It was with interest and sadness I read about the death of Dennis Elwell (Tributes paid to ‘visionary’ - Stourbridge News November 20).

I began work as a junior reporter on the County Express in 1981, at which point Dennis was already an established, avuncular fixture on the staff.

I sat next to him for the next few years and - as well as the many attributes you outline in your article - was witness to Dennis’s knifeedge sharp sense of humour.

More than once I reduced him to tears of laughter, though he did the same to me on many more occasions than I succeeded.

I recall lighting a cigarette in the office (this was a different world) one lunchtime and Dennis - without missing a beat and unpacking his sandwiches - saying: “You don’t mind if I eat whilst you smoke, do you?”

That was typical of the man, and came across in his writing: an ability to make a point in a way that wouldn’t have occurred to the rest of us.

Mark Whitehouse Pedmore