People and Business: Final deadline

BRUCE KINLOCH, who died yesterday, was one of the old school of business journalists.

He started work on the Daily Express just as the Second World War broke out. He knew everyone who has been anyone in newspapers and the world of property for almost 60 years, starting with Lord Beaverbrook and Charles Clore.

Property tycoons loved him because he treated them as real people and was not afraid of them. Some of them were quite afraid of him because he had an endless repertoire of alarming practical jokes.

He once telephoned a colleague who ran a small publishing company and pretended to be a Lincolnshire clergyman and publisher of religious tracts whose copyright had been infringed. He kept the conversation going until his peals of laughter became audible across the room.

His weekly property columns were unique. He was fond of top quality people, mischief and laughter, champagne and cigars. His prize possession was a note signed "I owe Bruce Kinloch pounds 10" signed by Dylan Thomas, whom he met in a Fleet Street pub in the fifties.

Our sympathies go to his widow Madeleine and their four children.