Donald Forbes - more than a liaison

Allow me to be a bit put out by that word liaison. (Ed: whatever were you thinking of?)

We bought a house together and had a lovely daughter. Elizabeth was briefly the darling of the World Desk, cuddled by Horseman David Betts, no less, and much photographed. She made her first appearances in a Moses Basket. When the nanny let us down we swapped her over between shifts. As a toddler she took to answering the World Desk phones.

There were happy holidays in France and Italy, Cornwall and Dorset. Donald owned a battered 2CV when we met, and often gave it an outraged kick when it wouldn't go. When he graduated to an Audi with a modern sound system his little daughter was regaled with Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ. Later she would become the mother of two of his grandchildren.

Needless to say he hated popular music and noise, which to him amounted to the same thing. Beneath the gruffness was great kindness. Beneath the few words lay a voracious appetite for French literature from Zola to Boris Vian. Reuters didn't help us by refusing to post an unmarried couple.

RIP Donald. I never knew you as Don. ■