Belfast-born journalist and author Cal McCrystal has died aged 85.
Formerly a reporter for the Belfast Telegraph before he went to London to carve out a career with the Sunday Times in 1964, Cal became the weekly newspaper's very first crime correspondent.
This role saw the aspiring reporter rub shoulders with figures including east London underworld kingpins the Kray twins, who he interviewed in the living room of their mother's house in Bethnal Green.
In an online post in 2012, Cal's colourful prose described the encounter, painting a vivid picture of hardened criminal Ronnie Kray and his "dead-fish eyes" and his twin Reggie.
"I rashly asked the twins: 'When did you first kill someone?" Cal wrote.
"There was a long pause. Faces tightened. Eyes bulged. Fingers twitched. The silence was dauntingly loud. But after glancing at one another, they explained that their first killing was really an accident. 'Isn’t that so, Reggie?' 'Oh, yeah, Ronnie, an accident, yeah, sure.'"
During his career in Fleet Street, Cal, who once was offered a reporter's post at The Irish News before moving to London, rose to join staff at The Independent on Sunday before become a foreign correspondent and senior reporter with The Observer.
He also penned an autobiography, Reflections On a Quiet Rebel, which was published in 1997. In it he describes growing up in Belfast with his socialist father, Cathal McCrystal, who went on to become secretary of the Belfast Labour College.
Cal is survived by wife Stella and sons Damien, Kieran and Cal Jr, who is an actor and theatre director based in London.