Harry Arnold, one of the very best journalists to have graced the newsrooms of both the Daily Mirror and the Sun, has died aged 73.
He was a reporter's reporter. If a story was there to be got, he got it. If it wasn't, he refused to bend it. Harry had standards. And what skills - on the road, he phoned in copy to deadline without writing it out first; in the office, he was a wonder on the phone.
His contacts book was replete with excellent sources. Although he will be remembered for his prolific story-getting as a - arguably the - leading member of the royal rat pack, he was relieved to give it up.
Three months ago, before we appeared on Radio 4's The Reunion to talk about the 1980s era at the Sun, he told me just how much he relished his years at the Mirror.
I had recruited him from the Sun in 1990 and appointed him as chief reporter. In the following 12 years until his retirement he covered a whole range of stories, including wars in the Gulf and Kosovo, and the floods in Mozambique.
Within weeks of arriving at the Mirror, in April 1990, he proved his ability by beating the rest of Fleet Street to discover the address of a British lorry driver, Paul Ashwell, who had been arrested in Greece for supposedly transporting the parts of an Iraqi "supergun".
It enabled the paper to befriend Ashwell's family, post bail for him and lead the campaign on his behalf. Charges were dropped two months later.
Harry, a dapper dresser who acquired his range of pin-stripe suits from Savile Row, was known for his deadpan sense of humour and his refusal to panic.
In the Mirror's handsome tribute to him, photographer Roger Allen recalled working with him in Kosovo when they were forced to hide in a ditch to escape Serb soldiers who they feared were about to shoot them.
Harry's mobile phone rang and Roger heard him politely tell the caller: "I'm sorry, I'm a bit busy at the moment. Could I call you back?"
He whispered to Roger that it was a garden centre calling to inform him his rose arbor was ready for collection.
Throughout his long stint as the Sun's royal correspondent, in which he broke countless stories, he refused to succumb to "red carpet fever", the condition that afflicted many people, including several journalists, who came to see themselves as part of the royal family.
Harry kept his distance as he competed with his fierce rival, the late James Whitaker, to report on the troubled relationship between Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
They both laid claim to having broken the story about the beginning of the couple's romance. But they remained close friends and helped each other. Harry told me: "When one of us broke an exclusive in the first edition, we would tip off the other in time for the second edition... our editors could never work out what what going on."
Harry's first royal scoop for the Sun occurred in the 1970s when - for the price of a cup of coffee at Barbados airport, plus his charm - he secured an interview with Roddy Llewellyn in which he confirmed he was having a romance with Princess Margaret.
Despite his relief at giving up the royal beat, Harry enjoyed the foreign travel that went with the job. He stayed in the best hotels, travelled first class and lived off expenses.
Yet he was something of a union militant. In my earliest days at the Sun, I recall Harry as one of the opinion-forming speakers at chapel meetings. Like many journalists who had arrived in 1969 from what became known as "the old Sun" and its predecessor, the Daily Herald, he was imbued with an anti-management ethos.
It was one of the reasons that the Sun's editor, Kelvin Mackenzie, was not one of Harry's greatest fans, despite his appreciation for his string of royal exclusives.
This tension between the two came to a head in 1989 when Harry wrote the story about claims by the police that Liverpool football fans had been the authors of their own misfortunes at the Hillsborough tragedy.
Harry, who had been given the news agency report, wrote it carefully to show that the claims by the police were just that - allegations (which were also published by most other newspapers). So he was appalled when he saw that MacKenzie was about to put the story on the front page below a headline saying: "The Truth."
He protested, as he revealed when breaking his silence about the incident in a BBC documentary in September 2012. It is a version of the truth, he told MacKenzie, not the truth. He was ignored.
Months later Harry left the Sun to join me at the Mirror. He emailed me recently to say: "I don't think I ever thanked you for removing me from the misery of Kelvin's clutches and giving me what I still regard as the top reporters' job in Fleet Street. If I did not thank you, then I do so now."
He added: "I regard him [MacKenzie] as the nastiest man I ever met in my 40-year career."
Among the many tributes to Harry was a fine one from Mirror editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley. He said: "Harry was a tremendous journalist and one of the best reporters of his generation... he was an inspiration to many younger journalists over that period."
I also like this heartfelt comment by his former Sun colleague, Vic Chapple, who said: "Harry was a Fleet Street legend who was professional to his fingertips. He was extraordinarily well-loved and respected by those he worked with."
Legend may be an overworked description, but I think all those who worked with Harry, and in competition with him, would say that he deserves the hyperbole.
He is survived by his wife, Mary, four children and six grandchildren. There is sure to be a memorial service. His funeral will take place at midday on Monday 24 November at St Mary's church, Chilham, Kent. A reception follows at the Woolpack Inn, Chilham.
Sources: Daily Mirror/The Sun/PBS/BBC/GentlemenRanters/Personal knowledge
