Quite often I looked along the line and thought Willie’s dropped off but he was doodling on his

Quite often I looked along the line and thought “Willie’s dropped off”, but he was doodling on his script. At the end of the evening one would walk back to the house, head swimming with rich memories and liberal quantities of the McPhunn.Someone asked me the other day to name one dead person, non-family, whom I genuinely missed. He was immensely knowledgeable about Scotland, about the Soviet Union – in particular, Georgia – and he was a natural gossip The combination made him the perfect story- teller. He adored women, of course, and they in turn adored him, so he was always at his best in female company But it was his reminiscences that made the evening. With Veronica prompting – to his intense irritation (“Darling, I’m telling this story…”) – he would embark on a traveller’s tale, full of diversion and caustic comment.

Not for nothing was his whisky called McPhunns.With him, you became the centre of attention. He knew one of the warlords, and he had a fancy that they wanted to restore the monarchy in Afghanistan. The idea of having a king back on the throne in Kabul rather appealed to him. I wasn’t entirely certain whether he might not be a candidate for the job himself; I could certainly think of worse choices. As we talked in his big study, where he sat in his tartan trews, books spilling off the sofa, dogs panting on the rug, he would run through his latest plans.

This time, he wondered whether my newspaper, The Scotsman, might be prepared to stump up enough funds to send him to Afghanistan.He wanted to do a story about the Mujahedin and their guerrilla campaign against the Soviet army. I bet he was just the same when he was crossing the Oxus in his astrakhan hat, or bluffing his way past Italian sentries at Benghazi or talking tactics with Tito.Old age to him seemed nothing more than a temporary inconvenience. That’s how I still picture him – bent, determined, heroic.However old or lame, Fitzroy always seemed to have a young man’s enthusiasm and panache. Fitzroy was still getting the hang of the two sticks he needed to manoeuvre his way around the garden, but he insisted on coming out to open the car door for us.”Don’t be such a fool, Fitz” ordered his wife, Veronica. “Just wait for them to come inside.”He ignored her and ploughed on. With one hand he held two sticks, with the other he opened the door. Balanced precariously on the treacherous ground, he leant forward and planted a kiss on my wife’s cheek, before escorting her gallantly into the house.

I suspect she was much the same in life.Beryl Elizabeth Reid, actress: born Hereford 17 June 1919; married 1950 Bill Worsley (marriage dissolved), 1954 Derek Franklin (marriage dissolved); died 13 OctoberFitzroy Maclean by Magnus LinklaterThe gravel outside Strachur House was sheet ice. She shamelessly upstaged Alec Guinness, and Guinness was wise enough and large enough to let it happen, knowing that the comedienne’s imp in her would never let her go. We may have come to mock, but Ronnie’s graceful good manners and the twinkle in his eye soon told us who was sending up whom. Beneath that cultured and courtly exterior, there beat the heart of a little scamp.Ronald Fletcher, broadcaster: born Salisbury 10 July 1910; married 1938 Terri Hann (one son, one daughter; marriage dissolved 1958), 1959 Rita Dando (one son, one daughter); died Roehampton 6 FebruaryBeryl Reid by John Le CarreBeryl Reid played Connie Sachs in the BBC TV productions of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People, and played her magically, bringing a maverick pathos and beauty to the part of a retired vestal of the British Secret Service. The reason he had embarked on a career as a newsreader was that, while he could not perhaps be trusted with a company balance sheet, or his own cheque- book, or the boss’s wife, he could at least be trusted with a bit of paper with some words on it.As we sat nervously going over our scripts before the show, he would be on the phone to his bookie. Ronnie appeared to fit the bill perfectly.He had been a BBC radio announcer and newsreader of some distinction for many years, and had the bearing and the sumptuous diction to go with it.