Allan Maitland

Allan Maitland was one of the first Reuters people I got to know well at the start of my 22-year career. Allan was assigned to be one of the main “minders” for the company’s first graduate management trainee group intake in 1980, of which I was one. He exuded warmth and integrity, impressing us wide-eyed trainees with his adventures in Vietnam as a correspondent. I imagine nowadays far fewer ex-Reuters journalists land up in Staff Department, as it was called in those times and which had more than its fair share of characters. I kept my own counsel at the time. Being a very green trainee, Allan’s introduction to some of the unwritten, informal rules of Reuters’ corporate culture was invaluable. A true gentleman. ■