US Edition IT is a terrible thing to kill someone, as I discovered the day before yesterday. And it is small consolation to discover that other people have done the same, or to be assured that if death is your living, it was likely to happen sooner or later.
The obituaries desk of The Daily Telegraph sees off more than a thousand people a year. They range from war heroes to captains of industry, scholars and Soho rogues. In every case, the obits staff have to establish the precise details of someone's life and work, often against tight deadlines and with little raw material, never knowing whether the next subject will be a pharmacist or a fandango dancer, a rap star or a restaurateur.
Nonetheless, The Daily Telegraph's readers are entitled to accuracy above all else. We receive the occasional letter that regards a failure to capitalise, or italicise, an Army rank or naval posting as something not far short of a capital offence; more often, we get complaints that we have neglected worthy candidates, or promoted unworthy ones.
To such quibbles, we can only reply that we examine the claims of perhaps nine times as many people as we can fit on the page, and "write up" perhaps twice or three times as many as ever appear. But of all mistakes, the worst, of course, is to announce a death prematurely.
On Saturday, we printed the obituary of Dorothy Fay Ritter, widow of the singing cowboy Tex Ritter and mother of the film star John Ritter; on Tuesday, I received an email suggesting that she had not died.
I suddenly understood the cliche "my heart sank". The very day that Mrs Ritter's premature obituary was produced, the Letters page of this newspaper printed a missive from Dave Swarbrick, the violinist in the folk rock band Fairport Convention, who is now equally well remembered for having been dispatched before his time (and, in terms of editorial responsibility, thank goodness, mine). In it, he very generously forgave us again for having polished him off.
Mrs Ritter's family have been similarly good-hearted and kind about my error. It arose because a member of staff at her nursing home believed her to have died (after arriving in her room to be told that she "had gone" - as she had, but only to another wing of the hospital) and then phoned one of our regular contributors, who is a great friend of Mrs Ritter.
After speaking to the family and apologising, my next task was to ring the obits desks of the other newspapers. Obituaries desks enjoy a friendly rivalry, with each newspaper keen to be first with the news of a death, or, rather, a better account of the life.
All the same, it seems sporting to let others know when you have fumbled the ball. For all I know, they were cackling when they came off the phone, but they all seemed genuine in their commiserations. (The Guardian seemed especially sympathetic - perhaps because that morning it had illustrated an obituary of the actress Jane Greer with an enormous photograph of Rhonda Fleming.)
I apologise unreservedly to our readers for having misled them. More importantly, I apologise to Mrs Ritter. I am genuinely delighted she is still with us - I came to like her a lot while preparing her obituary for the page.
She may even have the good luck to follow Cockie Hoogterp, whose premature obituary The Daily Telegraph published in 1938. After 50 years, during which she sent back all her bills with the word "Deceased" scrawled across them, it was referred to again in the newspaper. She then wrote in to say "Mrs Hoogterp wishes it to be known that she has not yet been screwed into her coffin".