Peter Mosley - a sharp newsman

As the youthful London Bureau chief in 1967, Peter Mosley was a pioneer of bright, sharp writing in the days when much the rest of editorial (especially features) was in the grip of a leaden hand.

As a trainee at the time, it was inspiring to be encouraged to write short, colourful leads, often ignoring the five Ws and, on occasion, (heaven forfend) not even being sourced.

It brought shrieks of protests from the likes of Doon Campbell, Ranald MacLurkin and Muriel Penn, but the unconventional stories that got onto the wire unscathed scored well in the impacts. The ones retrieved wholesale by Nordesk (staffed by the likes of Art Spiegelman, a silky writer par excellence) brought the bureau a sheaf of bylined credits in the Washington Post (at a time Reuters' penetration of the States was about zero). In this, Peter was ably abetted by Pat Massey, another great writer and part of the intake of that era from Associated Press which did much to shake up Reuters editorial approach.

Peter was also a great driving force in the Reuters cricket XI, when - with the likes of Vergil Berger, John Marks and even Mohsin Ali, we would do battle with the AP (and anyone else they could scrounge up who worked in the same building, who included an Essex second XI fast bowler who worked for the Angling Times).

It was no coincidence that the bureau watering hole at the time was the Hoop and Grapes, next to the AP building. But the stories of what went on there are for other time. ■