Death comes in twos

I discovered that two people I had known and admired - many years ago - have died.

Keith Waterhouse died earlier today, aged 80. I knew him only briefly as I was - for a while - a friend of his son when we were at school together. I suspect that Bob wouldn't remember me, let alone his father, but I was influenced by the man who was the favourite writer of the Mirror and then the Mail for the best part of a generation. The first time I met him he, he looked at me and then his son before asking 'Are you also insufferable?'. He seemed disappointed by my response that I didn't think so. I read his books and have loved his style and wit ever since. Good innings, though.

I was even more saddened to then read of the death, in June, of Graeme Kidd who I knew at Aston University back in the early 1980s, when he was a leading light in the world of the Birmingham Sun, the student newspaper. He once described the definition of the word 'crestfallen' as that moment when you tread in cat-shit in the darkness and feel it oozing up between your toes.
He was always an entreprneur, especially in computing and publishing, and so I was intrigued - but not altogether surprised - to learn of his later career as mayor and all-round alchemist of good fortune for the town of Ludlow.

The world is missing two men who gave a lot back.