My father, Dugal Nisbet-Smith, who has died aged 90, was a journalist and newspaper manager who lived an extraordinarily colourful life. In later years he could be found in the Suffolk farmhouse he shared with his wife, surrounded by newspapers and blaring 24-hour news channels, completely absorbed in the politics and conflicts of a world he could no longer explore.
Born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, the elder son of David Nisbet-Smith, a businessman, and Margaret (nee Fookes), he was a mischievous and inquisitive child, with a passion for rugby, like many Kiwis of his generation. A natural storyteller, he excelled academically at Southland boys’ high school in Invercargill, but decided against university, choosing instead to become a cub reporter on the Southland Daily News. His ambitions, however, were wider than the small South Island community. At 21, he boarded a ship for London and headed straight for Fleet Street.
