Brian Hanrahan

Many inside and outside the BBC will be shocked today by the news of the death of Brian Hanrahan, at the age of 61. There are, and will be, plenty of tributes to his straightforward and commonsense reporting - so I'll remember the days when he was a sub in the TV Newsroom.

In the early seventies the Newsroom was home to more "characters" than the most challenging Tim Robbins' fantasy. Duty editors with eye-patches, dapper producers in crisp pink shirts and cavalry twill, bearded fixers with arms like Bluto, languid reporters with minor public school drawls, and Brian.  Conscientious, reliable and, in the days when developing film still meant pictures were two to four hours behind events, fast.

We met when I was a news trainee, and allowed to make a film to mark the end of my formal tv training. The only problem was that I had to film on a Sunday.  I choose to visit the Royal Horticultural Halls for the semi-final stages of a competition to find Britain's best sausage. On arrival, my allotted cameraman, Derek, took over - and filmed away with relish, getting close-ups of the judges' prodding, chewing and muttering, from long distance with available light.  Derek, I learned later, was a sound-man desperate to be appointed as a cameraman.  After a couple of hours, we parted; I went home, and Derek took to the rushes back to TVC.

In the morning, I was expecting to rise leisurely, come in and try to stitch together a package to show to my trainer, Ivor Yorke, and fellow trainees.  Instead, Brian Hanrahan rang; the duty editor of the Nine O'Clock News had seen the bits of film that were to hand, and wanted the story for that Monday night. I was dispatched with a different crew to get the remaining shots necessary - the final winner.  But Brian said, don't overdo it - it's the pictures we've already got we want.  I revisited the Halls with a little more swagger in my stride, elbowed out some minor celebrities who were presenting the prizes, asked the winner what made his sausage special - and got a nice shot of all the failed entries - hundreds of pounds of cooked and uncooked snarlers - heading for skips and a journey back, probably, to pig-land.

Was I needed back at base to voice the film ?  Unsurprisingly, and with Brian's sensible judgement, no. The Nine was no place for the combination of an odd film, and a trainee's new and unmusical delivery.   So I retired to my flat in Greencroft Gardens, and thence to a pub with tv and chums, to watch the bulletin.  Richard Baker introduced the two and half minute film with the words "And now for something completely different", and Brian had produced an elegant, slice-of-life, but longer-than-usual newsreel package. The pictures told the story, apart from a few deft pointers Brian had scripted.

I got to crow over fellow trainees, including auteurs like Tony Hall, Tom Gutteridge and Simon Berthon. Derek got his promotion to cameraman.  Brian, when I returned to the newsroom for an attachment, was a chief sub.