Richard Williams

I was shocked and saddened to read of the death of Richard Williams. We were colleagues on the World Desk for the best part of a decade, and although we were never really friends, I respected and liked him for the man he was: unpretentious, intelligent, rightly sceptical of all authority, a team player of quiet yet strongly held convictions, professional and slow to anger - whereas, of course, I was never a team player (unless it was my team), always liked a good scrap, had a hair trigger temper and suffered fools (of which Reuters London has always seemed to have had more than its fair share) not at all gladly. What was particularly striking in this case was Richard's age - only 56 - and the fact that he’d only just “retired” (ghastly, misleading term) the previous year.

Why do so many Reuters people not live to enjoy what is, or should be, an exciting, exhilarating period? Has anyone studied this phenomenon and, if so, what can be done to stem these early losses? This is a time to shed institutional identities and grow old disgracefully - to do all those things we’ve always wanted to do, to replenish ourselves, to live to the utmost. 

That Richard could not do so is a matter of great regret. ■