Ian MacKenzie
Murray Sayle, hero of his own story
Monday 20 September 2010
Murray Sayle, who died aged 84 in his native Australia on Saturday, never worked for Reuters but he was well known in many of our bureaux where he filed his copy as a Special Traffic client.
One of the outstanding reporters of the post-war era, his heyday was when he wrote for The Sunday Times under the great Harold Evans where, as The Times noted in its obituary, he recreated the 19th century art of the journalist as hero of his own story. He climbed Everest, sailed single-handed across the Atlantic, hired a plane to find missing yachtsman Francis Chichester in a storm off Cape Horn and located Che Guevara in the South American jungle. In Japan, where he lived for 30 years, his 20,000-word account of the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima was given an entire issue of The New Yorker.
His expenses were legendary. After buying some cord to tie up a yacht, he put in a claim marked "Money for old rope".
I was in the Saigon office at the outset of the Everest saga. Murray had walked in and asked if there were any messages for him. There was one. He read through it with some slight amazement. The service message, so far as I recall, was terse and to the point: prosayle exgiles (the sunday times) proceed immediately yak and yeti kathmandu and up everest. Murray was on the next flight out of Saigon heading up Everest. He was not a member of the actual climbing team, but I believe he holds the record of being the journalist who got the highest up the mountain on assignment.
There is also the story of a visit by Murray, accompanied by the great photographer Don McCullin, on an assignment to Papua New Guinea. New interesting faces were not that frequent in Port Moresby at the time, and they were promptly invited to a party that evening. A woman approached Murray and started chatting to him. Finally Murray told her: "Madam, you seem to know an awful lot about me, but who are you?" "But Murray," she exclaimed, "I was your first wife." The story was true, he told me.
Ian MacKenzie
One of the outstanding reporters of the post-war era, his heyday was when he wrote for The Sunday Times under the great Harold Evans where, as The Times noted in its obituary, he recreated the 19th century art of the journalist as hero of his own story. He climbed Everest, sailed single-handed across the Atlantic, hired a plane to find missing yachtsman Francis Chichester in a storm off Cape Horn and located Che Guevara in the South American jungle. In Japan, where he lived for 30 years, his 20,000-word account of the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima was given an entire issue of The New Yorker.
His expenses were legendary. After buying some cord to tie up a yacht, he put in a claim marked "Money for old rope".
I was in the Saigon office at the outset of the Everest saga. Murray had walked in and asked if there were any messages for him. There was one. He read through it with some slight amazement. The service message, so far as I recall, was terse and to the point: prosayle exgiles (the sunday times) proceed immediately yak and yeti kathmandu and up everest. Murray was on the next flight out of Saigon heading up Everest. He was not a member of the actual climbing team, but I believe he holds the record of being the journalist who got the highest up the mountain on assignment.
There is also the story of a visit by Murray, accompanied by the great photographer Don McCullin, on an assignment to Papua New Guinea. New interesting faces were not that frequent in Port Moresby at the time, and they were promptly invited to a party that evening. A woman approached Murray and started chatting to him. Finally Murray told her: "Madam, you seem to know an awful lot about me, but who are you?" "But Murray," she exclaimed, "I was your first wife." The story was true, he told me.
Ian MacKenzie
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
Brian Horton
Monday 27 July 2009
For many years I have had a soft spot for Brian Horton, going back to late 1970 when I was in a serious car crash in Singapore and ended up for several months in hospital. Reuters flew my mother out to Singapore from Canada as there was some danger that I might end up prematurely in the Great Newsroom in the Sky. Brian himself would send me hand-written and cheerful letters at intervals, passing on tidbits of Reuters gossip, and also providing on-the-ground reports of events in Vietnam where I had been posted. His brother was a military doctor serving in central Vietnam at the time, and Brian would relay his impressions on events there. He also posted me to Japan following my convalescence where I was lucky enough to meet my wife.
Ian MacKenzie
Ian MacKenzie
