TREVOR HANNA:ONE EVENING in 1971, the newspaper reporter strolled into a dockside bar in Belfast with a large wad of News of the Worldpetty cash intended as a buy-up for some exclusive piece of tittle-tattle.
The first Bushmills had just reached his lips when the door burst open and a masked gang lurched in with pistols aloft. They ripped out the phone and cleaned out the till before turning on the customers relieving them of wallets and other items of value. The robbers retreated with the dire warning: "Anyone who leaves in the next 10 minutes will be shot."
The long, grim silence of the crime scene was broken by the newspaperman. He reached into his sock and produced Rupert Murdoch's wad, before uttering: "I suppose I'll have to buy the next round."
It was the kind of sang-froid which earned Trevor Hanna, who has died aged 73, a reputation as the best in the business and made the words "Hanna, Belfast" known in newsrooms across Britain, Ireland and further afield.
Born on Belfast's Lisburn Road, Hanna was educated at Ulsterville and Fane Street Public Elementary Schools and the city's Methodist College. He was a past president of Methody Old Boys' Association.
He entered journalism in 1954 as a junior reporter with the Belfast News Letterbefore joining the Belfast Telegraphwhere he served as local government, then shipping correspondent and as a parliamentary reporter. As shipbuilding and industrial correspondent in the early 1960s, he chronicled the last great days of Belfast shipyard, including the construction of the Canberra.
One of his earliest scoops was the gallows confession of Newry labourer Robert McGladdery - the last man to be hanged for murder in Northern Ireland - to killing 19-year-old shop assistant Pearl Gamble in 1961.
He left Belfast for the Daily Mailin Liverpool but returned to his native city as news editor of the News Letterand helped the paper achieve record circulation under the editorship of Cowan Watson. He joined the Daily Mirror's news team when it opened an editorial office and publishing plant in Belfast and later launched his own business, Ulsternews International, which led him to work for many of the leading newspapers in the world.
He interviewed US Senator Edward Kennedy following the assassinations of his brothers. His revelation of an INLA plot to kill Conservative MP Airey Neave - two days before the he was murdered in 1979 - led to his distinction as the only journalist in British media history to receive a public apology from Scotland Yard and the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police.
Other exclusives included a gripping narrative of life and death inside the Maze Prison as the only journalist to be given access to the jail during the tense weeks of the IRA hunger strikes in 1981 and exposés of the extravagant criminal lifestyles of a number of notorious paramilitary leaders.
He enjoyed a lively exchange with Margaret Thatcher at the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in November 1985 but acknowledged he had been sold a few pups in his time, including a supposed plot to supply the Provos with soviet guns which would be delivered by submarine off the Donegal coast.
He was a media adviser to the Ulster Unionist Party where he organised its first press office and gained intimate insight into the workings of government through a close professional relationship with prime ministers Terence O'Neill and James Chichester-Clark. He was a speechwriter to several prominent politicians of the day.
He was a life member of the National Union of Journalists and the journalists' charity, the Newspaper Press Fund.
A distinguished freemason, he was an honorary past grand deacon of the grand lodge of Ireland, a past provincial grand steward in the provincial grand lodge of Antrim, a past master of press lodge number 432, a past excellent king of prince of wales' own royal arch chapter 154 and a member of prince of wales' own preceptory.
He is survived by his wife, Ann; two sons, Paul and Timothy; daughter, Karen; and four granddaughters, Sarah, Megan, Rebecca and Talia.
Trevor Hanna: born November 4th, 1936; died February 14th, 2010