One of the happiest periods of my life was the seven years I spent in the West Country.
My children were small, we were living in an area where most people would be content to bring up a family and my work, as the South West England and South Wales correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, was a good mix of serious news and fun.
There was professional rivalry among the reporters doing similar work for different newspapers, but also great camaraderie. With heavy heart, I record the death, three days ago, of one of those confrères - he'd have liked that word - Dennis Johnson.
Back in those district reporting days of ours, all the national newspapers had staff correspondents covering the patch.
With beancounters not yet in the driving seats, the Daily Mirror and Daily Express each had three: one for South Wales, one for the northern part of the West Country, based in or near Bristol, and one in the Exeter or Plymouth areas. And The Guardian and The Times kept one reporter each on either side of the Severn.
Dennis was the Guardian man nearest to me. He had left school at 14, towards the end of the Second World War, and - at his headmaster's recommendation - begun work as a cub reporter on his local weekly paper in, if I remember his reminiscences correctly, Macclesfield.
Our paths as reporters did not cross as often as I would have liked. Days, even weeks, sometimes passed between the occasions on which we found ourselves reporting on the same events.
But Dennis was a kindred spirit, an astute observer of human nature and behaviour and wonderful company at the dinner table. We tended to make up for the gaps between our meetings.
Sometimes, when out on assignment together, down in Cornwall, maybe, or Devon, we'd sit down later over coffee to write up our accounts; the headline recalls something Dennis used to say when that part of the job was proving trickier than usual.
"The bugger won't write."
I am not sure whether it was his own phrase, or something he'd picked up from a former colleague. Either way, it was - in his case - wide of the mark, since Dennis had a beautiful way with words. The bugger, or story, invariably did write and write well.
Dennis had been retired for many years, living happily in Chippenham and remaining surprisingly fit and well for a man who had suffered a heart attack.
We last met on a glorious, late summer's day in 2007 in Arles, the bullfighting capital of France where he and his charming wife, Chris, had taken a short holiday.
It was just before our departure for the Middle East. Dennis was alert, and as amusing as ever at the table during lunch, but he was also visibly more frail than we had known him. So when a message reached me from his son, Martin, reporting that Chris wanted to contact me, I feared the worst.
The news was indeed sad. The heart condition had caught up with Dennis, his health had deteriorated considerably in recent months and he had died in hospital last Thursday, aged 79.
Dennis was a gentleman, a fine journalist and a good friend. I greatly regret that when I return, soon, to Europe, there will no opportunity to see him again. And to Chris and Martin, and to Martin's sisters Fiona, Joanna and Victoria, I wish a simple bon courage.
* Dennis retired in time to avoid having to use the internet, and not much of his work can be found online. Here are a couple of exceptions that offer a glimpse of his talent: Hard times at the seaside rock factoryYeah, man, it's the Summer Solstice
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