuter office asking why our strikers were aiding the British government’s campaign to undermine the Games – Margaret Thatcher had wanted the British Olympic Committee to boycott Moscow together with the US Committee and others over the invasion of Afghanistan the previous year. Clare, towering over them and glowering, gave the Soviet reporters short shrift. “Where’s your working class solidarity?” he demanded, not totally in jest.
“We don't take orders from any government.” The Soviet reporters retreated. But it didn’t stop them writing that Reuters reporters had succumbed to pressure from “the banks of the Thames” to stop writing about the Games.
In the event, despite the reduced team, I think we came out alright, largely because of Clare’s determination to make sure we did.
Bob Evans
vbnbnbn
I was the Moscow bureau chief and the Moscow-end Olympic Games Reuter advance organiser in 1980 when he brought his team out, only to have a strike declared in London at the end of the first week which NUJ members were all supposed to join. As far as I remember, it was in support of the Guild in a dispute with management in New York. Although an NUJ member, Clare was given union dispensation as an executive to continue working, and he worked himself into the ground over the final week of the Games. Dave Nicholson and Ron Cooper, one or two others in the Olympics team, and the Moscow bureau staff were also all given the nod by the union to carry on.
Despite the pressures of trying to cover the Games with only about 10 people, I saw Clare only twice show a glimpse of his famous temper – the first when Soviet security guards made him take his belt off at the entrance to the Press Centre one morning. These were days long before this became a common occurrence at airports. The second was when a couple of Soviet journalists came round to the Reuter office asking why our strikers were aiding the British government’s campaign to undermine the Games – Margaret Thatcher had wanted the British Olympic Committee to boycott Moscow together with the US Committee and others over the invasion of Afghanistan the previous year. Clare, towering over them and glowering, gave the Soviet reporters short shrift. “Where’s your working class solidarity?” he demanded, not totally in jest.
“We don't take orders from any government.” The Soviet reporters retreated. But it didn’t stop them writing that Reuters reporters had succumbed to pressure from “the banks of the Thames” to stop writing about the Games.
In the event, despite the reduced team, I think we came out alright, largely because of Clare’s determination to make sure we did.
Bob Evans
vbnbnbn
David Nicholson
Thursday 20 August 2009
I learned only today of David Nicholson's departure and feel bereft.
When I joined Reuters in 1982, I found him immensely helpful, patient, erudite and ... above all ... enormous fun to be with. RIP David.
Mike Duggan
When I joined Reuters in 1982, I found him immensely helpful, patient, erudite and ... above all ... enormous fun to be with. RIP David.
Mike Duggan
David Nicholson
Thursday 20 August 2009
News of Dave Nicholson’s passing quite knocked the stuffing out of me. Returning from holiday all unawares, I struggled to decipher an email from a former colleague referring to what had happened by initials only.
Something in me refused to associate death with Dave. Only a few weeks ago I sat in a huddle with him at a Reuter Society event, enjoying a glass of wine and his legendary humour and wisdom. We had discovered a shared interest in the politics of the Middle East and he gave me a spare copy of a seminal work on the subject (“1967” by Tom Segev). He’d had to buy a new one with larger print, he said.
I looked forward to his emails passing on an article he thought I should read or commenting on some incident of note.
It’s a matter of regret to me that I barely knew Dave when we were both in harness at Reuters. It was a delight to get to know him afterwards, thanks to the Short Lunch Club and Reuter Soc.
I’m very sorry to have missed the thanksgiving service and reception in his memory. My deepest sympathy to all his family and friends.
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
Something in me refused to associate death with Dave. Only a few weeks ago I sat in a huddle with him at a Reuter Society event, enjoying a glass of wine and his legendary humour and wisdom. We had discovered a shared interest in the politics of the Middle East and he gave me a spare copy of a seminal work on the subject (“1967” by Tom Segev). He’d had to buy a new one with larger print, he said.
I looked forward to his emails passing on an article he thought I should read or commenting on some incident of note.
It’s a matter of regret to me that I barely knew Dave when we were both in harness at Reuters. It was a delight to get to know him afterwards, thanks to the Short Lunch Club and Reuter Soc.
I’m very sorry to have missed the thanksgiving service and reception in his memory. My deepest sympathy to all his family and friends.
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
David Nicholson
Tuesday 11 August 2009
I was lucky enough to work with Dave at CP Halifax during 1965 and 66. He pulled many a joke on me, including asking me to pick up a package at the drugstore for him. Little did I know, he told them I was going on my first date and needed condoms but was too shy to ask! That was Dave, I can still hear him laughing.
We visited him in New York during 1968 and he told us how he'd been robbed in the elevator at his apartment building on the way home late one night. After the robbery and as the door opened on Dave's floor he turned to the robber waved and said goodnight.
I've been telling Nicholson stories all of my life.
You simply don't get better people than Dave Nicholson!
Ray Warner
Retired CP
We visited him in New York during 1968 and he told us how he'd been robbed in the elevator at his apartment building on the way home late one night. After the robbery and as the door opened on Dave's floor he turned to the robber waved and said goodnight.
I've been telling Nicholson stories all of my life.
You simply don't get better people than Dave Nicholson!
Ray Warner
Retired CP
David Nicholson
Monday 10 August 2009
Dave was the kindest, gentlest and smartest man I have had the pleasure to know. All intellectuals should aspire to his way of treating every (polite) person he encountered as an invaluable addition to his life, because he understood that he might learn something about at least one subject with which he was not yet familiar. His thirst for knowledge and understanding could not be quenched. In my first week as a copy boy for the Baron, when Patty Hearst was kidnapped and there was no prepared obit or Google to mine what was needed, I returned from the New York Public Library with an armful of background material to Dave's acclaim as a conquering hero. Arthur Spiegelman said something like, "Where did we find this kid?" and made me the office mascot. I fell in love with journalism that day.
John Pine
John Pine
David Nicholson
Saturday 08 August 2009
Being computer-illiterate and thus slow in joining The Baron’s roundup of tributes to the late Dave Nicholson, I can only assume that most of the many-sided Dave’s more obvious qualities have already been singled out for resounding salutes in the emails about him pouring in from Reuterians around the world. I have many vivid memories of this extraordinary character, not least in the musical sphere.
Dave’s fascination with jazz was well known and he himself played a mean piano as well as possessing a knowledge of the jazz genre worthy of a regular patrol of Ronnie Scott’s in London’s Soho. But he had a keen sense of the lowliest, non-jazz pop that hit the charts as he advanced through and beyond adolescence. Confessing his shortcomings in moments of retrospective conversation, he’d suddenly break into a tearful ballad like “I’m Sorry, So Sorry!” or, recalling the days when light-music radio helped pass lonely nights for young dreamers in wintry Halifax, Nova Scotia, he’d start up the sign-off song of his native city’s chief jukebox station vintage 1955, CJCH. Or, at the sight of myself (a radio geek even late in life) approaching him street or pub, he’d melodiously whistle the few bars of a Cold War station theme I’d once hummed to him, that of the CIA’s RIAS Berlin. A long-lost radiophonic curio!
Yet, gripped though he was by the jazz likes of Oscar Peterson (an imposing Canuck as he himself was), Nicholson was hugely versed in classical music. It was in that capacity, one night in the mid-1970s down at his family apartment in Crystal Palace, that he entertained me after a dinner lavished on us by diligent wife Marilyn (herself a church organist). Dave had a seldom-noticed passion for the clarinet and, on this occasion, he thought he had just the thing to serve as a rarefied but galvanizing nightcap to our feast. It was a piece I’d never heard of by a Danish modern master I knew vaguely from years before, Carl Nielsen. It was Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, which turned out to be a ghostly, haunting exploration of – so it seemed – a musical region eerily reaching just beyond the grave. The evening had turned into a kind of compelling seance, compliments of the spellbinding maestro Neilsen, on whose music (compliments of Dave Nicholson) I remain hooked to this day.
But in the Nielsen concerto, the clarinet-loving Dave could find a certain conjunction with the world of high-level swing, since a prominent performer of the great Dane’s composition happened to be the versatile Benny Goodman. And Nicholson’s clarinet enthusiasm drew him to other masters also – Mozart among them. And one day, after he’d driven me to a South London station for my train ride north, we sat in his car for a goodly time while he played a scintillating tape of a clarinet-and-orchestra masterpiece by Beethoven contemporary Carl Maria von Weber. I gladly missed the train.
Still, Nicholson relished the less lofty run of musical life. There he’d sit solo in, say, a Penge pub of Irish Republican orientation, puffing on his pipe and reading his Guardian, quietly savouring not only the House brew but also the offerings of its music box – notably “The Men Behind the Men Behind the Wire” and “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”. At leisure, as often at work, Dave was the steady centre of a roaring vortex.
Cy Fox
Dave’s fascination with jazz was well known and he himself played a mean piano as well as possessing a knowledge of the jazz genre worthy of a regular patrol of Ronnie Scott’s in London’s Soho. But he had a keen sense of the lowliest, non-jazz pop that hit the charts as he advanced through and beyond adolescence. Confessing his shortcomings in moments of retrospective conversation, he’d suddenly break into a tearful ballad like “I’m Sorry, So Sorry!” or, recalling the days when light-music radio helped pass lonely nights for young dreamers in wintry Halifax, Nova Scotia, he’d start up the sign-off song of his native city’s chief jukebox station vintage 1955, CJCH. Or, at the sight of myself (a radio geek even late in life) approaching him street or pub, he’d melodiously whistle the few bars of a Cold War station theme I’d once hummed to him, that of the CIA’s RIAS Berlin. A long-lost radiophonic curio!
Yet, gripped though he was by the jazz likes of Oscar Peterson (an imposing Canuck as he himself was), Nicholson was hugely versed in classical music. It was in that capacity, one night in the mid-1970s down at his family apartment in Crystal Palace, that he entertained me after a dinner lavished on us by diligent wife Marilyn (herself a church organist). Dave had a seldom-noticed passion for the clarinet and, on this occasion, he thought he had just the thing to serve as a rarefied but galvanizing nightcap to our feast. It was a piece I’d never heard of by a Danish modern master I knew vaguely from years before, Carl Nielsen. It was Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, which turned out to be a ghostly, haunting exploration of – so it seemed – a musical region eerily reaching just beyond the grave. The evening had turned into a kind of compelling seance, compliments of the spellbinding maestro Neilsen, on whose music (compliments of Dave Nicholson) I remain hooked to this day.
But in the Nielsen concerto, the clarinet-loving Dave could find a certain conjunction with the world of high-level swing, since a prominent performer of the great Dane’s composition happened to be the versatile Benny Goodman. And Nicholson’s clarinet enthusiasm drew him to other masters also – Mozart among them. And one day, after he’d driven me to a South London station for my train ride north, we sat in his car for a goodly time while he played a scintillating tape of a clarinet-and-orchestra masterpiece by Beethoven contemporary Carl Maria von Weber. I gladly missed the train.
Still, Nicholson relished the less lofty run of musical life. There he’d sit solo in, say, a Penge pub of Irish Republican orientation, puffing on his pipe and reading his Guardian, quietly savouring not only the House brew but also the offerings of its music box – notably “The Men Behind the Men Behind the Wire” and “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”. At leisure, as often at work, Dave was the steady centre of a roaring vortex.
Cy Fox
David Nicholson
Saturday 08 August 2009
The love and respect you felt for David, which you have all expressed so generously, is a great treasure to our family.
David always told young journalists, "Have fun!". And he did have fun! Thank you for being part of the fun.
Marilyn Nicholson
David always told young journalists, "Have fun!". And he did have fun! Thank you for being part of the fun.
Marilyn Nicholson
David Nicholson
Friday 07 August 2009
Last Sunday at a festive family gathering, I checked my e-mail and read the news from Dave Betts (thanks Dave). I turned to a window to hide my tears. It has taken me nearly a week to be able to sit down and address the loss of this wonderful man.
Dave and I go back to days at 30 Rock (home then of the AP and CP) and have shared many an hour at Ronnie’s in London and Maggie’s back in NY listening to jazz, about which he knew so much more than I, despite my unusually early introduction to it at age 8.
We met up at least twice a year in recent times, a renewed contact after a long hiatus that I always looked forward to on visits to London. He no longer shared a jar, but would take a glass of Chablis and the talk would tumble on until it was time to part – there was no topic turned from. Dave would always startle and delight with his enormous breadth of knowledge, hunger for more and blazing wit. Being from New York, I was continually embarrassed in these chats when Dave would ask for more detail on events I knew little about, from the newest recruit for a Yankees’ rival team to that economic story on page 32 of today’s Washington Post.
I always walked away feeling privileged, especially since he would take the train in, not without effort, just to meet up for awhile. A big man with a big heart and a bigger legacy we can all be thankful for. Rest easily, my friend.
Mike Reilly
Dave and I go back to days at 30 Rock (home then of the AP and CP) and have shared many an hour at Ronnie’s in London and Maggie’s back in NY listening to jazz, about which he knew so much more than I, despite my unusually early introduction to it at age 8.
We met up at least twice a year in recent times, a renewed contact after a long hiatus that I always looked forward to on visits to London. He no longer shared a jar, but would take a glass of Chablis and the talk would tumble on until it was time to part – there was no topic turned from. Dave would always startle and delight with his enormous breadth of knowledge, hunger for more and blazing wit. Being from New York, I was continually embarrassed in these chats when Dave would ask for more detail on events I knew little about, from the newest recruit for a Yankees’ rival team to that economic story on page 32 of today’s Washington Post.
I always walked away feeling privileged, especially since he would take the train in, not without effort, just to meet up for awhile. A big man with a big heart and a bigger legacy we can all be thankful for. Rest easily, my friend.
Mike Reilly
David Nicholson
Thursday 06 August 2009
As everyone has noted, Dave was an exemplary editor, a wonderful mentor, a charming gentleman and one heck of a drinking buddy. And while I have countless Dave Nicholson memories, there is one in particular I would like to share because I think it speaks to Dave's secret ingredient – his delightful sense of humour.
Dave and I were at the Moscow Airport, having just wrapped up coverage of a Reagan-Gorbachev Cold War summit. As we were eyeing various souvenirs to take home to our families, an impatient American woman shoved past Dave and up to the counter. As many of you know, Dave was not a slight fellow, so you can imagine the girth on the female Yank and what it must have taken for her to move our Canadian mountain out of the way.
In 15 years of knowing him, I had never heard Dave utter anything but the gentlest and most polite of phrases. And so he did here:
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said respectfully. "Are you in a hurry?"
"Why yes I am," chirped the obese American woman.
"Well," said Dave nicely, and then turning into a roar "So am I!!!"
And with that, he threw an elbow into the startled woman's solar plexus and sent her stumbling back into the masses.
One of the funniest things I ever saw.
God Bless You, Dave.
My heart aches.
Andrew Nibley
Dave and I were at the Moscow Airport, having just wrapped up coverage of a Reagan-Gorbachev Cold War summit. As we were eyeing various souvenirs to take home to our families, an impatient American woman shoved past Dave and up to the counter. As many of you know, Dave was not a slight fellow, so you can imagine the girth on the female Yank and what it must have taken for her to move our Canadian mountain out of the way.
In 15 years of knowing him, I had never heard Dave utter anything but the gentlest and most polite of phrases. And so he did here:
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said respectfully. "Are you in a hurry?"
"Why yes I am," chirped the obese American woman.
"Well," said Dave nicely, and then turning into a roar "So am I!!!"
And with that, he threw an elbow into the startled woman's solar plexus and sent her stumbling back into the masses.
One of the funniest things I ever saw.
God Bless You, Dave.
My heart aches.
Andrew Nibley
David Nicholson
Thursday 06 August 2009
Dave will be sadly missed. For generations of trainees like me, Dave was a guiding light in Reuters – highly respected, yet accessible, generous and funny. What struck me most when I first got to know him in 1983 was that even after decades in journalism, even in his exalted position as one of the five horsemen on the World Desk in London, he was wildly enthusiastic about his job, journalism and Reuters. To the day of his retirement, he never lost that. He never became jaded about his work, and years later I would still go to him when I needed "company faith". He always had it – marvelling at being able to do this job at Reuters.
From the time George Short unleashed him on our lot of trainees – we were the first group to have the benefit of his involvement – he became an ally, a mentor and a friend. He was fantastic company and was an erudite man with a love of music. He generously took a couple of us a few times to Ronnie Scott's, the famous jazz place in Soho, where I discovered the likes of Nina Simone and other jazz greats.
He gave us invaluable journalistic and career advice, and would regale us in the pub with funny stories. One, when recounted by George, told of Dave falling into the Thames late at night, no doubt after a few pints. When Dave told the story, it was George falling. To this day, I am not sure who it was that fell but it was a brilliant story.
One of the funniest stories Dave told me was that one morning, when he was due to be in charge on the desk, he woke up a couple of minutes late and by the time he turned on the BBC World Service, he had missed the first item. The second item was the spilling of Khomeini's corpse during his funeral. Horrified that something even more important than that had happened, he leapt out of bed, got dressed, ran into the bathroom, grabbed a wet facecloth to clean his face. As he was rubbing it all over his bushy beard, he realized the cat had peed on it. He said he then lost a few minutes looking for the cat to kill it. Having failed to find the cat, he dashed to work, where he found out the top new item: Tiananmen Square.
Dave was a humble, warm-hearted and funny man as well as a consummate professional. He has my enduring respect and friendship. In recent years, we had lost touch a bit but the world felt a better and safer place for me, knowing that Dave was in it. When George Short died, it was on his shoulder that I cried. To me, Dave and George epitomized Reuters with all its rich history and strong values. They will both be forever in my heart. My deepest sympathies to Marilyn, Sarah and Alec.
Sandra Maler
From the time George Short unleashed him on our lot of trainees – we were the first group to have the benefit of his involvement – he became an ally, a mentor and a friend. He was fantastic company and was an erudite man with a love of music. He generously took a couple of us a few times to Ronnie Scott's, the famous jazz place in Soho, where I discovered the likes of Nina Simone and other jazz greats.
He gave us invaluable journalistic and career advice, and would regale us in the pub with funny stories. One, when recounted by George, told of Dave falling into the Thames late at night, no doubt after a few pints. When Dave told the story, it was George falling. To this day, I am not sure who it was that fell but it was a brilliant story.
One of the funniest stories Dave told me was that one morning, when he was due to be in charge on the desk, he woke up a couple of minutes late and by the time he turned on the BBC World Service, he had missed the first item. The second item was the spilling of Khomeini's corpse during his funeral. Horrified that something even more important than that had happened, he leapt out of bed, got dressed, ran into the bathroom, grabbed a wet facecloth to clean his face. As he was rubbing it all over his bushy beard, he realized the cat had peed on it. He said he then lost a few minutes looking for the cat to kill it. Having failed to find the cat, he dashed to work, where he found out the top new item: Tiananmen Square.
Dave was a humble, warm-hearted and funny man as well as a consummate professional. He has my enduring respect and friendship. In recent years, we had lost touch a bit but the world felt a better and safer place for me, knowing that Dave was in it. When George Short died, it was on his shoulder that I cried. To me, Dave and George epitomized Reuters with all its rich history and strong values. They will both be forever in my heart. My deepest sympathies to Marilyn, Sarah and Alec.
Sandra Maler
David Nicholson
Wednesday 05 August 2009
Dave brought fun and kindness to the Desk each day and shared it generously. I recall with great fondness our handover chats when I was a day editor to his night editor. He invariably seemed to have an instant grasp of a file I’d struggled to contain all day. And, as others have so eloquently said, he provided far more than journalistic guidance and superlative subbing to correspondents in the field. He could lift your spirits and calm you down. I certainly won’t forget that. Thanks Dave.
Martin Nesirky
Martin Nesirky
David Nicholson
Wednesday 05 August 2009
Dave Nicholson was one of the true original dinosaurs who taught so many of us how to do it right on the old World Desk at 85 Fleet Street. He made those long night shifts a lot less scary with his impressive imitation of a Mets radio announcer – a welcome bit of Americana for a young expat in London. The occasional friendly pint at the Punch never hurt, either. I managed to get one down for his every three, I think.
Maggie Fox
Maggie Fox
David Nicholson
Tuesday 04 August 2009
I have fond memories of talking on the phone to David in the evening from various places in Europe where I was covering stories. Some editors on the World Desk were tense and curt to the point of being impolite when taking a call from me on a story that needed further discussion. Not so David. He was calm and, apart from tackling whatever the problem might have been, was ready to share a joke. I only joined Reuters in early 1989, in Bonn, West Germany, from UPI so I did not know David that long. But I particularly remember one late night in a hotel room in Tirana in the spring of 1999 when NATO had started bombing Belgrade. I could hear the bomb planes flying high in the sky and there seemed to be more of them on this particular night. It was around midnight and I phoned the World Desk to let people on the desk know this observation of mine; it wasn’t worth a story on its own. I got David on the line and told him. I also happened to have a moment of melancholy and loneliness, away from family in an odd place, which foreign correspondents sometimes experience. David lent a sympathetic ear to my troubles in his trademark avuncular, jovial way and I went to sleep afterwards feeling better.
Rolf Soderlind
Rolf Soderlind
David Nicholson
Tuesday 04 August 2009
Dave was one of my oldest friends, going back some 50 years to student and journalistic days in Nova Scotia, where he started his distinguished career in journalism as a copy boy with Canada's national news agency, The Canadian Press (CP). Following university, we met up again in Toronto with CP, Dave writing and editing radio copy for the agency's Broadcast News division while I worked on the general news rewrite and filing desks. Another old hand from those days is David Betts.
Our ways parted for a few years after I ended up in London with Reuters. The first I knew he had signed on with the Baron was in a phone call to the New York desk from the island of Saipan in the central Pacific. I was in Saipan covering an independence referendum from U.S. post-war rule in 1975 and the only way to file was by phone to the U.S. Dave took the call in New York and greeted me with his usual exuberance. "That's the second exotic call in five minutes," he exclaimed and explained he had recently joined Reuters at the behest of George Short – one of George's best recruitments. Dave said the other unexpected call had been from the CIA. "They said their Reuters machine had broken down and could we rerun the stories they had missed." Dave, something of an anarchist at heart, was still bemused by the CIA call.
Dave's skills as a writer, sub and editor became legendary during his years at Reuters. Correspondents loved him for the respect with which he treated their copy, and he was one of the best editors one could have wished for: unflappable, humorous, meticulous, tireless and a fount of knowledge from his wide interests and reading. He was a great journalist.
His death came as a special shock because he had phoned me only two nights earlier – just to keep in touch. He had suffered from health problems for some time, but he always made light of them. That night he was his usual cheerful self and we both looked forward to hoisting a pint or three in Edinburgh, Glasgow or London. He was a great friend and colleague and our hearts go out to his wife Marilyn and their family.
Ian MacKenzie
Our ways parted for a few years after I ended up in London with Reuters. The first I knew he had signed on with the Baron was in a phone call to the New York desk from the island of Saipan in the central Pacific. I was in Saipan covering an independence referendum from U.S. post-war rule in 1975 and the only way to file was by phone to the U.S. Dave took the call in New York and greeted me with his usual exuberance. "That's the second exotic call in five minutes," he exclaimed and explained he had recently joined Reuters at the behest of George Short – one of George's best recruitments. Dave said the other unexpected call had been from the CIA. "They said their Reuters machine had broken down and could we rerun the stories they had missed." Dave, something of an anarchist at heart, was still bemused by the CIA call.
Dave's skills as a writer, sub and editor became legendary during his years at Reuters. Correspondents loved him for the respect with which he treated their copy, and he was one of the best editors one could have wished for: unflappable, humorous, meticulous, tireless and a fount of knowledge from his wide interests and reading. He was a great journalist.
His death came as a special shock because he had phoned me only two nights earlier – just to keep in touch. He had suffered from health problems for some time, but he always made light of them. That night he was his usual cheerful self and we both looked forward to hoisting a pint or three in Edinburgh, Glasgow or London. He was a great friend and colleague and our hearts go out to his wife Marilyn and their family.
Ian MacKenzie
David Nicholson
Tuesday 04 August 2009
Sadly, we're becoming all too familiar with the dreaded phone call informing us that another good friend has died. But because I had enjoyed a very extended "lunch" with Dave Nic and Bill Saltmarsh less than a week ago, it came as an even greater shock than normal to get that call.
Dave had been on sparkling form in the pub, hopping from one topic to another with his usual verve, toying with words as only the truly articulate can do. Oddly, it occurred to me during that last session that Dave had handled his increasing health problems with tremendous courage. Spinal degeneration had bent his neck double so he was forced to slump almost horizontally in order to meet you eye to eye. When we worked together, Dave regarded me as the desk's in-house physician (I don't know why) and would often book a consultation for an upcoming pub break. It was during one of those meetings that he told me he had been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis and I rushed home to check my medical tomes. It was not good news, particularly for a large chap who once held the round-the-desk sprint record for many years at 85, Fleet Street. But for the last 20 years, he never ever whinged. Not once.
Paul Smurthwaite
Dave had been on sparkling form in the pub, hopping from one topic to another with his usual verve, toying with words as only the truly articulate can do. Oddly, it occurred to me during that last session that Dave had handled his increasing health problems with tremendous courage. Spinal degeneration had bent his neck double so he was forced to slump almost horizontally in order to meet you eye to eye. When we worked together, Dave regarded me as the desk's in-house physician (I don't know why) and would often book a consultation for an upcoming pub break. It was during one of those meetings that he told me he had been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis and I rushed home to check my medical tomes. It was not good news, particularly for a large chap who once held the round-the-desk sprint record for many years at 85, Fleet Street. But for the last 20 years, he never ever whinged. Not once.
Paul Smurthwaite
David Nicholson
Tuesday 04 August 2009
Dave was amazingly conscientious, and World Desk worries haunted him for years after his farewell drinks. He wrote in one email:
"I was most interested to hear about your Reuter nightmares: you might be comforted to know that mine (which usually dealt with crises developing when 1. I can't remember how to work the computers or the codes I need to send a story or 2. I'm alone on a desk after something terrible has happened and I don't know how to handle the flood of copy) have almost disappeared after nearly six years in retirement. I used to get these at least twice a week and would awake in a sense of terrible dread."
As night editor, his work wasn't really over at the end of the shift. Many of us benefited from his after-hours pastoral care. I'll always remember a session at Maggie's Tin Pan Alley in New York that ended shortly before dawn with Kevin Cooney sound asleep, his head resting on Dave's right shoulder. The silence at the bar was broken only when Dave murmured: "Poor Kev."
We have lost a dear friend, and I hope he would not mind my sharing his memory of a happier August day in Halifax, Nova Scotia:
"I recall visiting my parents shortly after my daughter's birth in 1970; my father and I sat outside on the lawn behind our house at Pine Hill on Francklyn Street overlooking the North West Arm on a balmy August afternoon. To this day I think of my father picking up a glass of chilled Chablis, staring into the distance and murmuring: 'Tough old life.' These words floated across my mind as I read of you sampling the champagnes in the Oyster Bar."
Graham Colville
"I was most interested to hear about your Reuter nightmares: you might be comforted to know that mine (which usually dealt with crises developing when 1. I can't remember how to work the computers or the codes I need to send a story or 2. I'm alone on a desk after something terrible has happened and I don't know how to handle the flood of copy) have almost disappeared after nearly six years in retirement. I used to get these at least twice a week and would awake in a sense of terrible dread."
As night editor, his work wasn't really over at the end of the shift. Many of us benefited from his after-hours pastoral care. I'll always remember a session at Maggie's Tin Pan Alley in New York that ended shortly before dawn with Kevin Cooney sound asleep, his head resting on Dave's right shoulder. The silence at the bar was broken only when Dave murmured: "Poor Kev."
We have lost a dear friend, and I hope he would not mind my sharing his memory of a happier August day in Halifax, Nova Scotia:
"I recall visiting my parents shortly after my daughter's birth in 1970; my father and I sat outside on the lawn behind our house at Pine Hill on Francklyn Street overlooking the North West Arm on a balmy August afternoon. To this day I think of my father picking up a glass of chilled Chablis, staring into the distance and murmuring: 'Tough old life.' These words floated across my mind as I read of you sampling the champagnes in the Oyster Bar."
Graham Colville
David Nicholson
Tuesday 04 August 2009
A word should be added on one of Dave's most striking characteristics: he was one of the Desk's most naturally amusing men. He was rarely without a wry, original, funny comment on matters of mutual interest, including jazz, Canada and other Rtr people. A great loss.
John Rogers
John Rogers
David Nicholson
Monday 03 August 2009
Dave Nicholson was the gentle giant of the World Desk. He was a delight to work with and a great source of knowledge about so many things – all invaluable attributes of the ideal Chief Sub.
I was scanning the Baronial website the other day and came across an old article about Mrs Moon's and George Short (or maybe that's in reverse order). Dave immediately came to mind.
Came 8pm on the World Desk night shift and the desk "heavies" took their "meal" break in Mrs Moon's (which was hardly known for its food).
There, ranged down from the top end of the bar next to the stairs – steps many outsiders failed to complete on receipt of Mrs Moon's traditional cry of "You're barred!" – regularly stood Jack Hartzman, Ron Thomson, Cy Fox, Dave Betts, Ron Sly, "Big Dave" Mathew and other kings of the night including, of course, Dave Nicholson.
Where Jack always had his Scotch, Dave had his pints – quite often two at a time. His imposing frame had an imposing capacity for the ale. The pints flowed smoothly down, with nary a swallow, to no apparent effect other than to add fuel to the warmth of Dave's signature laugh. So much enjoyment was obtained, and so much knowledge and experiences shared, on those night desk breaks that – just occasionally – they may have extended beyond their allotted hour...
Cheers, Dave!
Rodney Pinder
I was scanning the Baronial website the other day and came across an old article about Mrs Moon's and George Short (or maybe that's in reverse order). Dave immediately came to mind.
Came 8pm on the World Desk night shift and the desk "heavies" took their "meal" break in Mrs Moon's (which was hardly known for its food).
There, ranged down from the top end of the bar next to the stairs – steps many outsiders failed to complete on receipt of Mrs Moon's traditional cry of "You're barred!" – regularly stood Jack Hartzman, Ron Thomson, Cy Fox, Dave Betts, Ron Sly, "Big Dave" Mathew and other kings of the night including, of course, Dave Nicholson.
Where Jack always had his Scotch, Dave had his pints – quite often two at a time. His imposing frame had an imposing capacity for the ale. The pints flowed smoothly down, with nary a swallow, to no apparent effect other than to add fuel to the warmth of Dave's signature laugh. So much enjoyment was obtained, and so much knowledge and experiences shared, on those night desk breaks that – just occasionally – they may have extended beyond their allotted hour...
Cheers, Dave!
Rodney Pinder
David Nicholson
Monday 03 August 2009
Dave had the knack of being able to keep us correspondents feeling like the real experts on our countries we always thought we were while at the same time gently hinting that there might be a slightly different line on a story than the one we were following. I am sure colleagues in other places had similar experiences but in Moscow I was always amazed by the depth and breadth of his knowledge of things Soviet, though at that time he had never been to the country. Until the last few weeks he kept me on my Kremlinological toes, forwarding comments on Putinisation from a variety of publications for my perusal and reaction. I last saw him at the Reuter Society meeting in June when he greeted me with: "What d'you think Obama's going to get out of the Russians?" I wish I'd had more time to talk to him. But then don't we all wish we'd spent more time with wise and kind people like Dave when it's too late.
Bob Evans
Bob Evans
David Nicholson
Monday 03 August 2009
Dave was one of those people who had what Denis Healey called “a hinterland” – a broad knowledge of things other than the immediately professional.
Just one of many instances: I knew that Dave had a deep appreciation of jazz. But I didn’t know that he played. I was astonished, in the small hours of one morning when he and I were the last members left in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, to hear him sit down at the piano and make the most beautiful music.
Bill Saltmarsh
Just one of many instances: I knew that Dave had a deep appreciation of jazz. But I didn’t know that he played. I was astonished, in the small hours of one morning when he and I were the last members left in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, to hear him sit down at the piano and make the most beautiful music.
Bill Saltmarsh
David Nicholson
Monday 03 August 2009
Dave "Big Dave" Nicholson was a giant in stature and a Giant Rock of calmness and stability in the turbulence of our news.
Waves of cock ups and screw ups might sweep towards him during his decades as World Desk editor but Dave never lost his gentleness and belief in his correspondents. No point scoring or finger pointing for Dave. Just work out a way to get the story right and out and then have a laugh and move on to the next crisis.
Dave also had an uncanny skill to know when to add another hour or two to your fervently promised delivery time of a nightlead or daylead.
Maybe he could tell by the sound of your voice!!!
We won't see his like again – a great great pro and true decent Gentleman.
Digger (Brian Williams)
Waves of cock ups and screw ups might sweep towards him during his decades as World Desk editor but Dave never lost his gentleness and belief in his correspondents. No point scoring or finger pointing for Dave. Just work out a way to get the story right and out and then have a laugh and move on to the next crisis.
Dave also had an uncanny skill to know when to add another hour or two to your fervently promised delivery time of a nightlead or daylead.
Maybe he could tell by the sound of your voice!!!
We won't see his like again – a great great pro and true decent Gentleman.
Digger (Brian Williams)
David Nicholson
Monday 03 August 2009
Dave Nicholson and I shared a love of jazz and would compare notes about favourite musicians, favourite tunes. We both liked bebop, especially its finest exponent, Charlie Parker. Dave was also an avid reader of The New Yorker (he was reading it just hours before he died) and one piece he shared with me more than a year ago neatly combined both interests. It was titled Bird-watcher; you can read it here:
● http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/19/080519fa_fact_remnick
Dave was a founder member of the ● Short Lunch Club which commemorates George Short, who was responsible for his joining Reuters when they met in New York in 1973. After a particularly protracted session of the Club in the Crown & Sugar Loaf last year, Dave wrote: “I’m just slowly emerging from the recovery ward after consuming about 5.98 hectolitres of the old vin blanc on Thursday. To borrow a phrase from PG Wodehouse, I was awakened the next morning by the roar of butterfly wings outside my bedroom window.”
Dave would also share other stuff he found on the web – most recently a tirade by Katie Couric on the Huffington Post blog about all the errors in The New York Times' appraisal of the late Walter Cronkite.
Dave was a loyal supporter of The Baron: he would send me tips about stuff of interest “in case you unsaw”. And when I put a “Donate” button on the Home page earlier this year, Dave was first to send money to support this website. “I dropped a dime (so to speak) and sent The Baron a quarter via PayPal,” he wrote. It was a good deal more than 25 cents.
Great editor, great man, great friend.
Barry May
● http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/19/080519fa_fact_remnick
Dave was a founder member of the ● Short Lunch Club which commemorates George Short, who was responsible for his joining Reuters when they met in New York in 1973. After a particularly protracted session of the Club in the Crown & Sugar Loaf last year, Dave wrote: “I’m just slowly emerging from the recovery ward after consuming about 5.98 hectolitres of the old vin blanc on Thursday. To borrow a phrase from PG Wodehouse, I was awakened the next morning by the roar of butterfly wings outside my bedroom window.”
Dave would also share other stuff he found on the web – most recently a tirade by Katie Couric on the Huffington Post blog about all the errors in The New York Times' appraisal of the late Walter Cronkite.
Dave was a loyal supporter of The Baron: he would send me tips about stuff of interest “in case you unsaw”. And when I put a “Donate” button on the Home page earlier this year, Dave was first to send money to support this website. “I dropped a dime (so to speak) and sent The Baron a quarter via PayPal,” he wrote. It was a good deal more than 25 cents.
Great editor, great man, great friend.
Barry May
Arthur Spiegelman
Monday 22 December 2008
Arthur was such a towering presence that it’s hard to remember what it felt like not to know him. For me, the Before Arthur era ended when Dave Nicholson introduced us in the New York newsroom in the fall of 1974, calling him simply “our best writer”. No one argued with that, and I could see why as I watched him playfully knock out a story on The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s blockbuster biography of Robert Moses – “a book as long as the Bible about a man named Moses”, as Art described it.
Thanks to his contacts with the Old Left I met the Rosenberg sons, Alger Hiss and – in death – Paul Robeson, whose wake Arthur and I attended in Harlem. The budget bean-counters of today would doubtless be appalled by the decision to double-staff (or even single-staff) such an event, but at that time our managers were either approving or oblivious ... in Mulligan’s or the Cordial Bar.
Arthur, like his office (“smoking room”) door, was always open – to breaking news, to the newcomers he welcomed and nurtured, to story ideas, even to new computer systems or style rules. Another titan of Reuters, his friend Ian Macdowall, once quoted the Roman writer Terence: “I am a man: nothing human is alien to me.” It was equally true of Arthur, and we loved him for it.
Graham Colville
Thanks to his contacts with the Old Left I met the Rosenberg sons, Alger Hiss and – in death – Paul Robeson, whose wake Arthur and I attended in Harlem. The budget bean-counters of today would doubtless be appalled by the decision to double-staff (or even single-staff) such an event, but at that time our managers were either approving or oblivious ... in Mulligan’s or the Cordial Bar.
Arthur, like his office (“smoking room”) door, was always open – to breaking news, to the newcomers he welcomed and nurtured, to story ideas, even to new computer systems or style rules. Another titan of Reuters, his friend Ian Macdowall, once quoted the Roman writer Terence: “I am a man: nothing human is alien to me.” It was equally true of Arthur, and we loved him for it.
Graham Colville
David Mathew
Monday 22 September 2008
I was lucky enough to work beside Dave on the World Desk for quite a few years. His tenacious drive not only for accuracy but also for the highest standards in agency journalism was matched only by his great generosity of heart and a high sense of humour. He was tough with equals but was always helpful with younger subs still learning the ropes. His is a terrible loss.
Dave Nicholson
Dave Nicholson
