Allan Maitland

I remember Allan Maitland when I came out to Portugal to cover the Revolution in 1974. He had been there for two years and promised to introduce me to all the contacts I would need. We sat for a whole lunch waiting for the Government Information Minister to turn up, and on our way back saw The Minister’s name on the wall of the Ministry with the slogan “saneado” - purged. He was on his way to Brazil. Exciting times, and Allan took it all with the deceptively relaxed and debonair ease of a Graham Greene character. During Portugal’s colonial war, he found himself in the depths of Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau), a white man’s grave if ever, visiting a Portuguese military base in a place called Xitole. Which, as it promptly occurred to him, is pronounced in Portuguese just like the English word shithole. It was to his everlasting regret that the guerrillas failed to lob a few shells into the camp during his stay, depriving him of the pretext to file a dispatch from such an august dateline. Allan was a kind character, the unruffled epitome of the foreign correspondent of yesteryear. He will be missed. ■