TONY PEARCE April 9, 1919 - September 12, 2008

The grandson of a daring Chelsea journalist has paid tribute to a 'remarkable man'.

Albert Anthony Pearce, 89, of Elm Park Gardens, died of emphysema leaving behind his wife of more than 60 years Margaret, his daughter Angela, and two grandchildren James and Louisa.

Mr Pearce, known to his friends and family as Tony, worked as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, which inspired his grandson James Pritchard to go into the same line of work.

Mr Pritchard said: "When I got my first job on a local newspaper, I would call him from a phone box to get his opinion on the articles I'd written. He could at times be critical, but only in a beneficial way, and the lessons he taught me will be of value for the rest of my life.

"When he spoke of his time as a foreign correspondent, he could've been reading from the pages of a spy novel. His stories were always exhilarating, but in reality it must have at times been terrifying."

Mr Pritchard added that he never found his grandfather's stories boring. He said: "It's an almost impossible feat, achieved by very few and yet he managed it. My grandmother has said that she never had a boring moment with him. That's surely an unprecedented phenomenon."

Mr Pearce's only flaw was that he could not be trusted in a supermarket. His grandson said: "He invariably came back with the wrong things. My sister and I would find our grandmother's frustrations quietly amusing, as once again he'd bought the wrong type of potatoes or the wrong brand of sausages. The kitchen was perhaps not his strong suit, although he did make an excellent chocolate sauce."

Mr Pritchard added that his grandfather would be missed by the family. He said: "He was a remarkable man. He was so vivacious that it never seemed appropriate to call him 'Grandad', that's why he was always known as Tony."

A quiet family funeral service was held at Mortlake crematorium, on Friday, October 3.