Patrick Massey

As well as being inspirational, it was also such fun working with Pat. I helped cover a London Commonwealth Conference in the 1970s with Pat and Ron Thomson in charge and it provided almost as many laughs as leads. In between news editing and writing the wraps they enlivened things with a series of japes.

The favourite, certainly the most dramatic, involved phoning the extension in the elevator as it approached the press centre floor and shouting to the startled journalist who answered: "This is the engineer, the cables are parting, get out quick."

Pat and Ron would then stroll, pints of lager in hand, to the corridor to view the ensuing panicked exit from the lift. ■