Jim Flannery-a striking impression

It's a long time ago but I clearly remember my first encounter with Jim Flannery when I entered the wacky world of Reuters overnight shift, shortly after joining the agency from university.  

 

His newsprint headgear and slippers made a striking impression, as well as his picturesque language and devotion to studying Chinese in quiet moments of the night.

 

This was 1960, before there was any structured graduate training scheme.  Reuters was clearly a professional business but there were aspects of 85 Fleet Street that were not quite the serious grown-up workplace that I had expected.  

 

The overnight shift in particular, with Jim and other brilliant nocturnal eccentrics, convinced me this would be a fun career.  It was, and I never left.