Donna Smith

Donna, like Jim Vicini, was one of those great Reuter US staffers whom many of us Europeans knew only by byline but felt instinctively would be great folk to know in person. Fortunately there are still a few left but given the current culling of older vines across the Pond names are probably best left unmentioned. I was lucky enough to meet Donna and work with her twice when she was on the trade beat, at WTO meetings in Singapore in 1996 and at “the Battle in Seattle” in 1999. She was a dream of a colleague at the coal face and great to be with back on the surface. My wife and I remember a fun dinner at a Seattle diner and some great repartee - Donna’s - with an anti-globalisation ideologist the night before the Battle broke out. There wasn’t much fun after that, but what there was came from Donna’s wry turn of humour. ■