Salut!

David Graves, exemplary reporter, and now his wonderful widow, Diana. RIP

 

Diana Graves was laid to rest beside her husband, David, at Hanwell cemetery, west London on March 1 after a sad but uplifting funeral at the beautiful St Barnabas church in Ealing. Deeply moving tributes were paid by both sons and Heather Mills, a former colleague of David's (and mine) and close friend of Diana's.

 

Diana Graves was perhaps known to only a few Salut! readers, generally those who knew her late husband, David, a great colleague and friend.

Diana died on Sunday (Jan 31), far too early, after battling pancreatic cancer for several months. She had contracted Covid while in hospital for the tests that unexpectedly revealed her much more serious problem but I am not aware that the virus played any part in her death.

Diana remained philosophical, brave and even optimistic despite knowing the gravity of her condition. She broke the news to me in a hands-free call I took as I drove through glorious vineyards in the south of France. She was eager to talk and full of hope, speaking with great determination about reviving her idea of an evening out we'd planned - Diana, my wife Joelle and our friends Stuart and Jenny Higgins - until different travel arrangements and then lockdowns intervened. She was adamant it would one day go ahead.

When we spoke again, after my return to the UK, Diana was still a bundle of confidence and joy, excited about work to update the family home in Ealing, only a coupe of miles from ours, while she stayed with a sister in Shropshire. To my immense regret, we did not speak again.

Joelle and I are devastated by the news and our daughters, Christelle and Nathalie, share the pain now felt by Diana and David's boys Oliver and Nathan.

This is how, in 2007, I remembered David's tragic death on the fifth anniversary of it happening, and how I had witnessed Diana's magnificently dignified handling of the wretched task of telling the boys.

By all means check the link  and see the kind words left by readers at that time about David. I will not transfer the comments here as this, essentially, is about Diana. RIP two great friends

 

Diana, left, with her sister, Sarah

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                               Photo of David courtesy of the Telegraph

John Hays RIP: a road well travelled

A phone call from my friend Martin Emmerson, a BBC broadcaster from Sunderland, brought me shocking news of the death of John Hays [above, right], the founder of Hays Travel. John built the UK's biggest independent travel agency chain from the small business he opened in 1980 in spare space at the back of the children's clothing shop owned by his mother in Seaham. John was 71 and a good friend ...  

 

It was up in the East Stand of the Stadium of Light that I first met John Hays.

When the obituary writer needs an obituarist. RIP David Twiston Davies, Telegraph character par excellence

Journalists who believe in heaven and hell, as David Twiston Davies undoubtedly did, probably live their lives with a degree of uncertainty about where they will end up when the time comes. Ours is not a uniformly saintly trade.

But if we can at least assume there’ll be pass-outs from the Pearly and Hades Gates for residents to meet up in the Great Newsroom in the Sky, the composition of The Daily Telegraph editorial team for the afterlife has taken another step towards completion.

Twisters, as he was known to anyone who didn't call him the Twister, died from cancer on Sunday, aged 75.

He was a wonderfully irreverent character, amply equipped to serve either as letters editor or chief obituaries writer for this fanciful reincarnation of what was until recent years a great newspaper. Since he fulfilled both roles with distinction in his 40 years on the paper, he may combine them when reacquainted with the many fine reporters, specialists, sub-editors, photographers and executives who were his colleagues and mine but have also passed away. 

Syd Young RIP: 'Daily Mirror legend', confrere and friend

Photo courtesy of Andrew Young

 

If I say a friend who has just died was a great reporter and an even greater human being, readers of Salut! who knew Syd Young will instantly recognise the description.

It would mean less to others, less again if I added that his great reporting was done for a tabloid newspaper.

Please put aside any such prejudice. Take it from me that Syd, who died last Friday (March 6 2020), was an outstanding journalist who happened to spend his career at the Daily Mirror but would have shone just as brightly in any other part of the media he had chosen to work.

More than that, he was a man of enormous charm, kindness and wit.

Clare Hollingworth, legendary journalist; Tony King, wise psephologist, even wiser judge of Parisian dining. RIP

Photo credit: University of Essex

Two important fixtures of what some of us call the old Daily Telegraph died this week. Clare Hollingworth was 105 and had been a wonderful reporter and writer who famously broke news of the outbreak of the Second World War, often described as the 'scoop of the century'. I knew her only a little, from reputation, occasional visits to the office where I worked and telephone calls. I knew Professor Anthony King rather better. He was a Canadian academic who made his home in Britain and covered shifts in political opinion while also being, without exception in my experience, charming company ...

It was during my stay in Paris as The Daily Telegraph's correspondent for France, and the male Canadian voice on the phone was unmistakeable.

Could we join him and his wife for dinner at a location he would not reveal in advance? Since Tony King was one of nicest people I had ever worked with, it was not so much a challenge as a guaranteed pleasure.

Professor Anthony King died yesterday, aged 82.

Jim Allan: a 'great and decent man'

As regular readers will know, Salut! is predominantly about France and matters Anglo-French. But other subjects are mentioned at the top of the page and this is a tribute I had to write ...

Twice in the last month or two, I have sat in my French bunker and written articles for the spoof front pages traditionally prepared at newspaper offices when colleagues leave to work elsewhere, join other redundant job-seekers or begin retirement.

Jim Allan's departure is more final and there will be no mock-up P1. Last week, he lost a long struggle against cancer and died aged 75.

David Graves: more besides

Every so often, you still hear that extravagant, rising laugh of his.

You imagine him back in the old Telegraph newsroom. There, he'd be approaching each task with customary professionalism. If things were quiet, he'd be wandering from desk to desk showing quizzical interest in what others were up to.

For certain, he'd still be irritating the newsdesk on a regular basis with whinges about the paper's inexplicable failure to send a reporter (by implication him) on this or that (preferably foreign) story. And he'd still be boring everyone to bits about Wolverhampton Wanderers and U2.

But David is not there. Five years ago today, just a few weeks after his 50th birthday, he died in an accident that should not have happened while on a press diving trip to the Bahamas.

At the moment news came through next morning, I was sitting on the newsdesk fielding a call from an irate reader. "Get them off the line," someone called out. "David Graves is dead."

There was an immediate need for someone to go to David's home and be with his wife, Diana, and their two sons, Oliver, then eight, and six-year-old Nathan. I was the logical choice. David and I had known each other for a quarter of a century since we were at the Press Association together; he and Diana were good friends and our homes were no more than a couple of miles apart.

Vivid memories of the rest of that day will remain with me for ever. I would not even want to forget the serenity and skill that Diana somehow mustered to tell the boys their father was not coming home.