Sandy Gall - good humoured courage

In my first weeks as a Reuter trainee in the Bonn office in late 1958, then Chief Correspondent Gerald Long asked me when he strode into the office at about 09.30 where morning duty staffer Sandy Gall was.

It turned out that Sandy had overslept. He strolled into the office some two hours late, smiled amiably and said: "Hello Gerry, anything happening?"

Rather than experience the explosion from the future boss of Reuters, who was famously irascible, I fled into the adjoining sanctuary of the large wireroom, staffed by a team of kind ladies.

More seriously, Sandy and I overlapped for a few weeks in the Congo in the early 1960s. His sheer physical and also very good-humoured courage while seeking the best story amazed me. Many times. ■