Ray Rumble

Difficult to add much to the tributes to Ray. He was one of the kindest and sweetest people I have known in Reuters. We got on so well, usually over the phone between London and Moscow, that I think he thought I was as nice as him.

In the late 1960s, it became the rule, to our relief, that special filers using our teleprinter in the tiny converted bathroom in the SadSam office had to be able to punch out their tapes themselves. One elderly Canadian from, I think, the Globe and Mail, arrived one day announcing that Ray had told him what nice people we were. Would we punch his handwritten 20-page story? Knowing that Ray wouldn’t hold it against me, I showed him the bathroom and the ancient 50-words-a-minute Siemens and recommended he try it himself. Reluctantly, he agreed, and for near on two hours I could hear him laboriously tapping away with one finger. Then there was a vocal explosion, in language which didn’t fit this very professorial chap’s profile. Fearing an electrical short-circuit, I rushed into the bathroom to find him pointing to the hole in the printer where the tape should have been flowing from. “I forgot to switch it on,” he moaned. Inevitably, I ended up punching the story myself, but did send Ray a polite message explaining what had happened, and saying that the professor would not be that welcome again. “I told him he had to do it himself,” said Ray, coming through on the telephone. “But the b*gg*r has never even used a typewriter. Thanks for helping him out. I hope this will be a lesson to him.” ■