A FORMER Packet employee was found dead at his home in Penryn last month.

David Humphreys, who joined the Packet in the late 1970s as a reporter in the Camborne office, lived alone.

The 74 year-old, whose body was discovered two months after his death, was cremated at Penmount Crematorium on July 18.

He had lived in Camborne throughout his period as a reporter and worked alongside journalists such as Jo Silcox, who retired last year.

He did not drive and went everywhere by bus.

After some years in the Camborne area he requested a move to head office to become a sub-editor, although from time to time he kept up his reporting, not least about subjects such as fishing which he loved.

David, often took the bus to Stithians reservoir - rod and bag in hand - in search of trout.

He liked to tie his own flies and collected a number of rare fishing books, which he used for reference purposes.

He was very keen on mining and knew a lot about the industry not least in Cornwall, but worldwide and read the financial press with interest.

When he moved to the Packet head office in Falmouth, he went to live in Penryn.

He liked socialising and enjoyed a pint. In more recent years he took to walking the footpaths around Penryn, Bissoe and Devoran, catching a bus with a friend and his dog to a starting point, before finishing the day with a pint at a village pub.

David was born in the Nakuru War Memorial Hospital, Kenya, on May 3, 1944.

He grew up with his family on a Sisal plantation 30 miles north of the town of Nakuru, Kenya.

He attended Nakuru Primary boarding school, followed by the Prince of Wales secondary boarding school in Nairobi. As a youngster he developed a love of fishing, a hobby he learned from his father, Eric.

When David left school, he moved to New Zealand to work for the fisheries department.

He then took to journalism, and became a reporter for several local papers. David left New Zealand in 1968 and worked in Perth, Australia, before moving to Cornwall.

David had three brothers. The eldest is Peter (aged 84), second Brian (died 2005) and youngest Robin (aged 73).