Odile Leroux

When I arrived in Paris in 1974, I was an unlikely replacement for Jonathan Fenby, who’d been promoted to Editor in Chief. Everyone else in the bureau moved up one, and I filled in at the bottom.

So it fell to me to deal with many of the metres-long telexes which arrived daily from stringers in Francophone Africa. I assumed they were being paid by the word.

I’d barely heard of many of the countries, never mind people, mentioned in the telexes. My personal favourites were Capitaine de Frégate Didier Ratsiraka and Lieutenant Colonel Mathieu Kérékou.

Odile at first terrified me but soon proved a kind teacher. She explained that if the stringers had hidden the obvious lead in the second metre of the telex, it wasn’t necessarily because they were poor journalists - they had to face risks I couldn’t even imagine. So deciphering the telexes was more like Bletchley Park than subbing in London.

If I was in doubt, I consulted Odile. Her knowledge was encyclopaedic and she was always more than kind. She even arranged my first Paris flat for me.

I’m very sorry to learn of her death. ■