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Nick Carter
Thursday 12 April 2012
Nick Carter. As for many other schoolboys in the forties, I imagine, he was a rough-and-tough private detective somewhat akin to Bulldog Drummond and later James Bond. I’m happy to have known the real Nick Carter and am deeply saddened by the news of his death, though I’d known he was having rather a rough time of late. Despite this, we’d remained in touch by mail, mainly reminiscing about the good and the bad things at Reuters. For me, never an addict of new technology, Nick was a genius. The first time I worked with him closely was during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. I’d been sent over in advance to organise the Reuter reporting bureau in readiness for the big event. By that time, Nick had already been at work for 18 months, masterminding all the communications complexities. “I’m just a nuts-and-bolts man, John”, he told me modestly, but he was much more than that. One of the organisers in Munich glanced approvingly at one of Reuters’ detailed technical requests and said: “Mr Carter should be working for us”. By that time, I’d already had the benefit of his considerable know-how. A few years earlier, my Cairo bureau had been selected as one of four key news centres to launch a radio service aimed initially at America’s Mutual Broadcasting Service. Nick had already done all that “nuts-and-bolts” work at head office. At the Cairo end, working from a small office in the television centre, things were rather hit-and-miss. The scheduled radio calls rarely came through on time, and from the other end Nick was ever ready with some pertinent advice. For the first broadcast from Cairo, the local technicians had failed to do the necessary groundwork in the studio and I read my first broadcast pieces trying to read the text on the desk in front of me while stretching out with my right hand to hold the connecting wires in a socket in the wall. “You sounded a bit strained”, said Nick afterwards. But we got better at it. A year or two later, reporting from Jerusalem on a peace-making mission by Washington’s Henry Kissinger, I had to make those broadcasts from a sort of cupboard - or was it the toilet? - at the King David hotel. Nick’s was always a reassuring voice from London. A pity we didn’t see much of each other after retirement, except at those now discontinued luncheon gatherings for the old hacks and other retired Reuterees. We said we’d get together again, and I know I’d always be welcome to visit Nick and family, but we were living in different parts of the country and never made it. All the very best, Nick, one last time. ■
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