The day the Digger resigned

There have been so many eloquent and touching tributes to Brian that it is difficult to add to them. But I did have a front seat for one interesting career moment. Brian and I met on his first return to Fleet Street from Saigon in the early 1970s. He spent most of his time working for sports, but was unhappy doing desk work after Vietnam. One evening, after a long break, Brian returned to the fourth floor and took a sheet of headed notepaper. He wrote furiously for a few minutes, sealed the letter and put it in a metal box reserved for in-house mail. The next afternoon when he reported for work, there was an urgent message for him to go straight to the Staff Department (we humans were not resources in those days). There, his letter was returned to him and he was asked if he was serious. Brian, according to his own account, did not remember having written the document, a letter of resignation. Asked what it would take to make him stay, Brian asked to go back to Saigon. And back he went. ■