Miles Kington was the first journalist I ever knew.
To say 'knew' is something of an exaggeration. I was an avid reader of Punch when I was a schoolboy, and MIles Kington was something of a hero to me. When I was 12, I wrote a school essay which my English teacher told me was funny. Naturally, my first thought was: 'that means it's good enough for Punch'. And so I sent it to the man whose name I associated with Punch.
Most journalists, on being sent a 12 year old's meandering drivel, would either ignore it or dismiss it. Miles, however, sent me back a line by line critique: what worked, what was, well, childish, and what was plain awful - although he was too kind to put it that bluntly. (The first of those three categories was, by quite a long way, the smallest.) He told me that it wasn't really good enough to print - what he meant was it was unprintable - but that I should keep at it, and that he would be happy to read other things I sent him and let me know what he thought.
That was a dangerous invitation, but an astonishingly generous spirited one. And so I took him up on it, and sent him a few more pieces over the next few years. Somehow he managed to make constant rejection - they really were awful - a pleasure.
In later years I met him a few times, first as a teenager, then as an adult. I've never heard a bad word said about Miles KIngton (I worked on the Indie for a while, a while ago). And I can only add to the tributes to a wonderful man and a wonderful writer.
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.