From AEJ UK chairman and former BBC colleague William Horsley:
It was my privilege to work alongside Brian covering some turbulent events in East Asia in the 1980s and later in parts of Europe. He was unfailingly friendly and professional, and he never let fame go to his head.
After some years as a BBC diplomatic correspondent and TV news anchor he turned with boundless enthusiasm to a new role as presenter of BBC Radio current affairs programmes like The World At One and The World This Weekend.
But with his special knowledge of the sea, and of military things, he also continued to travel the world and made many memorable TV reports about wars past and present, the human stories of the veterans and soldiers, and many of the formative events of the new century. He never lost that zest for life, and for the story. And he was one of a chosen few of whom it is true to say that he really had done it all.
Brian was a good friend and comrade to an army of colleagues, including loyal and outstanding fixers who worked with him in many countries.
One of those is Jacek Dobrowolski, who worked with Brian for more than 20 years, from the overthrow of communism in Poland in 1989 to the funeral last April of President Lech Kaczynski, who with many other leading Polish public figures died in the air crash in Smolensk, Russia.
Jacek, who is a writer and poet in his own right, has proposed a new special award for excellence in reporting, in memory of an excellent journalist who also set the highest standards of professional integrity. That would indeed be a fitting tribute.
Brian is survived by his wife, Honor, and their daughter.
