Phil Longman

It's not the sort of thing you'd put a stopwatch on, but I reckon I spent more time chewing the fat on news, radio, politics and BBC management b*ll*cks over the years with Phil Longman than anyone else. So I'm there with hundreds (at a very conservative estimate) who'll be saddened to learn of his death at the age of 67.

Philip Rowland Longman (who knew about the Rowland ?) was a practical, commonsense newsman - practitioner, organiser, editor and mentor. He had a taste for new ideas in journalism, that saw him eschew university for local paper indentures, then move swiftly from subbing at the BBC World Service to reporting at LBC. He patrolled the industrial beat in the late 70s, and was sent to Buenos Aires during the Falklands War.

He joined BBC Radio News as a pool reporter - I first met him when he was sent, on rotation, to Newsbeat, and spent all his time trying to get out of the office and 'do some serious reporting'.  1985 to 1987 saw occasional presentation shifts on The World At One, PM and Today. He fronted Radio 4's News Review of the Year in 1985 and 1987. A semi-pro war historian, he enjoyed a spell covering the Defence Brief.

In a perhaps-surprising career lurch, he then moved to output, becoming an Assistant Editor on Today. He drove their remarkable coverage of the Lockerbie air crash in 1988 - a triumph of editorial drive and news sense over seemingly insurmountable logistical problems. Then followed spells as Home Editor and Assistant Editor in the Radio Newsroom.

In 1993 his credentials made him an obvious choice for spade work on the launch of Radio 5Live. I joined him late in that year - we shared a temporary office at the front of BH with the best, lushest pale green carpet ever seen by either of us.  We listened to tapes, drafted dummy schedules, drank beer and ate big, dribbly sandwiches from Brunel's (now closed).  With the help of Amanda Ashton, we mapped out a biblical recruitment programme, looking for close to 110 staff to run the news programmes.

In the carve of up of continuing roles, Phil got to set up the dedicated news team and the drivetime programme. It was right that he was there at the very start in 1994, with Jane Garvey opening the network at 5.00am for the first Morning Reports.

I got Breakfast, and there was some (mock ?) rivalry with Inverdale Nationwide, where producers enjoyed starting a three hour show with nothing in the running order for the last ninety-minutes. And where the studio team would regularly "slip the pre-fade" if Inverdale was rabbiting on. There was no guarantee that the assertion "It's five o'clock" was accurate.

But Phil the newsman was never happier than when the schedules and timings made way for a big breaking story - Drive got more than its fair share, and did them all with style and professionalism. Phil also got great kicks from finding new talent and giving it a nudge forward.

Phil himself moved up the ladder to executive editor (which he was really anyway) but came back to reporting when he found himself in the 1999 Paddington rail crash. But in general, as more elevated management posts came his way, he was having less fun. He became Head of Production for Continuous News, a barking-mad management construct. And then Managing Editor of the tv teams producing bulletins on BBC1 and BBC2.

For a short time he was The Big Head of Continuous News, but the arrival of another management construct, marginally less barking, enabled him to take the early bath.

Things didn't stop there. He came back in 2002/3 to help with the launch of The Asian Network, working particularly to support the newsteam and the phone-in production operation. In 2003, he was back at LBC, running planning, and organising coverage of the Iraq War.

From 2004, you can still find a number of 'think pieces' he wrote for BBC News Online. He did some journalist training at Bucks New University, and enjoyed helping deliver prescriptions to the housebound and advice at the CAB in his home patch, just outside Reading.

We continued to chew the fat, enjoyably but largely unproductively, until September this year. I'll miss him.