Richard Williams
Richard Williams
Sunday 06 March 2011
Oh, that can't be [● Obituary: Richard Williams]. What sad news. Richard was a delight to work with and clearly was far too young.
Maggie Fox
Maggie Fox
Richard Williams
Thursday 03 March 2011
Richard and I worked together in Bonn in the mid-1980s. He was a fine colleague to have in a bureau, fun to be with and, for all his cynicism, someone who cared a great deal about Reuters, its people and its journalism. As Richard's untimely obituary noted, he and Victoria Barrett were a formidable negotiating team for the NUJ. As importantly, they were also a formidable duo as features editors. Between them, they kept a valuable service alive during some dark times when writing a feature story was regarded by some in senior management as most unsound. It is immeasurably sad that he will not savour his retirement.
Paul Holmes
Paul Holmes
Richard Williams
Wednesday 02 March 2011
The news of Richard Williams’ death – at just 56 – came as a huge shock. As the ’68 song went, “it seems the good, they die young”. It is deeply, deeply sad.
I worked with Richard in the NUJ. His loyalty and commitment to Reuters chapel members was deep and heartfelt. He never worried about the impact on his career of standing up for the chapel and the rights of members – no matter how tough that was.
But he was not just deeply principled, he was fun. He had the hard bitten humour that came with working at Reuters, forged by both the reality of what we reported on and the frequent crassness of the way people were treated.
John Fullerton has asked why so many Reuters people do not seem to live to enjoy what should be an exciting period after the Baron. There are no statistics to back this up, and some people have gone on to rich and fulfilling afterlives. But I agree with John that there do seem to be too many early losses. Maybe we need to do more ourselves. I hadn’t seen Richard for years. I now wish I had.
Richard was someone who was truly of Reuters, not just with Reuters. He will be missed.
Paul Mylrea
I worked with Richard in the NUJ. His loyalty and commitment to Reuters chapel members was deep and heartfelt. He never worried about the impact on his career of standing up for the chapel and the rights of members – no matter how tough that was.
But he was not just deeply principled, he was fun. He had the hard bitten humour that came with working at Reuters, forged by both the reality of what we reported on and the frequent crassness of the way people were treated.
John Fullerton has asked why so many Reuters people do not seem to live to enjoy what should be an exciting period after the Baron. There are no statistics to back this up, and some people have gone on to rich and fulfilling afterlives. But I agree with John that there do seem to be too many early losses. Maybe we need to do more ourselves. I hadn’t seen Richard for years. I now wish I had.
Richard was someone who was truly of Reuters, not just with Reuters. He will be missed.
Paul Mylrea
Richard Williams
Wednesday 02 March 2011
This is sad and so unexpected for someone so young. Richard was warm-hearted, good-humoured and so helpful to colleagues, especially newcomers, not just in the early days for one adjusting to London's World Desk, but as an ongoing support.
Paul Mindus
Paul Mindus
Richard Williams
Tuesday 01 March 2011
I was shocked and saddened to read of the death of Richard Williams. We were colleagues on the World Desk for the best part of a decade, and although we were never really friends, I respected and liked him for the man he was: unpretentious, intelligent, rightly sceptical of all authority, a team player of quiet yet strongly held convictions, professional and slow to anger – whereas, of course, I was never a team player (unless it was my team), always liked a good scrap, had a hair trigger temper and suffered fools (of which Reuters London has always seemed to have had more than its fair share) not at all gladly. What was particularly striking in this case was Richard's age – only 56 – and the fact that he’d only just “retired” (ghastly, misleading term) the previous year.
Why do so many Reuters people not live to enjoy what is, or should be, an exciting, exhilarating period? Has anyone studied this phenomenon and, if so, what can be done to stem these early losses? This is a time to shed institutional identities and grow old disgracefully – to do all those things we’ve always wanted to do, to replenish ourselves, to live to the utmost.
That Richard could not do so is a matter of great regret.
John Fullerton
Why do so many Reuters people not live to enjoy what is, or should be, an exciting, exhilarating period? Has anyone studied this phenomenon and, if so, what can be done to stem these early losses? This is a time to shed institutional identities and grow old disgracefully – to do all those things we’ve always wanted to do, to replenish ourselves, to live to the utmost.
That Richard could not do so is a matter of great regret.
John Fullerton
