George Wolsey. a senior duty editor in the Radio Newsroom for many years, has died.  It's understood he had been ill for some time after suffering a stroke.  The funeral will be at Woodvale Crematorium, Brighton, at 2.15 pm on Monday January 7.

This tribute to George was read out at his funeral by one of his four daughters, Jane:

"Thank you all very much for coming.

My Dad was born in Portadown in 1920.  He had a younger brother, Willie, and a younger sister, Molly.

His first job was on his father's newspaper, The Portadown Times, followed by the Belfast Newsletter.  Later he moved to London where he worked for the Press Association.  He joined BBC Radio in 1954 where he met my mother.  He was immediately smitten and proposed after only two months.

He had a long career in the BBC radio newsroom.  He was so popular there that they arranged a special football match for his retirement - northerners versus southerners.  The then editor of BBC Radio News, John Wilson, wrote at the time:  "When George left us we lost our nicest man.  No one can remember him ever losing his temper, ever speaking ill of anyone or raising his voice."

John Simpson, now the BBC's World Affairs Editor, wrote in my dad's retirement book:  "From my first day as a half-pay sub, George, you were kindness and helpfulness itself.  There have been plenty of other things I've been grateful to you for, over the years (on one occasion you persuaded me not to resign!) but I shan't forget how kind you were in those early stages."

My dad was a great father and a real family man who had no vices - he was teetotal all his life and didn't even eat chocolate.  His hobbies included watching cricket, listening to his extensive record collection and doing the Telegraph crossword.  He took great pleasure in any small achievements by his family and particularly in his eldest grand-daughter, Laura, gaining a place at Cambridge University.  He will be very much missed by all of us."

As previously stated, George was widely admired for his writing style.  This is an example taken from 1975.  It's a written obituary of P G Wodehouse and it was described by the then-Editor of Radio News, Peter Woon, as a masterpiece of writing for radio:

"The world of Jeeves, and Wooster, and Blandings Castle, will be no more.  Pelham Grenville Wodehouse - who created them and wrote about them for 60 years - has died in New York, less than two months after being knighted by the Queen in the New Year's honours.  He was 93. It was during the First World War that Wodehouse invented his gallery of ancient aristocrats, scatter-brained young men, beautiful girls and outraged aunts.  There was Lord Emsworth (with his prize pig); there was the amiable, innocent Bertie Wooster; and there was the immortal Jeeves, the immaculate, unflappable gentlemen's gentleman who came to Bertie's rescue at every turn.  In an interview last year, Wodehouse told how he got the name "Jeeves":
WODEHOUSE ACT:  "I was staying with my people at...they were living in Cheltenham then.  Warwickshire came to play Gloucestershire at cricket and I saw this fellow bowling, this fellow Jeeves, and years afterwards the name came back to me when I wanted a name for Jeeves and the Warwickshire cricket club have given me sort of honorary membership as a reward for it."
Wodehouse was in France when it was overrun by the Nazis.  He was taken to a hotel in Berlin, and he gave a series of short-wave broadcasts about his experiences as a British civilian under detention.  The broadcasts gave his German captors credit for some humanity.  They contained no political references.  But charges of collaboration were made against him in Britain.  They've since been widely recognised as absurd.  But Wodehouse never returned to Britain.  And it was only with his knighthood last month that he felt the slur had been lifted from his name.

(Thanks to Stephen Mitchell for providing this example of George's writing.)