Geoffrey Charles, journalist and public relations manager, was born on July 20, 1925. He died on May 7, 2009, aged 83
Geoffrey Charles was motoring correspondent of The Times from 1961 to 1970, and covered all aspects of the industry, from motor racing to road- testing cars, as well as commercial and trade union affairs.
He decided to leave journalism to join Ford of Europe as its public affairs manager. In 1975 he moved to Renault UK as press and public relations manager, a job he held until his retirement 13 years later.
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Charles was born in Ealing, West London, and went to Walpole County Grammar School and then to Pitman’s College of Journalism. His first job was as a reporter on the Middlesex Advertiser but his career was interrupted by the war and he joined the RAF in 1943. He was involved in the D-Day operations, as part of a team setting up a radar station to guide the RAF to their targets. On being demobbed in 1947 he rejoined the Middlesex Advertiser and then moved to the Press Association.
In 1952 he became a parliamentary reporter for The Times, which then had its own room in the Palace of Westminster. On one occasion Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, arrived in the Times room with a copy of a speech and handed it to the nearest reporter, who was Charles.
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Charles was a talented watercolour artist who showed his paintings in a number of exhibitions. He is survived by Stella, his wife of nearly 60 years.
Patricia Newton, journalist, was born on September 10, 1924. She died on April 24, 2009, aged 84
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Patricia Newton (pictured) was the first woman to work as a journalist in the parliamentary press gallery. She was also the first to be allowed back to work after having a baby — thanks to a campaign by Barbara Castle, Edith Summerskill and other female MPs.
Patricia Newton was born in 1924 in Southsea, Hampshire, the daughter of a bandmaster. She was brought up in Weymouth, Dorset, and left school at 14 to train as a secretary before joining the Southern Times. She started submitting stories and soon became a reporter for the paper.
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Newton fed stories to Fleet Street, mostly to the Daily Express, before moving to London to work on a South London paper. She then joined the House of Commons press gallery with what would become the Press Associaton. The overt prejudice was considerable — she was barred from some meetings — but she was twice elected to the parliamentary press gallery committee.
Newton married Joe O’Brien in 1950, and it was when she became pregnant with their first child that she came to public attention. The couple decided that as hers was the better job, she would carry on working and he would bring up the baby. Instead, she was fired on the basis that she should stay at home and bring up her child.
Women MPs, led by Dame Irene Wood and Castle, lobbied forcefully on her behalf. The National Union of Journalists also supported the campaign for her reinstatement. PA re-employed her when the baby was eight months old. When she had a second child in 1961, she was again under threat of dismissal. She left in 1964 to become a government press officer. She worked mainly in the arts for ministers including Jenny Lee and Lord Eccles before retiring in 1984. She was also editor of the Society of Women Writers.
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She is survived by her husband and their son and daughter.
Sir Anthony Hurrell, KCVO, CMG, British Ambassador to Nepal, 1983-86, was born on February 18, 1927. He died on April 19, 2009, aged 82
Sir Anthony Hurrell was British Ambassador in Nepal from 1983 to 1986, appointed to the post, unusually, from outside the ranks of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Anthony Gerald Hurrell was born in Norfolk, the son of a publican, in 1927. At the age of 11 he won a scholarship to Norwich School and in 1945 he went up to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, to read history. After National Service with the Royal Army Educational Corps, he joined the Civil Service and worked in the Ministry of Labour from 1950 to 1953, the Ministry of Education from 1953 to 1964, and from there went to the Ministry of Overseas Development.
In 1969 he spent a sabbatical year as a Fellow at the Centre for International Affairs, Harvard. Then he went to Bangkok as head of the South-East Asia Development Division. In 1976 he was attached to the Cabinet Office as a member of the Central Policy Review Staff. In 1977 the CPRS produced a 442-page report saying, among other things, that some ambassadors should be appointed from outside the Foreign Office. Several years later when Hurrell was approached he mentioned a preference for Nepal. He had made several visits there while in Bangkok. He became Ambassador to Nepal in 1983. Three years later the Queen made an official visit to Kathmandu and stayed in the royal palace. He was greatly surprised to be ushered, with his wife, into the presence of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and he was knighted there and then. On retirement in 1986 Hurrell moved from Essex to the coast of Suffolk, just outside the boundary of the Minsmere bird sanctuary. There on the cliffs of Dunwich he was able to devote his full-time attention to ornithology. This had become a passion since one winter’s day when he was an undergraduate and a rugby match had been called off because of a frozen pitch. To kill time a fellow student took him for a bicycle ride to a sewage works where he was introduced to birdwatching.
His interest was fanned by his commanding officer in Egypt during his army service and by the time he was working in Whitehall his hobby included digging ponds for wildlife. He set up a bird ringing station in the garden of his house, Lapwings, and in 20 years recorded and ringed more than 100 species. It was not unusual
for him to leave the lunch table to check his nets and reappear to show his guests a couple of crossbills cupped in his hands. His stables held the largest breeding colony of swallows in Suffolk.
In 1951 Hurrell married Jean Wyatt, a nurse from Norwich. He is survived by her and by two daughters.