Gilbert Sedbon

Gilbert, pronounced with the French soft G and silent T, showed me the greatest consideration when I met him some time after I landed, clueless in the Paris buro in 1993.

Gilbert had retired from Reuters in 1982 and was a full time freelance in his 70s. He was stringing for an Australian aerospace title, and would sit in the front row of the Dassault press conferences; and just to keep his hand in, he would throw questions to the chief executive, who answered him with a respect signally lacking in his answers to younger reporters.

Gilbert acted as my proposer to the press club, Association des Journalistes Professsionels de l’Aéronautique et l’Espace (AJPAE), helping to ease me into that high profile beat in which he had broken so many news stories.

We would run into each other at press conferences, and he always had a kindly greeting, often tagged with a personal anecdote of his old reporting days when Airbus was still a European start up rather than the present day monster maker of airliners.

Gilbert, always immaculately turned out in suit and tie, sometimes talked about the craft of journalism.

One such observation went something like: just report what you see and hear when you are in the field. It was as simple as that, but it rang of truth and I use that guidance whenever I can.

Gilbert was buried at a moving Jewish ceremony at the vast and peaceful cimitière parisien at Pantin on a bright sunny day, June 30. Former colleagues, press officers from the AJPAE, his widow Yolande, his sons Eric and Thierry, his grandchildren and other family and friends turned out to say a last farewell to this courtly, kindly and highly professional reporter who stood for the best of the Reuters tradition in journalism.

Gilbert was like the proverbial stick of Brighton rock, break off a piece and you’d see Reuters right through to the core. ■