Jim Forrester on the recovery path

Former Reuters night editor Jim Forrester was in buoyant spirits today after coming home in Edinburgh from almost four months in a local hospital following a fall. 

The fall exacerbated injuries acquired in an aircraft crash in 1945 when he was training as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm. 

Jim, 88, was in Edinburgh's Western General Hospital - the same hospital which saved his life with penicillin in 1946 when he acquired an infection while later serving in the army. He personally thanked Alexander Fleming for his discovery when Fleming was rector of Edinburgh University in the early 50s.

Jim joined Reuters in 1960 and worked in Hong Kong and London, where he was night editor for 18 years and saw nine editors-in-chief come and go. He retired to his home town in 1991.

He is being looked after temporarily by a live-in help and says he's happy to have visitors. ■