This page is a space for family and friends to share memories and stories about Kevin – husband, father, journalist, friend and colleague. To add your comment, just scroll to the bottom and fill in your name and email address, and write your comment, under ‘Leave a reply’. It will be posted up as soon as possible.
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I knew Kevin as an intelligent, warm, funny confrere who seemed to be bursting with optimism even when facing the certainty that his illness would soon kill him.
My deep unhappiness at his death is mitigated by the powerful memory, which will stay with me forever, not only of our social encounters in Paris but of the email exchanges in recent months which revealed a man of so many qualities that it is surely a crime that the world is now deprived of them.
I will really enjoy reading all the memories about Kevin that appear on this website.
Kevin was a good friend for 25 years, we both met at university, studied the same course and I was his best man when Ailsa and Kevin married. They were close from the word go and that never diminished; I have always admired how Kevin and Ailsa were one, yet still maintained very strong and different personalities which has always given them the grit to make married life interesting, loving and fulfilled, well that is how it seemed to work for them and how I have understood it. I always enjoyed our time together and catching up, though we did not meet up so often. I was glad to have visited Kevin and Ailsa in Hong Kong and Paris in March, when Kevin was in hospital. I still feel very sad even though I know how Kevin wanted us to remember him. He was a lovley guy whose joy was his wife, his children and his work. Ailsa, Sophie and Tristan helped us all to keep his memory alive at Kevin’s poignant funeral service.
There are so many things I remember about Kevin that I can only just share four trivial ones:
* his disco dancing style with joined hands
* his trademark slip on pumps at uni
* the red, white and blue bulbs in his light fitting at our shared flat second year of uni
* he and I celebrating my 21st birthday in Switzerland
I had the pleasure of working with Kevin for a year and a half in Berlin, the last time he was writing his own stories for AFP every day, and I’m honored to say we became close friends during that time. I always thought it was a shame that as he took on more responsibility, in Paris and later in Hong Kong, we were all deprived of reading him regularly. He had a wicked sense of humor that shined in his offbeats and a gift for brevity, subtlety, precision and sensitivity that marked his features and scheds. I wish I could say I learned all he had to teach me.
This is just one sample that sticks in my memory:
Out of service, the magic of Concorde lives on
by Kevin McElderry
SINSHEIM, Germany, Nov 6 (AFP) – Every now and again a discreet request is passed up the line at the Sinsheim transport museum in Germany and a member of staff quietly opens a door to the world’s most famous aircraft.
Its unmistakable silhouette no longer points to the heavens, its glinting, delta-shaped wings will never again shudder with such raw power, but there is no denying the grandeur of Concorde.
The supersonic plane, sold to this museum in western Germany for a symbolic one euro, is not yet accessible to the public.
But for some, there are exceptions.
Relatives of victims of the Concorde disaster in Paris in July 2000, which effectively marked the end of the world’s only successful supersonic airliner, often come here to remember their loved ones.
“Mostly they know exactly where their relatives were sitting, which seats, on that plane,” said Holger Hamann, a technician at Sinsheim.
“They want to sit there too for a while, on their own, quietly. It’s their five minutes of grieving.”
He was a kind, funny, gentle and wise old soul and I’ll miss him terribly. My only comfort right now is knowing how much of Kevin lives on in those amazing kids, Sophie and Tristan, and that he had a partner like Ailsa to the last.
Apologies to Colin for lifting this from his site. However, it was so touching and made me smile, that I wanted to be able to re-read it here and to share it as it underpins various aspects of Kevin.
By Colin Randall
The death of a reporter is rarely treated as a major event, and perhaps rightly so.
While some of us believe reporting to be an important and worthwhile function of democratic society, whatever lapses from taste, decency and proportion occasionally occur, we still accept that reporters should, by and large, bring the news, not make it.
Yet I make no apology for using Salut! from time to time to pay homage to fellow practitioners who have died.
At or about the time that an intellectually challenged individual, someone who happens to support Newcastle United football team, was posting mindless abuse at my football site (because it is devoted to Newcastle’s great rivals, Sunderland), another fan of that club was breathing his last.
It struck me that while Kevin entered cheerfully into the more good-natured form of the banter that passes between each side of the Wear/Tyne divide, he would also have been contemptuous of the idiot posting his odious messages at Salut! Sunderland.
But my reflections on the chalk-and-cheese nature of these two individuals did not provide the main inspiration for the decision to write a few lines of tribute. I was motivated more by my failure to find much mention of his death online (despite my acknowledgement that reporters should generally be relatively anonymous craftsmen and women).
AFP did put out a short news item which I found at the Expatica site. It read in part:
McElderry, one of the agency’s finest writers and editors, was the Hong Kong-based news editor and deputy editor-in-chief for the Asia-Pacific region for three years from 2006.
McElderry previously worked in AFP’s London and Berlin bureaus and was the deputy head of the English desk in Paris from 2004 to 2006.
He was known in the agency for his great writing style, kindness and sense of humour. He also had the rare ability to keep reporters happy while entirely recasting their copy.
After continuing to work during his treatment, he even insisted on working a shift or more a week in the office, or at home, on his return to Paris last year, by which time it was clear his illness was beyond cure or even control. He died at home in Saint-Germain-en-Laye last week.
Kevin was born in Nigeria but brought up in Enniskillen, and no one would have taken him for anything other than an Ulsterman. We talked quite regularly when he was a member of the reporting team at North News and Pictures, a news agency based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Our paths then crossed again in Paris.
A mutual friend, Martin Emmerson, ex-North News, now at BBC Radio Newcastle had put us in touch again and we met for drinks after work one evening, on the right bank of the Seine near the City Hall, and then, with our wives, for a meal near the Opera that Ailsa remembrs as Thai and I thought had been Vietnamese. (You are right!).
Kevin and Ailsa also came at least once to the magnificent flat The Daily Telegraph, in those grander days, with its view stretching from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower.
It was from Martin, again, that I heard a few months ago how ill Kevin was. We had a couple of e-mail exchanges which, as I have described in a message at Expatica, demonstrated such stoicism and humour that I found them seriously uplifting.
In the first, in April, Kevin spoke of “looking forward to the race for northeast supremacy next season”, Newcastle of course having been promoted back to the Premier league, and told me a little, without hint of self-pity, about his condition.
“Was diagnosed middle of summer 2008 while in Hong Kong, a year of ops and treatment there didn’t clear it up so returned to Paris last summer to see what the French can do. Unfortunately it’s invaded the liver and aortic lymph nodes as well as the stomach so that it’s neither operable nor curable, plus I apparently have an annoying gene anomoly which has scuppered the conventional treatments. Anyway, it’s gone too far too quickly, so the oncologists are muttering about just trying to squeeze an extra few months out. We’ll see. The oddity is that I feel fine, no pain that can’t be managed etc. Had a little scare a month ago after a gastro which nearly did for me, otherwise am up and about around house, outside too sometimes, watching kids grow up etc.”
Only five weeks before his death, Kevin gave me his assessment of the way the World Cup had been going and expressed his paternal dismay that his 10-year-old son, Tristan, had developed such an affection for Liverpool FC that he had written a three-page application for the manager’s position, then vacant.
The medical news was not great, but nor was it so grim as to give the impression that the disease was about to enter its savage final phase. Kevin was, as usual, approaching each day with his glass half full.
My thoughts are with Ailsa, and with Tristan and his sister Sophie. But I cannot improve on Martin Emerson’s words about Kevin: “One of the nicest lads I’ve ever known.”
It’s quite a few years since Kevin and I worked at North News and Pictures. It wasn’t quite foot-in-the-door stuff but it wasn’t far off at times. It was great grounding for a jounrlist though and always a very busy office because we were always so stretched people-wise.
He was a lovely lad, despite the NUFC thing that I still can’t understand. In fact, he was possilbly too nice to be a journalist, but seemed to enjoy success and that is probably because people warmed to him so much.
I visited Kevin and Ailsa in Paris in the summer of 1996, just after a visit to see the Tour de France with my dad. I will upload the other pictures I have of him from the top of the Eiffel Tower at some point soon (already done it once and then deleted them accidentally.) The picture I am posting is from somewhere in the mid to early 90s, of two fresh-faced lads enjoying a beer at a party, possibly my ex girlfriend’s. Kev is the older one on the left, looking a bit camp – if you ask me – probably the drink.
After Paris 1996 I next saw him in June 2004 in Berlin. A chance meeting and we kept in touch since then. One of the nicest lads I have ever known and he will be a real miss.
We knew Kevin in the Dhaka bureau even before we met him as the “Great KM”. This was because of the wonderful notes he used to send from Paris asking for sched lines. (I was able to tell Kevin this later.)
After a while we started to ask “who is this ‘KM’? ” somewhere thousands of miles away, single handedly cheering up the whole of Asia every day with his cheery notes.
When “Kevin McElderry” arrived in Hong Kong it took a while but we finally made the link with KM, prompting my colleague Shafiq (Alam) to tell me excitedly “It’s the great KM. It’s the great KM!”
It was good news indeed and we enjoyed more notes as well as pleasure of working with him.
In addition to his lovely personality I will also remember Kevin with great admiration for his professionalism and for the inspiring way he dealt with this cruel disease.
A message sent by AFP’s regional director for Asia to colleagues on July 22.
To all of you who have not heard the news, our dear friend and colleague Kevin passed away in his sleep last night.
I received a message from Ailsa this morning saying that ‘he is out of suffering now.’
It’s hard to put in words how courageous Kevin was during the two years of his illness.
His cancer was already at an advanced stage when it was diagnosed, but his sheer determination made us all feel that he would beat it. He was treated first in Hong Kong, and it was only when they ran out of options here that he moved back to Paris. His spirit was incredible, and carried us all along with him.
Apart from his most important role, as a wonderful husband and father, and a great professional and friend, his legacy will be one of giving hope to those whose life suddenly changes and who face seemingly unbeatable odds.
Kevin’s example gave me strength in my own personal situation.
He did not beat his illness, but with his spirit he mastered it in his own way, and died as anybody would wish, at home, with his family, and in peace.
The strange thing for us as his colleagues in Hong Kong was that he never looked sick, even when he was doing his chemotherapy. He continued working, not because we asked him to, but because he wanted to.
He had cancer, but first of all he had his job and his family and he stayed focused on these two key parts of his life.
I remember about a year or so ago he got terribly sick with pneumonia and septicemia and we all thought he had reached the end. After two weeks or so in intensive care he finally returned home on the Tuesday or the Wednesay if I remember well – and announced he wanted to start working again more or less immediately and on top of that insited on coming to Marc Carnegie’s farewell drinks on the Friday night.
For once I put my foot down – apart from anything else this was in the middle of the swine ‘flu epîdemic – and told him he could not come to the office. Phil and I had to visit him at their apartment in Bel Air, Pokfulam, with the container ships gliding past the window as they headed to the port of Hong Kong, to tell him he wasn’t allowed to come to the office for his own good. He took it well, then sent off e-mails saying he was pissed off because Wishart had ‘banned’ him from the office. I still laugh when I think about it.
Eventually he came back, after bugging us non-stop, and of course worked as professionally and efficiently as ever. And he did grudgingly admit that maybe the break had done him some good.
Kevin and the family came over to our flat the day before they left for Paris, with Phil and Debbie Chetwynd and Susan Stumme. It was like any lazy weekend afternoon, and I still remember at the end of the day Phil, Kevin and I sat together talking just like old times. He looked like the same old Kevin, except that for our dear friend the clock was ticking and we all knew it.
The last time I saw him was at the end of June, when he had just come home from hospital. The eyes were yellow and the tummy bloated, and he was dutifully pulling his intravenous drip around the room after him, but it was still the same Kevin. I spent two hours with him, as the kids came in and out, and Ailsa showed the bravery that she has done too throughout this ordeal.
We hugged when I left, had a final guess on who would win the World Cup, and I said I’d see him in October.
Alas, it was not to be.
Rest in peace, my friend.
Comme de nombreux autres collègues, je suis très attristé d’apprendre le décès de Kevin, un grand journaliste qui a contribué à renforcer la réputation de l’AFP, notamment en Asie.
Alors que j’étais à Bangkok (2005-2009), il a souvent apporté depuis Hong Kong un appui décisif aux équipes sur le terrain, en particulier pendant les longues crises thaïlandaise et birmane. Kevin avait un sens aigü de l’information et, avec son style d’écriture à la fois incisif et rigoureux, il avait le don de transformer des phrases parfois prudentes et ternes en leads pertinents et percutants.
J’avais eu le plaisir de rencontrer l’épouse de Kevin avec leurs enfants à Bangkok.
René Slama
I will always cherish a memory of Kevin, distilled in a simple moment, when he was about to leave Rome after his stellar contribution to the coverage of the death of John Paul II. As our team began going our separate ways, he sought me out, just to say goodbye. So sweet. I think that’s the last time I saw him.
I fondly remember Kevin in Hong Kong for his calmness, his rueful acceptance of rugby injuries, his weakness for a bucket of KFC on Sundays, and his supremely clear writing style.
Kevin McElderry, or Dad, as I knew him, was a great help in helping me with my maths homework, and even when I got the answers wrong time and again, he never got uptight. His patience was endless: it puts mine to shame.
His point of view of the world was an example to us all: “a ray of sunshine”, as Tristan puts it. He was never down-hearted, and took life and all its good things for granted: instead of turning up like a bad penny, he came as a good, shiny and newly minted polished gold coin.
I remember how, for homework, I had to write a journalistic piece on the three little pigs. Dad helped me with it, giving me important pieces of advice, and by the time we had finished, I was proud of my little journalistic effort. He brought out the best in people, and instead of saying, “This is rubbish, go away and start again”, he’d go over it, improving it as he could, without hurting the journalist’s feelings. So many times he’s helped us, and I wish I could, somehow, pay him back.
Kevin’s death so young is one of life’s terrible injustices. And his amazing courage and determination throughout his battle with cancer was an extraordinary lesson in life.
Everyone who worked with him will miss his kindness, his steady smile, his wry sense of humour, his intelligence, his unshakeable calm, his journalistic eye. My heart goes out to Ailsa and his children.
Dear Ailsa,
Kevin was one of the finest people I have known – a superb journalist and a gentle, generous and amusing companion. I will miss him badly.
Sylvie, Marina and I are thinking of you, Tristan and Sophie.
Robert
Dear Ailsa,
Words alone cannot possibly explain how sorry I am for your loss. Kevin was always a joy to work with. His arrival in the morning when I was on the early shift immediately brightened up the room. He was always on top of the job, chipped in with suggestions when I missed something and was forgiving when I slipped up. But perhaps most of all his bravery in the face of his illness was a source of inspiration that will last with me always. I felt embarrassed when he came to visit me in hospital last year. Here was someone who still found the time to care about others when he himself was going through far worse. He was an
inspiring colleague, a good friend and one of the most courageous people I expect I’ll ever meet. I feel honoured to have known him and feel so deeply for your loss.
With fondest regards,
James
Dear Ailsa,
I don’t believe we ever met when I was posted on the English desk in Paris but I worked with Kevin for a number of years and wanted to convey my deepest sympathy.
I believe Kevin started working at AFP around the same time as I did (in 1993) and I was always struck by his kindness and professionalism. He never bad-mouthed his colleagues, always spoke gently and was overall a great guy. He will be sorely missed among his colleagues.
Please give a big hug to both your kids and a big hug to you also. My thoughts are with you,
Jocelyne
Dear Ailsa and family,
I simply want to add one more tribute to those — richly, richly deserved — that Kevin has already received from his saddened colleagues.
I worked with Kevin covering a summit meeting in 2006 in Saint Petersburg, where he was the embodiment of grace –and good humor — under pressure. It was a pleasure to know him and we are all of us poorer for his passing. Stay strong ….
Nathaniel Harrison
Kevin was of course the consummate journalist. A lover of words and stories, with an uncanny ability to weave an amazing yarn out of the most commonplace of tales. His story about the items abandoned to the deep recesses of London Underground’s Lost and Found department was the funniest thing I think I have ever read on the AFP wire.
But it is Kevin the father and family man, whom I remember the most. Handing out plates of cake at his daughter’s birthday party, wiping off a scraped knee on an afternoon bike ride through St Germain-en-Laye, pleased as punch when I handed over an invitation to a British embassy do so he could take Ailsa as a surprise treat.
Shortly after Kevin arrived in Paris from Berlin to take up his post as deputy head of the English desk, he and the family came to lunch at our house. It was one of those perfect, golden afternoons at the end of the summer.
The adults sat outside chatting, and drinking, while the kids took themselves off to play at dressing-up. We could hear shrieks of laughter floating from the upstairs windows and when they all came back my daughter, Sophie and Tristan were all dressed in pink Princesses dresses. Kevin never batted an eyelid, just laughed as the three twirled around like whirling dervishes giddy with delight. It was a lazy, fun afternoon. Ailsa and Kevin gently bantering, as she chided him for not yet having hung up the curtains in their new flat, and Kevin good-naturedly taking it on the chin.
As the sun wore off, we wrapped ourselves in coats and blankets, none of us wanting the afternoon to end. Years later Kevin was diagnosed with cancer. And battled his illness with incredible courage and dignity.
But I look back now and remember Kevin then sitting in a plastic garden chair, a man at peace with his world, surrounded by his family. Utterly content. Cracking jokes, swapping stories and sharing the craic. That’s the Kevin I remember. One of the gentlest, kindest people I have ever met. A father, a family man, a colleague and a friend. We miss you greatly.
Ailsa, Sophie and Tristan,
This is just a short message to tell you that my thoughts are with you, as I know are those of many, many people both within AFP and outside the agency. I feel blessed to have known Kevin and to have worked with him for the past few years. He was one of the best and nicest bosses I’ve ever worked with in journalism.
I’ll never forget the fun we had when Kevin, Susan and I worked side by side for a week during an Asia-Pacific summit in Hanoi. It was a fairly hectic and yet tedious event to cover, but somehow working alongside Kevin made it enjoyable and memorable.
I can’t begin to express my admiration for the courage he would show later in dealing with his terrible illness.
Kevin will be very, very dearly missed by all who have had the honour to know him, but surely by no-one more than his family, who have had to share his suffering. I know it sounds trite, but in this case it’s true, and is a phrase that keeps popping into my mind when I think of Kevin: the good die young. I wish all of you all the strength you will need in the time to come.
Frank
I remember you, old friend. We started work for AFP at the same time, spring 1995, both keen, young and a bit clueless. Both on short-term contracts that were rolled over every couple of months, due to the boundless generosity of the agency. Junior desk boys on the 3-10 shift, learning the ropes and longing for breaks when we could raid the chocolate machine and pore over the British papers for news of our teams. No internet back then.
It was like being at school together: we learned that Italians have many elections, Africa has coups and Paris is a difficult place to meet Parisians. We learned where Bosnia was, and followed each other out there. You did Goma, I believe, I did Jerusalem. You had four years on me, a wife and a plan. I would never admit it, but you were something of a role model.
Football was a common denominator. Not just premiership matches in the English pubs (remember that epic Liverpool 4-3 Newcastle game?). But out on the pitch, Sunday mornings on mudflats somewhere southeast of Paris, Monday night five-a-side in Brixton.
You were a sturdy fullback, right footed, better than me in the air and often sporting a pair of Ireland-green shorts that were frankly too short.
I found us a summer game in the armpit of Wandsworth with Hunter from Gladiators and a bloke who you said looked like Pete Postlethwaite. We played for hours until we couldn’t see the ball for the dusk. Near the end, you wrote to tell me that you could “barely run out of the six-yard box these days” (i may have got the quotes wrong…). Plus ca change…
We were the two anglo expats in the London bureau, you doing news, me business. You said you didn’t much care for economics, but had a natural instinct for the Fleet Street sandwich market and were good at scoping out bargains.
You were always asking me what the euro was doing. You had kids by then. I wondered what all the fuss was about. I found out. Having kids and working is a tough double-act. But you made it look easy. Like I say, you are a role model.
I moved out and you moved up. Packed up the family and headed overseas, Paris I think, or Berlin. We had a Richmond Park picnic to see you off. Then you put the kids in the Volvo and said something like toodlepip.
Others have commented eloquently on your dignity in facing up to things. A mutual friend wrote to express amazement that your sense of humour never dimmed. That’s the Kevin I will always remember. Your courage inspires us all, those of us timidly tiptoeing about as if we’re afraid of our own lives. A role model indeed.
Toodlepip, old friend.
Dear Ailsa,
We had all hoped and prayed for so long that this would never come, even if we had reluctantly begun to expect the worst. I know nothing could possibly fill the void created by Kevin’s passing, but I also hope very much that there is a measure of relief in the knowledge that his suffering is over and that he left us peacefully with an ocean-swell of love and support from friends around the world.
Your husband was quite simply a wonderful man, solid as a rock, loyal, generous and extremely funny. If you were facing adversity or crisis — manning The Alamo or scrambling off the Titanic — I could think of no better wing-man to have by your side. I know it has been said many times before, but we have all been truly humbled by his stubborn courage over the past two years. We have also marvelled at your ability to hold your wonderful family together in such trying circumstances. We send you, Tristan and Sophie all our love and strength at this difficult time.
Much love, Phil, Debi + Zadie
Ailsa
We were so sorry to hear about Kevin’s passing. Our thoughts and condolences are with you and your children. Kevin was the best thing about AFP’s Hong Kong desk, and made turning up there every day so much fun, even when we were snowed under a mountain of stories. We will miss him terribly and will remember the good times.
Trudy and Sunil.
La dernière image que je garderai de Kevin c’est un déjeuner que nous avons eu ensemble à la cantine du siège, où son enthousiasme et son oeil pétillant avaient réussi à me faire oublier la tristesse du lieu et ce qu’il y avait dans nos assiettes.
Il me semblait que la maladie n’avait rien enlevé à sa joie de vivre et que sa confiance en l’avenir était intacte. Il semblait très fier de la voiture familiale qu’il venait d’acquérir et de voir que les enfants poussaient bien.
Une blague ou deux sur l’humour allemand (ou disons plutôt les grandes spécificités de l’humour allemand, ça l’a toujours intrigué je crois…) et je retrouvais notre Kevin, celui que nous avions au fond à droite près de la fenêtre, je veux dire chez les anglos à Berlin.
Mais surtout, en pleine grisaille parisienne ce midi-là à la cantine, c’était lui qui, malgré la maladie, m’encourageait, moi l’insatisfait. Lui qui tentait de me montrer toutes les raisons que j’avais de ne pas être trop malheureux dans la vie.
Je suis sûr que ses enfants garderont cela de lui et qu’il pourra être fier d’eux!
Bien à toi, Kevin
Fabien
Hi Ailsa
My name’s Giles. We met once, quite a long way back. For a drink in a bar in Paris with Kevin and, I think, Lachlan Carmichael. If I remember right, we found we were both fans of the Archers and were all set for a fascinating discussion of things Ambridge, but Kevin said he would rather watch paint dry.
Kevin and I joined AFP around the same time and our paths crossed regularly since then. He was always wonderful company. Warm, sharp and just very, very funny. I saw him only once after he had been diagnosed and was amazed, though somehow unsurprised, by how he was still the same wry, amused and amusingly gossipy man that everyone in the agency knew, loved and respected.
He will be deeply, profoundly missed by a lot of people as will be evident from the number of messages like this one that I am sure you have received since the news of his death. I can’t make the funeral on Tuesday, but I can promise that glasses will be raised and memories shared in Delhi — and doubtless many other cities – of a fantastic friend and colleague.
Wishing you, Sophie and Tristan every possible peace, comfort and happiness for the future.
Giles
I hardly knew him but had heard about his great reputation when I arrived at AFP in Hong Kong.
I wanted to meet the person face to face and invited him for a TripleO burger. As he said: “Let’s not be shy. Let’s go to the fastest food place in HK”.
We shared this very simple moment and I discovered how humble he was, very focused and passionate about his work.
He will be always there, somehow, in everyone’s memory.
Wishing all the best to his family,
Nicolas
Working with Kevin for 10 years was an honor and a privilege — through his stints as a correspondent in London and Berlin, when I was editing his beautifully written stories on the desk, to his time in Paris and Hong Kong as my boss and friend.
I met Kevin in person for the first time at a G8 summit in France. He wrote a hilarious brief about the gut-wrenching journey we took each morning down the mountain to the press centre and then back up again at night.
As he moved up the ladder at AFP, I thought it was a shame he did not have time to do more writing.
We did summit duty again together — APEC this time, in Vietnam. At that meeting and in the years that we sat together on the desk in Hong Kong, I was always amazed at Kevin’s ability to churn out mountains of copy, no matter how heavy the workload, and remain totally calm.
I will fondly remember having a gossip with Kevin, in the cheap Chinese restaurants near AFP’s headquarters in Paris or over a kebab in the Hong Kong office. Kevin loved having a work gossip.
He also offered me some great advice during those chats and via email; I’ve re-read those emails in the past few months, and am glad I have them.
Kevin’s bravery in the face of cancer was remarkable. It will stay with me always. I miss him.
Ailsa, Sophie and Tristan: I am so sorry for your loss. Thinking of you often.
Dear Ailsa,
I had the chance to work with Kevin from Hanoi, for too short a time. He had this very rare quality of being a fantastic listener, working with him was always smooth, easy, and very efficient. I only had rare occasions of seeing him outside work, once actually during an Apec summit in Sydney, but I remember the nice breaks we had there with him and his sense of humour.
We have lost someone precious. And I deeply regret not to have had more opportunities to work with Kevin, to know him better.
Warmest regards, Aude Genet, Hanoi
Ailsa
I got to know Kevin and you during his time in Rostock, and somehow we kept in touch for many years – I am very, very grateful for this.
I still cannot believe that he no longer with us.
Warmest regards, Ingrid
Es bleibt immer noch unglaublich aber ist doch wahr.
Vielen Dank fur deine Freundschaft wahrend unserer Zeit in der DDR und in Frankreich und Berlin nach der Wende.
Ailsa
^
Dear Ailsa, Sophie and Tristan,
Perhaps it was Christmas and the dawning of a New Year but all of a sudden I thought of Kevin today and I wanted to say a few words about him.
Journalism is a rough business – sometimes too rough – with logic and fair-mindedness not always a preserve of those who hold the control. It is in this regard that, for me, Kevin was such an outstanding man. He had a kindness that made you do anything he asked of you and to let him down was unthinkable. I remember one day on the desk when I made a big mistake and Kevin stepped in and took the weight off my shoulders. I spent weeks apologising to him because I felt so guilty. To him it was nothing. To me it was leadership and I have tried to follow his example ever since.
Around a week before I left for Baghdad in January 2009 we had lunch at a little Italian place near AFP’s Hong Kong office. By this time he could not drink wine because of his treatment but he was in tremendous spirits and was generous in his advice. He gave a very moving speech a little later at my leaving do and I gave a very drunken reply which I am sure made no sense to the few people who were listening. I left Hong Kong thinking that he would beat this terrible disease and my heart sank a few months later when I learned by email that the cancer had returned. Even then it seemed hard to comprehend the pain he was going through, such was his determination. We exchanged emails and the last one I recall was about a feature from Baghdad that he was keen to give “prime billing” on the Sunday advisory so the story would have a chance of a good show around the world. His enthusiasm never diminished and it was inspiring.
But that was work. As a person Kevin taught me that it is possible to be a good boss and a good man at the same time. At the end of the day work is a job and it was clear to everyone who met Kevin that his priority in life was his family, whether it be a short phone call from the desk to Sophie or Tristan to check that they were ok, or a social occasion with you by his side. I hope this first Christmas without him has not been unbearable for you all. Kevin had so many friends and they all miss him terribly. I think of him often and I will never forget him.
Love and best wishes,
Arthur
It was with much sadness that I learnt only this week of Kevin McElderry’s death.
I had not seen him since our school days at Portora in Enniskillen until we met briefly last Easter Sunday morning at church in County Fermanagh when we both back in Northern Ireland. We spoke in the doorway exchanging pleasanteries and briefly updating each other on the last 20 odd years. I was aware that he had been ill but had no inkling that he was so unwell.
It is obvious from a quick on-line search that he had achieved a great deal in a short life and that his pleasant and agreeable character shines through from many accounts.
I cannot say I knew him very well and wish that I had known him better.
I want to express my sympathy to his family in Fermanagh and further afield and in particular to his wife and children.
Gary
Thank you very much for your kind comments.
Kevin remained the same person all the twenty-five years we were together (having met at university at the age of 18) to the very end and died peacefully here at home with us as he wished.
He enjoyed his days at Portora and regaled us with his tales of scrapes and memorable teachers.
I also recall the chats over the years; catching up outside the church on visits back to Fermanagh, punctuated as they usually were by shivering in the rain or being blown about by the cutting wind: nonetheless enjoyable.
He would be touched to know that you took the time to comment as he was so self-effacing in spite of his popularity.