Long-serving journalist ‘witty and gregarious’

Andrea, Hayley & Jordan xxx A man who covered war and unrest as part of a career in newspapers has died.

Robin Stafford, who lived in Goudhurst for 24 years, was a foreign correspondent for the Daily Express for two decades before becoming the spokesman for Lord Carrington when he was Nato Secretary General.

Variously based for the Express in Paris, Rome, Beirut, New York and Moscow, he kept a suitcase permanently packed in order to leave at once to cover events in surrounding countries – usually wars and conflict.

Born in Wimbledon in 1930, he was evacuated during the war to Oxford, where his father, Frederick, became the artistic director of the New Theatre.

Educated at Eastbourne College, he was awarded a scholarship to Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, but opted to do military service first. He was drafted into the artillery, but soon transferred to the Intelligence Corps.

He spoke good French, but was posted to Italianspeaking Eritrea and later moved to Paris to live with his sister.

He filled in as a night desk man for the Daily Express, but an insightful story he wrote on the French war against the Viet Minh brought him to the attention of the London desk and he was offered a staff job.

His first war coverage was in Algeria, where there was vicious street fighting. Wars, disasters, plane crashes, coups d’etat, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, murders and assassinations all followed.

Robin Stafford married twice – first to Marilyn Gerson in 1956. They had a daughter, Lina. The marriage was later dissolved.

In 1974 he married Barbara Harrison, to whom he was still happily wed at his death on November 25. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for the past three years, but died of pneumonia in the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury. He was 86.

Mr Stafford was described by friends as witty and gregarious with an inexhaustible store of anecdotes from his adventures.

There will be a celebration of his life in Goudhurst Parish Hall on Friday, December 16, from 2.30pm.