I WAS sorry to hear that the grand old journalist and character Lord "Bill" Deedes has died aged 94.

I'd thought he was going to prove the single exception to Socrates' saying, "All men are mortal." Bill did everything in his life: gaining the MC for conspicuous bravery during the Second World War, cabinet minister, editor of a great national newspaper - but I will remember him for his being just a fine writer, always interesting, usually cheerful and the wisest man in Fleet Street.

My days as a part time, bits and pieces, journalist began just as the glory days of the national press were coming to an end. Sir David English gave me a freelance contract at the end of the 1980s, when The Daily Mail was still in rickety old Fleet Street. They have long moved to the air-conditioning, the tropical plants and high-speed lifts of Derry Street in Kensington. Too posh by far for real journalists. Too unreal.

This is how I got the job. I'd been trying for some time to get a column on a national paper but, apart from a few pieces in The Guardian's Saturday edition, I was getting nowhere. So I tried The Daily Mail. The legendary extrovert editor Sir David English asked to see me. He showed me into his office. All the day's papers were set out on the polished oak table and Sir David simply said, "I've been reading your stuff for quite a while and I'd like to offer you a contract as a feature writer. I want you to give me ten opinion pieces a year, twenty travel articles and forty book reviews."

He then offered the sort of money that I had previously associated only with winning the pools and added mischievously: "You'll need to go away and think about it of course!"

I spoke as swiftly as I could - in case he decided he'd made a mistake and withdrew the offer: "No, Sir David. I don't need to think about it. I'm quite sure - thank you."

In the style of the old newspaperman - all that was missing was the green eyeshade - he went to his tall desk where he stood and wrote my letter of appointment on an old typewriter. Then he introduced me to one of his executive editors - a glamorous woman who slunk into the office power-dressed and fragrant, as if she were on her way to an erotic funeral. He told me to go and see two more Fleet Street legends: Mac Keene, the books editor and Gordon Mackenzie, travel editor. First things first, they took me to the pub.

This was in the good old days when reporters drank and smoked, when they took long lunches in Fleet Street hostelries such as El Vinos and when they were expected to charge generous expenses. From what I hear from full time journalist mates on the national papers these days, gone are the generous expenses and they're lucky if they have time to lunch on a sandwich. Drinking and smoking are frowned upon, naturally.

I was a country parson at the time and it was easy to moonlight as a bits and pieces writer - five fabulous years on the Mail in which I travelled on three continents, interviewed half of everybody you've ever heard of and even learned a bit about decent writing from the real Fleet Street pros. Those were the days. Bill Deedes' sort of days.

RIP old campaigner...