Diana Drayton - discreet human face of the '7th floor' circus

Diana’s long career embraced the critical period when Reuters emerged from its chrysalis and rapidly became a valuable, profitable and advanced company. She was part of a very interesting circus of personalities who presided over and influenced this remarkable transformation. Discreet, disciplined and principled, she dealt with a management which swung between being pompous, eccentric and brilliant.

It cannot have been particularly easy, but at least she could relax watching the tennis at Wimbledon, and she timed her annual holidays to do so.

She is remembered by many as the human face of the hushed, slightly conspiratorial “7th floor” group of top managers of those days. Tantalisingly, she knew and witnessed the whole background story behind Reuters going public in 1984, attended all the Board and probably many more private meetings, but she refused to reveal anything that had happened even apparently when she was invited to be interviewed for the company’s official history.

Although nothing secret ever escaped her lips, she was still the person you could go to for practical advice as to how to get answers, how to get things done. Though essentially quite a serious person, she is remembered by her junior female colleagues at the time as being extremely kind and supportive, treating them as equals and refraining from criticism, except, it is rumoured, when they wore trousers to the office.

She was loyal in retirement too, and is fondly remembered for her work as Secretary to the Reuter Society. ■