Digger and the pope

Many colleagues have paid many moving tributes to the Digger. I can only concur and also let Aliki know how fond I was of Brian. I will keep my contribution brief.

In 1986 Pope John Paul made a trip to India. Brian, I, Moses Manoharan, Chaitanya Kalbag and Frances Kerry and photographer Pat Benic crisscrossed the country.

At the very start of the trip, Brian took me aside and said something like “You can count on me for everything but not when we get to Goa”. It seems that Goa was one of his favourite watering holes in the world and he had an appointment with an AP mate named Bill to make the Goa stop a memorable “pause from the story”. And so it came to pass. Brian was out of action for one whole night and a good part of the next day. Details unnecessary.

But, apart from the good times and the success of a new, untested transmission system that would now seem antediluvian, what I remember most of all from the trip was his extraordinary generosity with his staff and with me.

Before I left Rome, when I mentioned to a Reuters colleague that the pope was going to India, I was told: “Brian Williams is there. That country is not big enough for the both of them.”

How true. ■