Patrick Massey
Patrick Massey
Friday 01 May 2009
I would like to thank all who contributed to The Baron website their wonderful memories and tributes to Pat. It meant so much to me and our son and daughter, Bryan and Shauna, and was a great comfort. The descriptions of his smile, lope and humour really brought him to life. For me it was a reminder of just how much he had done, and for our children a realisation of what he had achieved.
We were very moved – and I think Pat would have been amazed – by the way so many of his friends held him in such high regard, for his talent, generosity in giving help, and always, of course, his humour and fund of good stories.
The last few years had not been kind to Pat, so it was good to remember him at his best.
We also had many letters – and so many from people who looked on him as a mentor, as well as a friend. We shall keep all the tributes and letters for the grandchildren, so in the future they can discover what kind of a man their grandfather had been.
Helen Massey
We were very moved – and I think Pat would have been amazed – by the way so many of his friends held him in such high regard, for his talent, generosity in giving help, and always, of course, his humour and fund of good stories.
The last few years had not been kind to Pat, so it was good to remember him at his best.
We also had many letters – and so many from people who looked on him as a mentor, as well as a friend. We shall keep all the tributes and letters for the grandchildren, so in the future they can discover what kind of a man their grandfather had been.
Helen Massey
Patrick Massey
Saturday 21 March 2009
I valued Pat hugely as a friend and colleague – he was the best intro-writer I ever encountered at Reuters, and I learned a lot from him during the old London Bureau days in the late ‘sixties, not long after he came over from the AP.
I had managed to snaffle Pat from World Desk. We then took to holding London Bureau auditions in the Hoop and Grapes, with landlord Ted looking on benignly. Sung fervently enough, "The Mountains of Mourne" could secure a person a coveted place in the bureau (assuming a modicum of talent as well). Pat was a magnet for talent, and we soon had what some people rated the classiest bureau in all of Reuters. Not only Pat but also Rick Norsworthy, Art Spiegelman and a bevy of other top reporters and deskmen. Heady days. The competition with AP was head-on, and we usually won.
As happens at Reuters, our paths split, we all went our different ways and sadly I never worked closely with Pat after that. But it was always a joy to catch up with him when we coincided in London – maybe at the City Golf Club by the crypt of St Bride's (no golf interest at all, it was just a trick to get a booze licence) or the Punch.
Some small details stick in the mind: I remember Pat not only had a loping gait as some have noted here but, as the night progressed, a backwards tilt. This was especially notable when he and his old drinking chum, a UPI Japanese reporter called Aki, were out together at one of those late-late haunts like the Working Men's Newspaper Club and Institute, a printer's dive fondly known as the Chew and Spew. With Aki, the more he drank the more he leaned forward from the waist. In the wee small hours you might find Pat and Aki standing at the bar – Aki by this time bent almost double and Pat rocking back on his heels at an angle of 45 degrees, too far apart to converse.
Pat will be missed by a great many people – the tributes here show the fond respect in which he was so widely held. He was a star in an era when quality really mattered.
Peter Mosley
I had managed to snaffle Pat from World Desk. We then took to holding London Bureau auditions in the Hoop and Grapes, with landlord Ted looking on benignly. Sung fervently enough, "The Mountains of Mourne" could secure a person a coveted place in the bureau (assuming a modicum of talent as well). Pat was a magnet for talent, and we soon had what some people rated the classiest bureau in all of Reuters. Not only Pat but also Rick Norsworthy, Art Spiegelman and a bevy of other top reporters and deskmen. Heady days. The competition with AP was head-on, and we usually won.
As happens at Reuters, our paths split, we all went our different ways and sadly I never worked closely with Pat after that. But it was always a joy to catch up with him when we coincided in London – maybe at the City Golf Club by the crypt of St Bride's (no golf interest at all, it was just a trick to get a booze licence) or the Punch.
Some small details stick in the mind: I remember Pat not only had a loping gait as some have noted here but, as the night progressed, a backwards tilt. This was especially notable when he and his old drinking chum, a UPI Japanese reporter called Aki, were out together at one of those late-late haunts like the Working Men's Newspaper Club and Institute, a printer's dive fondly known as the Chew and Spew. With Aki, the more he drank the more he leaned forward from the waist. In the wee small hours you might find Pat and Aki standing at the bar – Aki by this time bent almost double and Pat rocking back on his heels at an angle of 45 degrees, too far apart to converse.
Pat will be missed by a great many people – the tributes here show the fond respect in which he was so widely held. He was a star in an era when quality really mattered.
Peter Mosley
Patrick Massey
Thursday 19 March 2009
As well as being inspirational, it was also such fun working with Pat. I helped cover a London Commonwealth Conference in the 1970s with Pat and Ron Thomson in charge and it provided almost as many laughs as leads. In between news editing and writing the wraps they enlivened things with a series of japes.
The favourite, certainly the most dramatic, involved phoning the extension in the elevator as it approached the press centre floor and shouting to the startled journalist who answered: "This is the engineer, the cables are parting, get out quick."
Pat and Ron would then stroll, pints of lager in hand, to the corridor to view the ensuing panicked exit from the lift.
Mike Hughes
The favourite, certainly the most dramatic, involved phoning the extension in the elevator as it approached the press centre floor and shouting to the startled journalist who answered: "This is the engineer, the cables are parting, get out quick."
Pat and Ron would then stroll, pints of lager in hand, to the corridor to view the ensuing panicked exit from the lift.
Mike Hughes
Patrick Massey
Thursday 19 March 2009
Many of Pat's reports stick in my memory but the most vivid came during the Six-Day War. Quoting from my recollection, his unforgettable eyewitnesser began: Boots, boots, boots. Boots littering the desert sand, discarded by soldiers to speed their flight from advancing Israelis, were the only sign of the Egyptian Army in Sinai...
Many of Pat's stories made me mutter "I would like to have written that" but it is only "boots" that pop up regularly.
Jim Forrester
Many of Pat's stories made me mutter "I would like to have written that" but it is only "boots" that pop up regularly.
Jim Forrester
Patrick Massey
Wednesday 18 March 2009
My first day in London (1971). Around 1:00 pm, Pat tells me: "C'mon, Bernie, let's go to lunch."
We knew each other pretty well since he had literally taught me all the basics during a period of several months in 1969 when he temporarily took over the Tel Aviv bureau where I was a locally recruited junior reporter.
We went down to Mrs Moon's where Pat instantly ordered two large pints for each of us (in order to avoid any spilling in the great noonday crush in that dank cellar, he used to hold one close under his chin and protect the other more or less folded down near his armpit).
I then (remember: I'm French and "lunch" is a sacred word) shouted over the din: "Thanks Pat, but where's the food?"
"What food?" he replied, looking puzzled.
Bernard Edinger
We knew each other pretty well since he had literally taught me all the basics during a period of several months in 1969 when he temporarily took over the Tel Aviv bureau where I was a locally recruited junior reporter.
We went down to Mrs Moon's where Pat instantly ordered two large pints for each of us (in order to avoid any spilling in the great noonday crush in that dank cellar, he used to hold one close under his chin and protect the other more or less folded down near his armpit).
I then (remember: I'm French and "lunch" is a sacred word) shouted over the din: "Thanks Pat, but where's the food?"
"What food?" he replied, looking puzzled.
Bernard Edinger
Patrick Massey
Wednesday 18 March 2009
I still remember him with pleasure in his role as a raconteur. On one occasion in the Hoop and Grapes he described an incident that mingled terror with farce which he witnessed as a lad during the blitz. One of his neighbours, an elderly lady, was on her way home when suddenly a German plane started strafing the street. Pat said the old dear could have taken shelter anywhere but instead broke into a sprint as she was obviously determined to reach her home a few yards away dead or alive. As the bullets got nearer Pat described how the lady foiled the Grim Reaper by doing a southern roll over her privet hedge.
I also learned from him that if anyone asked the Rev Ian Paisley a question regarded as being provocative the answer was "Let me smell your breath".
One story Pat and I covered together was Britain's first heart transplant in 1968 (the patient was called Fred West, would you believe?). We left a nearby pub packed with hacks waiting for the official announcement and made our way into the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone by way of the boiler room as all other points of access were closed. We managed to find a lift and went up to the second floor. There we met a tea lady pushing her trolley. "Excuse me," I asked. "Is this where the heart transplant has been done?" "No," she replied naming another floor. "It's great news, isn't it?" I pursued. "Oh, yes," she replied. "I believe they are going to make an announcement to the press soon." Pat and I rushed back to the pub (no mobile phones or laptops then) and he very decently allowed me to use the phone first. I then passed the phone over to Pat and as he spoke the hacks suddenly twigged what was going on. There was a stampede to the hospital who were not pleased to learn about our infiltration.
Peter Muccini (ex-AP)
I also learned from him that if anyone asked the Rev Ian Paisley a question regarded as being provocative the answer was "Let me smell your breath".
One story Pat and I covered together was Britain's first heart transplant in 1968 (the patient was called Fred West, would you believe?). We left a nearby pub packed with hacks waiting for the official announcement and made our way into the National Heart Hospital in Marylebone by way of the boiler room as all other points of access were closed. We managed to find a lift and went up to the second floor. There we met a tea lady pushing her trolley. "Excuse me," I asked. "Is this where the heart transplant has been done?" "No," she replied naming another floor. "It's great news, isn't it?" I pursued. "Oh, yes," she replied. "I believe they are going to make an announcement to the press soon." Pat and I rushed back to the pub (no mobile phones or laptops then) and he very decently allowed me to use the phone first. I then passed the phone over to Pat and as he spoke the hacks suddenly twigged what was going on. There was a stampede to the hospital who were not pleased to learn about our infiltration.
Peter Muccini (ex-AP)
Patrick Massey
Tuesday 17 March 2009
There are some people in your life who once you meet, and are aware of them – like a favoured beloved byline – you always turn to.
That was Patrick J Massey.
In my early early years – months – with Reuters, when I was struggling to work out what the hell was Reuters “style”, Pat was a beacon.
How could you write a lead para that was accurate, interpretative, colourful, sourced, knowledgeable, passionate, stylish and less than 30 words?
Just read Patrick J.
Maybe it is an apocryphal yarn but the greatest lead I have EVER EVER read – not just on Reuters – I credit to Pat for his story on the inaugural flight of Concorde.
“I flew through the sound barrier today and not a ripple crossed my Martini.”
I’m sure they are not the exact words Pat wrote, but my God the mood that the para evoked – the key to any great Reuters writing – has always stuck with me.
It didn’t have to be short like a Pat or Arthur Spiegelman or Jimmy Pringle or Ron Thomson.
It could be long like a Ronnie Batchelor or Nobby Clarke or Ronnie Farquhar who could write a four line intro and it seemed like a two line intro.
It was the words, the positioning, the mood, the control of their craft.
They were all just natural story tellers, whether in words on paper or in conversation, which in a funny way I think is how they wrote, short or long.
And, of course, they all had the humour and insights of kind and loving rascals – how else could they write so magically?
For just a year I worked directly with Pat on London Bureau and fortunately The Sarge, who has known a rascal or two in his time, was the Bureau Chief.
“Where is Mr Massey?” he would inquire.
In true young honest gullible innocence I would reply: “He’s around Allan ‘cos his glasses (always identifiable black rimmed) are on his desk.”
“So he’s at the Golf Club then,” Sarge would answer.
Years – decades – later when Pat had retired, had a pacemaker installed and came through Tokyo to see his son where I was then based I asked:
“So, Pat, what’s it like having a pacemaker?”
“Ah, it’s not a big deal,” he said.
“I just have to watch out when I walk past a refrigerator in case there’s electro-magnetism and I slam into it. It’s generally the fridge that’s out of cycle.”
I always have and always will read a Patrick Massey byline, in cycle or out of cycle.
Brian Williams
That was Patrick J Massey.
In my early early years – months – with Reuters, when I was struggling to work out what the hell was Reuters “style”, Pat was a beacon.
How could you write a lead para that was accurate, interpretative, colourful, sourced, knowledgeable, passionate, stylish and less than 30 words?
Just read Patrick J.
Maybe it is an apocryphal yarn but the greatest lead I have EVER EVER read – not just on Reuters – I credit to Pat for his story on the inaugural flight of Concorde.
“I flew through the sound barrier today and not a ripple crossed my Martini.”
I’m sure they are not the exact words Pat wrote, but my God the mood that the para evoked – the key to any great Reuters writing – has always stuck with me.
It didn’t have to be short like a Pat or Arthur Spiegelman or Jimmy Pringle or Ron Thomson.
It could be long like a Ronnie Batchelor or Nobby Clarke or Ronnie Farquhar who could write a four line intro and it seemed like a two line intro.
It was the words, the positioning, the mood, the control of their craft.
They were all just natural story tellers, whether in words on paper or in conversation, which in a funny way I think is how they wrote, short or long.
And, of course, they all had the humour and insights of kind and loving rascals – how else could they write so magically?
For just a year I worked directly with Pat on London Bureau and fortunately The Sarge, who has known a rascal or two in his time, was the Bureau Chief.
“Where is Mr Massey?” he would inquire.
In true young honest gullible innocence I would reply: “He’s around Allan ‘cos his glasses (always identifiable black rimmed) are on his desk.”
“So he’s at the Golf Club then,” Sarge would answer.
Years – decades – later when Pat had retired, had a pacemaker installed and came through Tokyo to see his son where I was then based I asked:
“So, Pat, what’s it like having a pacemaker?”
“Ah, it’s not a big deal,” he said.
“I just have to watch out when I walk past a refrigerator in case there’s electro-magnetism and I slam into it. It’s generally the fridge that’s out of cycle.”
I always have and always will read a Patrick Massey byline, in cycle or out of cycle.
Brian Williams
Patrick Massey
Tuesday 17 March 2009
Pat was a one-of-a-kind journalist and a good man personally. Yet another numbing loss to add to the list of fine Reuters people who have left us these past 12 months. Never ending...
Brian Bain
Brian Bain
