Manfred Pagel - To Bonn or gone

Manfred will be much missed, for all that he was much maligned. One day in early 1984 I was called to his office and offered my first posting.  Manfred knew I spoke German and proposed I go to Bonn. I had joined the Baron from dpa in Hamburg and rather fancied Paris or Rome. What if I did not accept, I asked Manfred? “Then there is nothing else for you at Reuters,” he replied. So off I went and never looked back. ■