Bamber was the first real friend I made at the BBC Monitoring Service. We had a great time together sharing many interests especially sporting interests. We played squash, golf and tennis regularly and he was the most competitive animal I ever came across. He was clever too. He adapted his game to his talents and when playing against flashy opponents like myself he just kept the ball in play and let us make all the mistakes so he invariably won. It was most frustrating. A little like playing against Terry Thomas. He even adopted the "hard cheese" comment when you hit an easy shot into the net, onto the tin or out-of-bounds. But in the end, it was always great fun. He introduced me into the heart of his family and I spent many a long hour with him, Lala ( aka "Jadranka-my-wine) and the girls. I was touched and honoured to be asked to be Branka's (aka "Flangs") godfather. (Don't know if it did her much good but I was very proud of having such a beautiful god-daughter). We went out separate career ways first when John took his family to Nairobi to work at the Monitoring station there) and on his return when he went to Bush House and I to BH. We met up occasionally. We were in Brighton together the night the IRA almost blew up Mrs Thatcher. He was reporting for WS news bulletins. I was writing summaries for use on Radios 1 and 2. I managed to slip him the latest developments as they happened. He was a one-man operation for the WS. BH newsroom had about 10 people down in Brighton. John was heard by millions around the world. We would have been lucky to exceed 500k! I saw him last in Fuengirola the summer before last when Sonia and I stayed with him for a couple of days and I stayed on for a few more. Despite everything he had suffered physically he remained a wonderfully cheerful and funny guy to be with. Tim Cabral drove over from Lisbon to spend a weekend with us and the anecdotes kept flowing for the two days we were together. What touched me most though we to see the stuffed baby crocodile that John still had on his bookshelves. We bought that together in an antiques shop on Reading in 1975. I was something of a junk collector at the time and persuaded him (in jest) that that little crocodile might someday be worth a fortune. Obviously John was still waiting for the best time to cash in on his investment! I loved him dearly!