Letter: Hella Pick obituary

For someone viewed as a grande dame, Hella Pick had a good sense of fun. During our shared reporting on German unification in 1990, we were in a packed car driven by a UPI correspondent in East Berlin. Our destination was the hotel where ministerial negotiations were taking place.

Hella sat in the front-passenger seat with her legs hanging out of the car window, laughing and joking as a breeze ruffled her coiffed hair. Later, as she questioned Eduard Shevardnadze, the Russian foreign minister, I nipped out to the reception desk, corralled the only phone with an outside line to the west and filed the story to the Guardian copytakers.

“Oh,” Hella said, “did you put my byline on it?” “Yes, I put it first, of course,” I replied. She smiled with relief – and stroked my arm graciously.