Robert Philip - his greatest story disappeared into the frozen ether

At the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics Robert and I were assigned to cover the Opening Ceremony. He was writing the story, and I went along basically to file his copy as he was something of a technophobe.

Everything was against us. It was the coldest day I have ever experienced. The wind-chill factor was minus 49 centigrade, there were no desks in the press tribune and we were seated about a dozen places apart. I had our phone under my seat so when Robert was ready to file he brought me his laptop. I couldn’t take off my gloves without risking frostbite so I fiddled around and somehow deleted his story instead of filing it. Robert looked stunned when I told him his story had gone. “What are we going to do?” he asked imploringly.

“I don’t know,” I said unhelpfully. But Robert responded like a true pro. He picked up his laptop, took it up to the concourse and placed it on the edge of a hamburger stand so he could keep warm while writing a new version.

Afterwards he pronounced that his first story was the best he had ever written and that I was his only reader. I thought he might want to kill me so when the ceremony finished, I offered to take him to a bar and buy him as many drinks as he wanted. He took me up on the offer and never once reproached me.

When we covered the 1984 European Football Championship in France, we spent the best part of a week together at the Sofitel in Lyon ahead of one of the semifinals. After the match, Robert announced that he was coming to my room to help me empty the mini-bar because he was concerned that my bill would not match his.

We sat up till about six in the morning (in Robert’s version we rang room service for the mini-bar to be restocked in the middle of the night) and we managed to drink everything except the water and orange juice. ■