Opinion: Sadness at death of former Evening Telegraph editor, writes Nigel Thornton

But it wasn’t births or marriages she was interested in, it was the deaths.

I used to pull her leg and called her grandma ghoul but she would just smile and say unapologetically: “When you get to my age, you want to know who’s died that you knew.’’

I’m not quite at that age yet but sadly, the number of people dying who I have come across is slowly but surely increasing each year. These days, particularly if like me you’ve moved around the country a bit, you’re more likely to find out sad news via social media.

And so it was last week when I learned on Twitter that my old colleague Kevin Booth had died at the criminally young age of 64, one year older than me.

Kevin, some of you may remember, was a former editor of the ET. He was appointed in 2000 pipping me to the post (or so the motivational managing director told me at the time).

When a new editor comes in it’s an uncertain time for staff, not least the deputy editor as, in those days like football managers, editors had a tendency to bring their own people with them.

I needn’t have worried because Kev or Boothy, as he was affectionately known, pretty quickly made everyone at the ET his own people.

He was a talented journalist, a fine boss but most importantly a great bloke.

After he left, we would occasionally talk or email each other but as the years passed our contact diminished and we hadn’t talked for years.

Even so I still thought of him as a friend and if he ever cropped up in conversation at Telegraph Towers, as he did quite recently, the memories were always fond.

Rest easy, pal.