Sir Curtis Keeble

Sir Roger Carrick writes: To your obituary (Dec 12 ), may I add the essential sense of fun in Sir Curtis Keeble? Tough diplomat and negotiator indeed, worthy protagonist with the Soviet Government at its most muscular, his keen intelligence and thoughtful mind were completed by that humour. While Chief Clerk at the FCO and in response to an advertisement, he called at the Old Vic every morning on his way to work to deliver fresh props for the run of Henry V, especially large and luscious leeks grown in his Thames Ditton garden.

It should also be recorded that in retirement, Sir Curtis was appointed as chief negotiator for the FCO, leading a long series of negotiations with the Russians over diplomatic buildings in London and Moscow. These complex, difficult discussions resulted in the fine new British Embassy offices on the Moscow River; the continued use of our diplomatic house opposite the Kremlin (which Stalin and his successors had sought to reclaim from the UK); and satisfactory arrangements for the Russians in London. After an early, tense and stony-faced negotiation in Moscow, it was not until the BA flight in which his team returned to London left Soviet airspace that Sir Curtis called for champagne.

Bob Wade

Steven Walsh writes: Bob (obituary, Dec 2) will remain for me a very kind and fair-minded man who always sought a just solution to any problem. I first met him in 1958 as a schoolboy at a simultaneous display he gave. I was astonished when he said that he would take alternately white and black on each board when the convention was to take white on all boards. When we reached a position which had received heavy analysis the previous week in Chess, with an impish humour and a grin in my direction he said: “Isn’t there some analysis on this.” He also agreed to play second games with anyone who asked, which was unusual, and was very generous in agreeing draws in these when the session ended. In the last few years he played regularly for me in the Banks’ League, leading the “A” team to first place each time, and on the last occasion (it was his last game), as he left the hall, he said to me: “Well, I have done my duty.” We will all miss him.

Harry Henry

Andrew Papworth writes: Harry Henry (obituary, Dec 10) should also be remembered for the invention of the Henrigram. This invaluable chart tool was a kind of drunken, lopsided pie chart in which the angles of each sector represented the proportions of various segments of a population and the area of each sector represented their share of consumption. It gave an instant and vivid picture of a market. Sadly, modern spreadsheet applications cannot cater for its sophistication.