[j.smith]

Just in case anyone has missed it, in Sophie’s piece she speaks about the last few weeks - and how George wanted to say goodbye to viewers and the BBC News at Six:

I sat with him in hospital during his last round of chemo in May. He knew by then that he would not be coming back to work. But, after 20 years of presenting the BBC News at Six, George did want to say goodbye. Since being first diagnosed with cancer, just over nine years ago, he had received thousands of letters and messages from viewers who wrote to him as if they knew each other - strangers who treated him as a dear friend. It touched him deeply. And so he wanted to go on air one last time.

He had worked it all out. His plan was to do an interview with me at the end of the evening news and then turn to camera, on his own, with a simple goodbye. We could record something, I suggested. No. George wanted to do it live. I wasn't entirely sure I would be able to hold it together. But if he could, I was going to have to as well.

In the end he didn't get to do that. Shortly after that conversation he was back in hospital.

But despite the increasingly grim news from the medics, his spirit remained indomitable. Even towards the very end he was sending me texts, asking about my mother who was in hospital, also with bowel cancer.